Tonight is the State of the Union address, where the President visits Congress to tell them his plans for the year ahead, and to brag on his achievements from last year.
In the course of the speech tonight, Biden will probably talk about climate change, specifically the Inflation reduction Act and its various tax credits for clean energy and electric vehicles. And he’ll probably talk about emergencies – like the war in Ukraine, the epidemic of gun violence, and maybe even the dangers of unchecked police brutality and murder.
But President Biden is not expected to say the two words together — Climate Emergency — at tonight’s State of the Union address. And that’s not just too bad, it’s a troubling indication of where this administration is at. Help us send him a corrective message — like feedback halfway through a semester to a student who means well, but is in danger of failing — that it’t past time to declare a climate emergency, and start acting like the problem he calls “an existential crisis” is, in fact, a BFD.
You can sign this quick petition, or you can use this toolkit from our friends at the People vs Fossil Fuels coalition to take a picture or post a sign (in real life or on social media) with the message.
In the last few days alone the Biden Administration has:
- Moved toward approving the Willow Arctic oil project, a massive carbon bomb.
- Urged Oil companies to us their windfall profits to drill for more oil, while saying nothing about the windfall profits tax proposed in Congress.
- Through his International Climate Envoy, John Kerry, called the appointment of an oil executive to run the international climate talks a “terrific choice.”
- Through FERC, moved to re-open the massive Freeport TX LNG export facility that exploded last summer.
Taken in isolation, any one of those decisions and announcements could be the work of an Administration trying to fight the climate crisis, and arriving at imperfect results due to the daily struggle of news, politics, opposition from the fossil fueled fascists etc. But taken together, they express a sort of soft climate denial.
Like the oil companies that signed on to the Paris Climate Agreement and say they want to be part of the solution, that indeed, they’re the only corporations who can really help with the climate crisis because they are the providers of our energy now. President Biden says climate change is real. That it’s an urgent, existential threat. And he’s pledged big changes, investments and actions to cut pollution 50% by 2030 and to “net zero” by 2050.
But faced with the choice to simply and clearly say no to fossil fuel projects that we clearly cannot afford, and will make his own promises impossible to keep, he cannot bring himself to say the words.
Tonight the President goes to Congress to brag, to explain, and to cajole — especially the Republican-controlled House — into action. If he really means it on the climate crisis, all he has to do is say two words “Climate Emergency.” But he has to say them right, and he has to say them together. Before the big speech tonight at 9pm ET / 6pm PT, help us send him one more cajoling message of our own.
Click here to sign a quick petition calling on Biden to declare a Climate Emergency. And then use this toolkit to send the message on social media and in real life .