Rising seas and stronger storms pose a very serious threat to much of coastal Louisiana. Our local and state governments have done very little, if anything, to address the climate crisis.

Current and future drilling operations along the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale Ridge plan to extract oil and natural gas through the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”. The toxic chemicals that fracking releases into the ground water, water reservoirs, and the air surrounding the fracking site contaminate the environment and increase the risks of illness, infertility, birth defects, and cancer. In a state so dependent on the natural landscape and the water for food, transportation, commerce, recreation, and tourism, it proves nonsensical to support practices that endanger those activities and the people who depend upon them. This state has a beautiful ecosystem and a proud heritage of people who live with the land. Fracking is bad for the people, the ecosystem, and the economy. In short, fracking is destructive to the traditions and lifeways that make us proud to call Louisiana home.

Gov. Corbett's executive order affects 2.2 million acres of State Forest and 200,000 acres of State Park land. It is an attempt to create revenue to balance the budget - a budget he can't balance because of poor financial management and bad governmental decisions, i.e. corporate giveaways and Medicare expansion declination. His other attempts to balance the budget were to sell the State Liquor Stores, Lottery, etc. This is yet another attempt to balance a budget by selling off or invading public assets. This executive order would allow extraction facilities and rigs to be located adjacent to our beautiful and pristine forests and parks. To believe there will be no appreciable impact on these public treasures is naive. The safety of this drilling is based on Corbett's internal advisory committee. Tell him no, make it clear that he will lose your vote if he continues on this course.

Gov. Corbett just lifted a three-year moratorium on leasing of state forests and parks for gas drilling. We know more drilling means more blowouts, more spills of toxic fracking wastewater, and more ruined landscapes. And, outrageously, the governor’s order will allow drilling under our state parks for the first time. The Legislature is the last line of defense for our state parks and forests. Already more than 700,000 acres of our state forests have been leased for gas drilling. That’s more than 40 percent of our existing state forestlands. But the drillers want more--and sadly, Gov. Corbett is happy to hand it to them. Tell your state representative and state senator to fight Gov. Corbett’s effort to open more of our state parks and forests for fracking.

Oahu was recently in the national spotlight for a pilot program converting streetlights to a light-emitting diode (LED) system. The initial project installed 180 LED lights in four locations: Manoa, Mililani, Nuuanu, and Waialae-Kahala. The City and County of Honolulu determined that this new system saved $50 per light per year. LED conversion is a common-sense solution that saves both costs and energy. As an island state, we are particularly vulnerable to sea level rise and are already seeing its effects on our eroding beaches. We need to model energy efficiency for the country and for the entire world. LED lamps also produce brighter directional light that dramatically improves the safety of our streets. It is up to us to show leadership on this critical issue. Mayor Caldwell proposed converting all 51,700 streetlights on the island to LED, representing a potential savings of $3 million per year. While the City Council initially cut the $80,000 in funds needed for this project, I fought to restore this funding, and the cut was reversed at the final Budget Committee hearing earlier this month. I am calling on my fellow members of the City Council to approve the budget that restores funding for LED conversion across the island. The full council will meet on June 4 for this crucial vote. Please add your voice to this movement for environmental sustainability and improved public safety!

As teachers of Jewish values, we hazzanim of the ACC should project the power of our pension investments for health and not for destruction. We should join the universities and religious institutions that are divesting from fossil fuels, and we should invite our congregations to follow our lead.

It's one thing to believe space exploration is important — it's another to put examining other planets above keeping us alive on this one.

I am a renewable energy entrepreneur and someone who wishes to leave an environment and climate that I have enjoyed my entire life to my children and their children's children. I want this debate and the people of this country to have spirited discussion and solve problems based on factual evidence and not along ideological lines and talking points put forth by corporate players with short term economic interests at heart. It is time to move this topic forward, and since our politicians are unwilling or unable, we must again turn to the press to report more factual information and less unsupported opinion.

The only way to ship fracked gas to foreign markets is to liquefy it. Several liquefying facilities have been proposed along the coastline of the United States. One of those sites, the first one under consideration on the East Coast, is the Cove Point LNG facility in Maryland. LNG is a dangerous business, not just for the communities near the proposed facility, but for communities across the Marcellus and those near the pipelines and compressors in between. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is in denial about just how dangerous it is. This is an especially important issue for Pennsylvanians. After all, Cabot Oil & Gas, the company responsible for ruining the water of several families in Dimock, PA, the company banned from doing further fracking there, has already inked a deal with Sumitomo to provide Japan with 20 years of Marcellus gas that would be liquefied and shipped via Cove Point. More wells. more pipelines, more compressor stations, more spills, more blowouts, more cement failures, more contaminated water, more polluted air, more illnesses. And for what? For cheap domestic gas? For energy independence? No. For Cabot's bottom line. This is just part of a much larger fight to defeat the Cove Point LNG facility. When you sign this petition, you're helping the people of Maryland and the people of your own state, perhaps your own community. Thank you!

It is TIME for those who TRULY love, respect, appreciate and have Gratitude for NATURE to HOLD the VISION strongly, reflecting to those who would create drama and war ONLY for private profit and gain that Life NEEDS to be WHOLESOME and healthy to support/sustain all. me ke aloha

I am very alarmed by the amount of gas produced by fracking because it destroys the natural environment and produces noxious toxins in the water supply. I can help curtail this by blocking the pipeline coming through MA.

We need renewable energy to be built as fast as it can be built in IL, and throughout the US, to mitigate climate change! We need new green jobs to bolster our economy! Here in IL our Renewable (Energy) Portfolio Standard, (RPS), is broken and Springfield is planning to slide out for the summer without fixing it - SB103, HB2864 are the vehicles for that fix. Corporations are standing in the way, and once again Springfield is bowing to the corporate influence. We can not let them, climate change is on the agenda now, not whenever they get around to it, but now! More info at Frack Free Illinois on FB and www.ilikecleanenergy.org