Press Room

News Release: Tzeporah Berman at largest climate protest in N. America

Power Up Canada -

Canadian Environmental Activist Tzeporah Berman Part of North America’s Largest Climate Protest, Calls on Obama to Show Canada How It’s Done -

“Canada is going to get a big wake up call from this new administration”

February 2, 2009, WASHINGTON — Canadian environmentalist Tzeporah Berman was part of the largest climate protest in North American history today, protesting outside the Capitol Power Plant, owned by Congress, in Washington, DC where she called on President Obama to show Canada how it’s done and act strongly on climate.

She joined thousands of others – including former coal miners, ministers and mothers from Canada and the United States – united in their desire for immediate and bold action on climate change and clean energy alternatives. Today’s protest – attended by Robert Kennedy Jr., Nasa’s chief climate scientist Dr. James Hansen and authors Bill McKibben and Wendell Berry among others - is being billed as the largest climate protest in North American history.

Disappointed with what she called “Canada’s sustained lack of leadership on climate and building the green economy,” Berman, Executive Director of PowerUP Canada said, “We have to seize the momentum Obama is creating and remind him today that so many people across the continent want him to take bold action. I hate to write off my own country, but Canada is stuck in the past and is going to get a big wake up call from this new administration.”

President Obama and Congressional leaders have promised aggressive carbon reduction legislation this year. Canada will have to accept “hard caps” and address emissions from dirty fuels such as the tar sands and coal plants or be left out of the emerging North American green economy, Berman added.

This year is a critical year for leadership on climate and energy with a major domestic policy debates in both Canada and the United States and a deadline for international action set for the Copenhagen UN climate talks in December. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has cautioned that Canada and the United States and other industrialized countries must reduce their global warming pollution by 25 – 40 % below 1990 levels by 2020 if we are to avoid runaway climate change.

The Capitol Power Plant burns coal to heat and cool numerous buildings on Capitol Hill, and has become a powerful symbol of coal’s stranglehold on the environment and public health. Coal is the biggest source of global warming pollution internationally.

While Ontario is closing its coal plants and British Columbia has banned coal plants (without carbon capture), several provinces still burn coal and new ones are being planned in Alberta.

-30-

For more information on the protest visit www.capitolclimateaction.orgFollow Tzeporah Berman on Twitter.com.

CONTACTS: In DC Nell Greenberg, Communications Manager, Rainforest Action Network, 510-847-9777; at the protest Tzeporah Berman 604-313-4713.