Tori Goebel, Y.E.C.A.
Press Release from the Young Evangicals for Climate Action, January 28, 2021
Young Evangelicals for Climate Action (YECA) welcomes Tori Goebel as the organization’s incoming National Organizer and Spokesperson. Tori has spent the last 4 years as Communications Director for YECA and the Evangelical Environmental Network, YECA’s partner ministry. During this time, she also served on YECA’s national steering committee. Tori brings a wealth of experience in political organizing and policy advocacy to the role, as well as professional communications and marketing skills.
“We are at a pivotal moment as we face the climate crisis,” says Tori. “Communities are already being hurt in a myriad of ways, and many Christians within the U.S. have ignored this reality for far too long. I believe we have a unique role to play in addressing environmental injustice, and YECA has been on the cutting edge of educating, empowering, and mobilizing young Christians to take action at all levels. I am excited for the future of YECA, and humbled by the opportunity to lead in this way.”
YECA’s previous National Organizer and Spokesperson, Rev. Kyle Meyaard-Schaap, has been named Vice President of the Evangelical Environmental Network. Kyle served in the role of National Organizer and Spokesperson for YECA from August 2016-January 2021.
“I am prouder than I can say of what YECA has accomplished these last 4 and a half years,” says Kyle, “and Tori is the perfect leader to guide YECA toward even greater impact. Having had the privilege of working alongside Tori for the past 4 years, I can say with certainty that she has the vision, skill, and passion to help YECA flourish and grow for years to come.”
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See also: YECA Calls for President Trump To Be Removed From Office, Rev. Kyle Meyaard-Schaap, Young Evangelicals for Climate Action, January 12, 2021
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See also: Young Evangelicals Call for Renewed Commitment to Climate Action on 5th Anniversary of Paris Agreement, Y.E.C.A., December 11, 2020
President-elect Biden must rejoin the Paris Agreement on January 20, and then do everything in his power every day thereafter to achieve the future that the Paris Agreement makes possible. We pledge to continue doing all we can to help, for the sake of God’s good creation and our neighbor’s good.”
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See also: WHAT NOW? WV Center on Climate Change, Three Speaker Webinar, January 25, 2021. “Climate Solutions 2021 and A Just Transition for West Virginia”
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Selected Comments On Manchin and the Biden Energy Policy……
From the Article by Mike Tony, Charleston Gazette, January 29, 2021
Molly Christian, a senior energy policy reporter for S&P Global Market Intelligence, said in a West Virginia Center on Climate Change webinar Monday that she expects the Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources under Manchin’s leadership to prioritize research and development for carbon capture technology and throw political weight behind expanded tax credits for using that technology.
“That’s the most obvious technological and policy solution to keep coal in the mix even as there’s this effort to lower emissions,” Christian said.
The technologies capture carbon dioxide emissions from sources such as coal-fired power plants and reuse the carbon dioxide to create products or store it permanently underground in geologic formations so it will not enter the atmosphere.
Manchin and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., were among a bipartisan group of seven senators who introduced legislation last month that would make targeted statutory changes to enhance a tax credit that Congress expanded in 2018 to spur investment in carbon capture technology.
Christian doesn’t expect Manchin or the committee’s incoming top Republican, Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., to favor an all-renewable energy approach anytime soon.
“As much of their work [on] coal is going to be about pushing back against policies that they think are really bad for the industry as it is trying to find ways to keep coal in the mix,” Christian said. “Sort of offense and defense.”
Manchin’s office said Biden’s nominee to lead the Department of Energy, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, committed to him during her confirmation hearing Wednesday that she would prioritize department funding for research and development to be used in states that lost “traditional jobs.”
“Innovation, not elimination, is the way to go,” Manchin told Granholm, whose nomination he supports. “Everybody can be brought along and taken care of if we can recognize the people who have done the heavy lifting. I know you well enough to know that you’ll be sympathetic to the people who are asking for a chance to provide for themselves and their families.”
In September, the International Energy Agency said carbon capture and storage is the only group of technologies that contributes both to reducing emissions in key sectors directly and removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to balance the emissions that are the hardest to prevent. That, the agency said, is a critical part of reaching the net-zero emissions goals that a growing number of governments and businesses have set for themselves.
Many experts have viewed carbon capture and storage as expensive and inefficient. But more than 30 carbon and capture projects have been announced following a tax credit expansion in 2018, according to a database maintained by the Clean Air Task Force, a nonprofit group that advocates for clean air measures.
DST Innovations, a United Kingdom-based technology company, announced plans in November to build a reactor next to a source of coal in West Virginia to reduce the coal to hard carbon for use in making batteries and supercapacitors.
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Conservationist and economic development groups working in coal communities are looking to push Biden toward embracing an energy transition while not leaving those communities behind. They want Manchin to make that push, too.
“I’m especially excited about his understanding of the realities of climate change and of the economics around the coal industry and what that means for West Virginia and what his role is to help those communities,” said Thom Kay, legislative director of the environmental group Appalachian Voices, one of 13 groups calling on the Biden administration to create a task force on coal and power plant communities and immediately create a White House Office of Economic Transition, accompanied by increased short-term funding for transition programs and “a more robust entity to build community capacity” in the long term.
Kay thinks Manchin’s heightened influence in Congress can only be good news for those who want to see greater support for coal communities in West Virginia and across the country.
He’ll be among the many advocates for environmental or industrial protection working to place their interests front and center in Manchin’s “all of the above” energy approach.
“We have every plan to push on him every step of the way on fossil fuels,” Kay said. “We need to, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/energy_and_environment/environmental-fossil-fuel-advocates-both-optimistic-about-manchins-energy-approach/article_b5636b41-5a03-502b-9a1a-44b1b2a733f7.html
Sunrise Movement’s Varshini Prakash: Biden’s Climate Agenda Must Go Beyond Undoing Trump’s Damage | Democracy Now!, January 27, 2021
President Joe Biden is expected to issue executive orders to suspend new oil and gas leasing on federal property, reestablish a White House council of science advisers, and set a goal to protect 30% of federal land and water by 2030. He is also predicted to announce a number of initiatives prioritizing environmental justice by creating a White House interagency council on environmental justice and directing federal agencies to invest more in communities of color heavily impacted by pollution and the climate crisis. These actions, as well as executive orders to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline and put a moratorium on oil and gas permits in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, come after Biden used his inaugural address to declare the climate crisis to be one of the core issues facing the nation. Varshini Prakash, co-founder and executive director of the Sunrise Movement, says Biden is “off to a good start,” but says he needs to go beyond simply undoing the damage of the Trump administration. “We’re going to need to see a lot more from Joe Biden at the executive level and directing every branch of the federal government to action. But we’re also going to need to see him working actively to organize his congressional colleagues to pass what we need to be the greatest green jobs and infrastructure recovery plan that this country has seen,” says Prakash.
See the transcript of the interview …..
https://www.democracynow.org/2021/1/27/biden_climate_agenda_varshini_prakash