Minnesota's 3rd Congressional District DFL

Maureen Hackett has served the public throughout her career, as an officer in the Air Force, as a physician in Psychiatry treating patients at Hennepin County Medical Center and Minnesota's state hospitals and as a teacher of Psychiatry at MN Security Hospital, HCMC, University of Minnesota, William Mitchell College of Law and Mayo Clinic.  Dr. Hackett is a member of the Nine Mile Creek Watershed District Citizen's Advisory Committee and the League of Women Voters, and serves as Chair of the MN Psychiatric Society Ethics Committee.  In 2006 she was honored with the Distinguished Fellow award by the American Psychiatric Association.

Her campaign website can be found at  www.hackettforcongress.org

You can help choose a new direction for Minnesota.  Get to know the excellent DFL Candidates for Governor over the next few months.  Then attend your Caucus in February and your Senate District Convention in March so you can participate in the process of endorsing the 2010 DFL Candidate for Governor.

Check back frequently for future events. 

Click for Links to Candidates Websites.

The United States Senate is considering huge taxpayer guarantees and financial assistance to the nuclear industry.  See "Loan Guarantees Recharge Nuclear Debate."  Most European countries are rejecting nuclear energy in favor of wind and solar energy even though they will need to import electricity produced from solar panels and thermal storage in North Africa.  Here in the United States, we are very fortunate to have an abundance of solar energy in the deserts of the Southwest as well as huge wind energy potential throughout the midsection of the country, in the Northwest, and offshore along the Atlantic Coast and in the Great Lakes.

Not only is nuclear energy far more expensive than wind energy, not only does it have the potential of catastrophic accidents and nuclear proliferation and require storage of radioactive waste for thousands of years, the Union of Concerned Scientists reports that nuclear plants also use huge amounts of water.  Nuclear plants that recycle water use 15 million gallons a day, and newer 1,600 Mwe nuclear reactors that use once-through water for cooling with discharge at 20 degrees warmer than intake use an astonishing 1,144,000 gallons per minute.  Here in Minnesota we have a shortage of groundwater. and by 2025, it is estimated that about two thirds of the world's population - about 5.5 billion people - will live in areas facing moderate to severe water stress.

Join the Union of Concerned Scientists in signing a petition to your Senators asking them not to support a "Clean Energy Bank" that could give unlimited loans to the nuclear industry.  Sign the petition here.

Read the report "Wind Power to Combat Climate Change:  How to Integrate Wind Energy into the Power System" prepared by the Danish transmission company Energinet.dk for the Copenhagen Conference.  It shows how we can power our economy with wind without the dangers of nuclear waste and nuclear proliferation, at far less cost than nuclear energy while preserving our water resources.  Scroll down to the bottom of the page to download the report.

UN Report Estimates $2.2 Trillion Environmental Damage by World's Largest Companies

The world's 3,000 biggest companies would lose about one-third of their profits if the firms had to pay for damage to the environment.  Accounting for more than half of the total was emissions of greenhouse gases causing climate change.   Other major environmental costs were local air pollution and the over-use and pollution of freshwater.  See the Mancester Guardian article by Environment Editor Juliette Jowit.


Putting a Value on Nature Basis for Green Economy

Economist Pavan Sukhdev reports in the Mancester Guardian that the earth's ecosystems and biodiversity are in decline.  He attributes a lack of awareness of this problem to human society being disconnected from nature.   ". . . nature's services - providing clean air, fresh water, soil fertility, flood prevention, drought control, climate stability, etc - are, mostly, not traded in any markets and not priced. These so-called "ecosystem services" are all "public goods" provided free. . .  We cannot manage what we do not measure and we are not measuring either the value of nature's benefits or the costs of their loss."  Sukhdev advocates a holistic economics that recognises the value of nature's services and the costs of their loss as the model for a new green economy.  Read the article.


Tar Sands Oil - Huge Pollution Source

Oil sands are the dirtiest type of oil, producing 3 to 5 times the greenhouse gas pollution of conventional oil production.  Toxic lagoons are already leaking over a billion gallons of contaminated water into the environment each year.  Extracting oil from the oil sands is destroying the Canadian Boreal Forest and will eventually cover tens of thousands of square miles, an area the size of the state of Michigan.

Plans are underway for pipelines to criss cross the United States to bring tar sand oil to refineries near the Great Lakes, the Northeast, and along the Gulf of Mexico in Texas and Loisiana.  The synthetic heavy crude produced from tar sands is laden with more toxics than conventional oil. Communities adjacent to tar sands oil refineries face increased carbon dioxide emissions, and increased exposure to heavy metals, and sulfurs.

Watch the 10 minute video, "Canada's Dirty Oil:  Breaking Our Addiction"

As you read this, the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline sits on President Obama's desk waiting for approval.  Sign the Friends of the Earth petition asking President Obama to say "no thanks" to more dirty tar sands oil.