Sustainable Rays

Stop the Keystone XL Pipeline!

2011-11-06T08:23:00.000-08:00

You may have noticed a lot of activity today about the Keystone XL Pipeline, which is intended to bring extremely dirty oil from Canadian Tar Sands to US refineries.
There's been a lot of talk about how it will bring lots of jobs while it's being created.
But more important there is alarm that

Keystone XL will cross through America’s agricultural heartland, the Missouri and Niobrara Rivers, the Ogallala aquifer, sage grouse habitat, walleye fisheries and more.
There will be a great risk of environmental damage when there are breaks and spills (which will happen.)
The oil it will bring is dirty and heavy. It is oil that would never have been used before for that reason. It is only now when oil costs more that oil companies are interested in it, but it will cause environmental damage during the refining and under transport.
The Canadian tar sands are ruining Canadian forests and rivers, home to the Athanascan First Peoples. I have written earlier about these areas on this blog: tarsands

American Wind and American Jobs: Setting the Record Straight

2010-10-21T12:25:00.000-07:00

The oil and gas companies are up in arms because they know they will end up loosing to renewables. There has been a lot of progress on cutting back on mountaintop removal, so they are putting their energy into combating the future - as well as the jobs that the coal industry is losing. I heard one of the Tea Party candidates claim that most of the government money that goes to renewables flies out the door to China. But exactly the opposite is true. There are many renewable jobs just waiting for financing, and many companies have already provided green jobs. This video from the American wind Energy Association (AWEA) tells the story right:
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Daisy Girl Ad - Stop Mountaintop Removal!

2010-07-03T10:12:00.000-07:00

Victory for Cape Wind!

2010-04-28T10:15:00.000-07:00

Interior Secretary Kenneth Salazar announced this morning that the Cape Wind project between Cape Cod, Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard! There has been incredible opposition to this project from everyone from Ted Kennedy (god rest his soul) and more recently native American tribes, who someone convinced to complain that their ancestors sacred sites would be disturbed. Funny that they didn't complain until Cape Wind seemed sure of getting approved! You can read about the early difficulties of the project in this excellent book by a local journalist.
This will be the first of many off-shore wind projects (see this map from the New York Times today.

Coal Ash Contaminates Lives in New Mexico and Tennessee

2010-04-26T20:11:00.000-07:00

Earth Justice has interviewed members of families whose livelihoods and health have been drastically affected by coal ash, far away from the mines.

If you'd like to read more about the effects of coal, try these books:

Clean Energy for a Strong USA

2010-04-08T13:43:00.000-07:00

Green jobs are replacing dirty jobs with the same skills. Great movie!

Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) sponsors the Olympics - and Tar Sands

2010-02-24T17:04:00.001-08:00

I got this message today. Please take action.

Are you tired of corporations trying to greenwash their environmental blunders? So are we. This week, Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) gets the greenwash-of-the-week award for spending $105 million (USD) to become a lead sponsor of the 2010 Winter Olympics, while simultaneously bankrolling billions of dollars in investments in the dirtiest oil project on Earth - the Alberta tar sands. RBC's efforts to advertise themselves as Canada's most caring corporate citizen through their Olympic sponsorship is incompatible with financing Canada's most polluting industry.

The tar sands oil extraction project is systematically turning vast stretches of the breathtaking Canadian boreal forest into a wasteland the size of Florida, eradicating wildlife habitat and jeopardizing the health of First Nations communities across Alberta. Let's do something about it.

The Known Universe by AMNH

2010-01-21T17:00:00.001-08:00

I haven't posted anything in a very long time because I'm now student teaching in math, and have most of my communication needs covered!
But I thought this puts our world into perspective. Let's not ruin it, even though it's just a speck of dust in the universe! It's where we live!

A little bit of good news about Coal River Mountain

2009-11-24T08:14:00.000-08:00

I just read this blog item by Ken Ward Jr., dated November 20 from the West Virginia Gazette, which I quote in full below. But go to the link to read the comments. Also be sure to watch the video and check the link to I Love Mountains to see videos about mountaintop removal and take action to stop this!

EPA taking closer look at Coal River Mountain mining
An interesting development just in concerning Massey Energy’s Bee Tree Mine, the Southern West Virginia operation where environmentalists had hoped to put a wind energy facility instead of a mountaintop removal job.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials are investigating the Bee Tree site, examining Massey’s operation there without first obtaining a “dredge-and-fill” permit under Section 404 of the federal Clean Water Act.

Yesterday, EPA regional officials in Philadelphia sent this letter to Massey’s Marfork Coal Co. subsidiary, seeking a long list of information about the Bee Tree operations.

Recall that Massey made a change in its surface mining permit from the state that the company apparently believed allowed it to — at least at this point — not need a 404 permit that could face EPA scrutiny before it would be approved by the federal Army Corps of Engineers. Massey had applied for a 404 permit, but then withdrew that application.

According to the new EPA letter, federal officials visited the site earlier this month and now are concerned that the site does need a 404 permit. The letter cautions Massey:
The activities underway at the site do not appear to have independent utility from the proposed mining project that is the subject of the Section 404 permit application. EPA is concerned that Marfork Coal Company may be committing signficant resources and conducting operations in reliance on a Section 404 permit that has not been issued. The Corps has not yet made a determination of jurisdictional waters and we have some concern that ongoing activities at the site could impact such waters if sufficient precautions are not exercised.

Updated: Massey General Counsel Shane Harvey tells me the company has received EPA’s letter and is reviewing it.

I will keep you posted here about what happens at Coal River Mountain and other locations.

Save America's Most Endangered Mountains

2009-11-24T07:57:00.000-08:00

See a Google map where the destruction is very obvious, with links to more video at ilovemountains.org/endangered/#.

Save Coal River Mountain!

2009-11-09T10:47:00.000-08:00

Once again I am writing about Coal River Mountain. I get to see the new movie about it on Wednesday at a houseparty, and expect to find it both hopeful and devastating (just like mountaintop removal.) This picture shows the impoundment of toxic mining wastes, which lies directly above a village and a school. The vibrations of the blasts at Coal River Mountain could cause the dam to break down (it's happened before elsewhere) and inundate the school and the village. The article where I found the picture is at Earthbytes: Save Coal River Mountain, providing excellent background information. Then they ask you to go to I Love Mountains / Coal River, where there is a petition to the important people in the EPA, asking them to stop the blasting.

Please take action!
Save Coal River Mountain today

"On Coal River" four minute trailer

2009-11-04T15:39:00.001-08:00

Urge the Obama administration to help save
Coal River Mountain

I received this email from NRDC:

Rising above a picturesque valley in southern West Virginia, like an oasis in the midst of coal country, Coal River Mountain represents the last, best hope for a community resisting the legacy of dirty energy in this part of Appalachia. For the past two years, local residents have been waging a fight against time -- and an industry behemoth -- to save their beloved mountain from the fate of mountaintop removal coal mining.

Mountaintop removal strip mining has leveled hundreds of other Appalachian peaks already, leaving scarred landscapes, polluted water and impoverished communities. But creative residents proposed a clean energy alternative that would keep the last remaining mountain in the Coal River valley intact. Their proposed wind farm would place 200 turbines on a ridge that would power more than 70,000 homes with clean electricity, provide hundreds of much-needed jobs and pump millions of dollars into the local economy through the project's construction and operation, as well as annual tax revenue.

Local politicians, however, have once again succumbed to industry influence by rejecting this obvious windfall to the community. Recently, Massey Energy -- the nation's fourth-largest coal company -- began blasting on Coal River Mountain in preparation for a massive mountaintop removal operation. This mountain has the highest peaks ever slated for mining in the state; turning it into a pile of rubble would lower the elevation by several hundred feet, eliminating the height required to tap the wind speeds necessary to spin turbines.

West Virginia's governor has ignored requests to stop the blasting, but it's not too late for the Obama administration to step in and save Coal River Mountain from the fate of so many others in America's oldest mountain range.
What to do
Send a message right away urging the Environmental Protection Agency to immediately halt the blasting on Coal River Mountain.

Mountaintop Removal hasn't stopped yet

2009-11-01T20:10:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately even though the EPA has at least temporarily halted a lot of MTR projects for environmental studies, there are a lot of permits out there to be acted on. The website I Love Mountains keeps track of what is happening, and provides information about how to help. You can read about the new destruction at Coal River Mountain on I Love Mountains and Coal River Wind. As you can see in the video, Coal River Wind is working toward the most obvious solution - using those mountaintops for windmills instead of destroying them. This will also provide much needed jobs in a clean industry.

If you are a teacher, you can find a lot of classroom resources about mountaintop removal on I Love Mountains as well.

Tuna exploits in Papua New Guinea (PNG),

2009-10-15T08:52:00.001-07:00

Watch the video about tuna fisheries ruining the local environment in Papua New Guinea (PNG), and then sign the petition at Save the Rainforest.

Coal pollution goes from air to water

2009-10-13T11:07:00.000-07:00

In a long article yesterday in the New York Times, Cleansing the Air at the Expense of Waterways, Charles Duhigg writes about how coal pollution is being moved from scrubbed smokestacks to waterways.

So three years ago, when Allegheny Energy decided to install scrubbers to clean the plant’s air emissions, environmentalists were overjoyed. The technology would spray water and chemicals through the plant’s chimneys, trapping more than 150,000 tons of pollutants each year before they escaped into the sky.

But the cleaner air has come at a cost. Each day since the equipment was switched on in June, the company has dumped tens of thousands of gallons of wastewater containing chemicals from the scrubbing process into the Monongahela River, which provides drinking water to 350,000 people and flows into Pittsburgh, 40 miles to the north.

I have to quote Gwen Ifill on this one: "What were they thinking?" Who in their right mind would authorize this pollution dump? Regulators are looking the other way, it seems. We spent so much energy fighting water pollution for years, but now that environmentalists' attention has turned to energy, there is apparently less attention being paid to the pollution of energy, other than its airborn effects.

Yet no federal regulations specifically govern the disposal of power plant discharges into waterways or landfills. Some regulators have used laws like the Clean Water Act to combat such pollution. But those laws can prove inadequate, say regulators, because they do not mandate limits on the most dangerous chemicals in power plant waste, like arsenic and lead.

Although the plant in the picture in Hatfield’s Ferry, PA, claims to have used high tech methods to remove toxic materials, which it then is hoarding in a lagoon with an impermeable membrane,

The plant’s water treatment facility ... does not remove all dissolved metals and chemicals, many of which go into the river, executives concede. An analysis of records from other plants with scrubbers indicates that such wastewater often contains high concentrations of dissolved arsenic, barium, boron, iron, manganese, cadmium, magnesium and other heavy metals that have been shown to contribute to cancer, organ failures and other diseases. Company officials say the emissions by the plant will not pose health risks, because they will be diluted in the river. (My italics)

But the toxics go down river - to Pittsburg, into the Ohio, the Mississippi and ultimately the Gulf, which is already suffering from toxic runoff from mid-western farms.

Obviously the only solution is to ban coal. But it won't be easy, of course.

In 2000, Environmental Protection Agency officials tried to issue stricter controls on power plant waste. But a lobbying campaign by the coal and power industries, as well as public officials in 13 states, blocked the effort. In 2008 alone, according to campaign finance reports, power companies donated $20 million to the political campaigns of federal lawmakers, almost evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans.

In my humble opinion, the coal industry should be using that money to clean up its act. Or required clean-up measures should be so high, that the costs of its externalities get added to the cost of burning coal. Coal is only cheap today because the coal and energy companies are letting others pay for their pollution, as cancer, asthma, toxic groundwater, dead and ruined waterways, etc. etc.. At some point, their lobby money won't work anymore. When you get too outrageous, even your paid loyalists will turn against you.
This is just one more reason to move to renewables as soon as possible!

Maria's Neighborhood and Mountaintop Removal

2009-10-02T07:14:00.001-07:00

This video says it all

There are still mountaintops being removed

2009-10-01T17:35:00.001-07:00

Just because the EPA has declared that all pending mountaintop removal projects are in violation of the Clean Water Act and must be reviewed further doesn't mean mountaintop removal is vanquished. For one thing, the projects are being reviewed with the companies to see if there is an acceptable solution; they aren't canceled. For the other, there are lots of permits being used right now. The Nation has an article by Jeff Biggers about The Coalfield Uprising which tells a lot more. Here's a short quote:

For the past few years, ever since a massive twenty-story dragline landed on a ridge near their home, the Webbs had endured twice-daily, bone-rattling explosions and the quasi-apocalyptic storms of coal dust and fly rock that blanketed their home and garden. Lindytown's creeks and mountain hollows no longer exist, and a once-thriving community has been reduced to a ghost town. "It's unreal. It's like we're living in a war zone," Lora Webb told a local newspaper last fall.

Recently they gave up and sold their ancestral home to the mining company, Massey Energy, and were given 60 days to get out.

The temporarily homeless Webbs are a stark example that mountaintop removal does more than "likely cause water quality impacts," as the EPA has determined. More than 3.5 million pounds of explosives rip daily across the ridges and historic mountain communities in West Virginia; a similar amount of explosives are employed in eastern Kentucky, southwestern Virginia and eastern Tennessee. Mountaintop removal operations have destroyed more than 500 mountains and 1.2 million acres of forest in our nation's oldest and most diverse range, and jammed more than 1,200 miles of streams with mining waste.

Let us hope that the EPA finally puts a complete stop on those new projects, and begins to look at the old ones as well.

Thank you, Lisa Jackson!

2009-09-12T11:35:00.000-07:00

Not only has the EPA under Lisa Jackson's guidance stopped Mountaintop removal at one site in West Viginia as reported in the previous post, but all 79 permits submitted by the Army Corps of Engineers have been returned, stamped Likely to violate the Clean Water Act. According to the Sierra Club newsletter I received today, this is not necessarily the end of MTR.

Now the Army Corps has 60 days to review and revise their proposals, and we expect coal companies to spend this time pulling out all the stops in attacks on the EPA. King Coal will say and do anything they can to get away with as they try to reverse this decision.

Friday's announcement is a stark reminder that the coal industry is the beneficiary of loopholes that no other industry enjoys. It is time to close these loopholes, protect public health, and return the rule of law not just to Appalachia, but to all of America. It's time to end the hideous practice of mountaintop removal coal mining once and for all.

They ask that you send a note of thanks to Lisa Jackson, head of the EPA, but ask her to work toward laws that will forbid this entirely.

If you'd like to read more about this decision, try Jeff Bigger's article in the Nation Magazine: EPA Turns the Lights on Mountaintop Removal that reminds us that these reversals are just related to Clear Water Act issues, not life-style, community, and nature preservation. That will take entirely different laws, which, according to the article, are slowly working their way through Congress.

The news came as a bit of a surprise to some coalfield activists. "Since January we've been skeptical about how serious the new administration would be about addressing mountaintop removal," said Teri Blanton of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, a citizens' organization in the state where more than half of the designated permits are located. "It looks like EPA is prepared to do everything it can, within the existing regulatory framework, to protect the mountains and people of Appalachia. This is great news, but it will take more than regulations to end the destruction. Mountaintop removal and valley fills should be banned."
Many activists welcomed the announcement but, like Blanton, pledged to keep pushing legislators until the practice is abolished. Judy Bonds, co-director of Coal River Mountain Watch, said, "We will continue our fight for a total, complete reprieve for our children and for our beloved mountains and streams."

So we can't relax yet, but at least we know that these 79 mountains can breathe easier for a while longer.

Great News! EPA saves WVA mountaintop

2009-09-08T18:25:00.002-07:00

All those petitions must have made a difference! The EPA this weekend decided to reject applications for mountaintop removal mining in West Virginia, saying that there is "clear evidence" that environmental damage would occur if they were permitted. According to Ken Ward Jr.'s blog EPA moves to block W.Va.'s largest mining permit for the Charleston, WVA, Gazette:

William E. Early, acting regional EPA administrator, recommended the corps conduct a new environmental impact study of the permit proposal to evaluate "new information and circumstances" and "recent data and analyses" of mountaintop removal.

In a five-page letter, Early cited the Spruce Mine's "potential to degrade downstream water quality," the need for the company to give "serious consideration" to reducing valley fill size, and scientific studies that show mine operators cannot effectively replace the environmental functions of streams buried by mining waste.

I hope this is the beginning of the end of all 57 permits the EPA has on its board.

If you want to know more about mountaintop removal, I recommend the blog quoted here: MiningtheMountains. For example, Coal's costs outweigh benefits, WVU study finds or Coal lawyer visits future mine site

Good News, but need your help

2009-09-07T11:00:00.000-07:00

I've been receiving information recently from several sources about mountaintop removal. Evidently the EPA has requests for 86 mountaintop removal permits to go review here in September. The Rainforest Action Network asks you to sign this petition to Lisa Jackson of the EPA to go to Appalachia and view the destruction before she reviews the requests. As they write:

We're still on the precipice of disaster. In September, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will review 86 new mountaintop removal permits. If approved, these 86 new permits could mean 86 less mountains in Appalachia. That spells disaster as mountaintop removal coal mining has already destroyed 500 mountains, buried 2,000 miles of rivers and streams under rubble and greatly harmed Appalachian communities and culture. If approved, these permits will be devastating for the people and ecosystems of West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and other parts of Appalachia and authorize a new round of blasting, flooding, and water contamination.

Lisa Jackson discussed the Energy Bill in an NPR interview September 3 on the Diane Rehm show, including a section on Mountaintop Removal (about 16 minutes into the interview) where she admitted that she didn't quite know that this is all about. The decisions on this is based on the Clean Water Act, which she says is the only area the EPA can act on. She admits that there are other issues, besides landscape and social issues. She equate this with coal mining in Wyoming, although the issue is very different, since the coal-mining area in Wyoming is not where people have lived, worked, hunted and fished for generations.

Siohban Hughes, writing in The Wall Street Journal of September 3, EPA to Soon Decide on Mountaintop-Mining Permits reported on the NPR interview with Lisa Jackson.

She said the EPA is reviewing about 84 such permits, deciding whether to block the permits from being issued. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issues the permits, though the EPA has veto power.
Mountaintop mining involves using explosives to blast off the tops off mountains in order to get at coal seams under the surface. The technique has become increasingly common -- surface mining operations in central Appalachia account for about 10% of U.S. coal production. But the EPA says that streams have been contaminated in the process and some forest lands have been destroyed.

Ohio Citizen Action reports on the NPR show with Lisa Jackson, pointing out that she admitted that she'd never seen a mountaintop removal site.

"U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson found herself struggling to explain the Obama Admininstration's policy on mountaintop removal coal mining yesterday on National Public Radio's Diane Rehm Show. In response to questions from Ohio Citizen Action's Kate Russell and Guest Host Susan Page, Jackson said "we should uphold science" and agreed with Russell that the scientific research shows that mountaintop removal sites could not be reclaimed. She could not, however, state what the Obama policy on mountaintop removal is."

"At one point it was not clear that Jackson understood what mountaintop removal coal mining was. Jackson said she had never seen a mountaintop removal site: "I have not yet seen it with my own eyes." Then she compared mountaintop removal first to strip mining and then to mining methods in Wyoming, neither of which are comparable," Paul Ryder, Organizing Director, Ohio Citizen Action.

Fortunately, there is also some good news (also from the Rainforest Action Network:)

Last Monday, it was announced that after a grassroots pressure campaign state-owned utility Santee Cooper is canceling its plans to build a $1.25 billion coal plant on the banks of the Great Pee Dee River in South Carolina. On Tuesday, two activists courageously climbed 80 foot trees to prevent mining company Massey Energy's mountaintop removal operations from raining debris and destruction on the Coal River Valley in southern West Virginia. Truly effective grassroots action has proven that Big Coal can be stopped in its tracks if we put our minds to it.

Health Care for all is not "socialized medicine"

2009-08-25T09:58:00.000-07:00

5 Myths About Health Care Around the World were rebuffed by T. R. Reid in the Washington Post on Sunday.Here are some short quotes from the article, with comments from my own experience.

Myth 1: It's all socialized medicine out there
Some countries, such as Britain, New Zealand and Cuba, do provide health care in government hospitals, with the government paying the bills.
Others -- for instance, Canada and Taiwan -- rely on private-sector providers, paid for by government-run insurance.
But many wealthy countries -- including Germany, the Netherlands, Japan and Switzerland -- provide universal coverage using private doctors, private hospitals and private insurance plans.
Myth 2: Overseas, care is rationed through limited choices or long lines
As for those notorious waiting lists, some countries are indeed plagued by them. Canada makes patients wait weeks or months for nonemergency care, as a way to keep costs down. But studies by the Commonwealth Fund and others report that many nations -- Germany, Britain, Austria -- outperform the United States on measures such as waiting times for appointments and for elective surgeries.
If you think about how long it takes in this country to get an appointment for the doctor who will be performing elective surgery, you get up to similar waits in this country.
When I lived in Denmark, I could get an appointment with my family doctor the same day I called. I was never refered to a nurse practitioner or PA. The emergency procedures were done immediately. I had a (benigh) breast tumor removed the day I discovered it.
Myth 3: Foreign health-care systems are inefficient, bloated bureaucracies.
U.S. health insurance companies have the highest administrative costs in the world; they spend roughly 20 cents of every dollar for nonmedical costs, such as paperwork, reviewing claims and marketing. France's health insurance industry, in contrast, covers everybody and spends about 4 percent on administration. Canada's universal insurance system, run by government bureaucrats, spends 6 percent on administration. In Taiwan, a leaner version of the Canadian model has administrative costs of 1.5 percent; one year, this figure ballooned to 2 percent, and the opposition parties savaged the government for wasting money.
My family doctors' office had minimal staff, who could even do simple lab procedures, because they didn't have to spend all their time on paper-work.
Myth 4: Cost controls stifle innovation
Overseas, strict cost controls actually drive innovation. In the United States, an MRI scan of the neck region costs about $1,500. In Japan, the identical scan costs $98. Under the pressure of cost controls, Japanese researchers found ways to perform the same diagnostic technique for one-fifteenth the American price. (And Japanese labs still make a profit.)
Myth 5: Health insurance has to be cruel
Foreign health insurance companies, in contrast, must accept all applicants, and they can't cancel as long as you pay your premiums. The plans are required to
pay any claim submitted by a doctor or hospital (or health spa), usually within
tight time limits. The big Swiss insurer Groupe Mutuel promises to pay all claims within five days. "Our customers love it," the group's chief executive told me. The corollary is that everyone is mandated to buy insurance, to give the plans an adequate pool of rate-payers.
The key difference is that foreign health insurance plans exist only to pay people's medical bills, not to make a profit. The United States is the only developed country that lets insurance companies profit from basic health coverage.
Corollary to Myth 5: America has "the finest health care" in the world
We don't. In terms of results, almost all advanced countries have better national health statistics than the United States does. In terms of finance, we force 700,000 Americans into bankruptcy each year because of medical bills. In France, the number of medical bankruptcies is zero. Britain: zero. Japan: zero. Germany: zero.

China Greener than the US?

2009-07-05T12:01:00.000-07:00

Thomas Friedman has been to China many times and knows it well. He is also very involved in the environmental debate. His Op Ed article in the NYT today Can I Clean Your Clock? (For those who are as ignorant in such things as I am, according the the first definition I found by googling: If you clean your clock, you beat someone decisively in a contest or fight.)

Friedman's thesis is that China's figured this out and is out to "clean America's clock" in the field of Environmental Technology (E.T.), while we are still dithering about whether to put up windmills at Cape Cod, or allow solar panels in historical landmark sites.

Yes, you might think that China is only interested in polluting its way to prosperity. That was once true, but it isn’t anymore. China is increasingly finding that it has to go green out of necessity because in too many places, its people can’t breathe, fish, swim, drive or even see because of pollution and climate change. Well, there is one thing we know about necessity: it is the mother of invention.

And that is what China is doing, innovating more and more energy efficiency and clean power systems. And when China starts to do that in a big way — when it starts to develop solar, wind, batteries, nuclear and energy efficiency technologies on its low-cost platform — watch out. You won’t just be buying your toys from China. You’ll be buying your energy future from China.

Personally I almost don't care if China "beats us" in the E.T. business. They have a lot of reasons to do so - growing economy that needs energy, for one thing. If they can do this cleanly, then more power to them. I don't think saving the world should be a cause for competition. We're all in this together, and either we all win, or we all lose.

Nevertheless, I don't think we should be skurking in the shadows, arguing the small stuff, while they are leading the way. For one thing, if we made our own panels, then China could use the ones they produce in China to help cut back thei need for coal. And we have a lot of people looking for jobs who might as well be creating E.T. - People who have lost jobs in the old economy need jobs in the E.T. economy.

As Friedman writes,

And this is why I disagree with President Obama when he signals that he has to focus on extending health care and put the energy/climate bill — now in the Senate — on the backburner.

Health care and the energy/climate bill go together. We need both now. Imagine how poor we would be today if U.S. firms did not dominate the top 10 Internet companies. Well, if we don’t dominate the top 10 E.T. rankings, there is no way we are going to be able to afford decent health care for every American. No way.

Again, I disagree with the need to "dominate," because there is room for every bit of E.T. any one can produce, but obviously health care is linked to the environment in more ways than economics.

I'm catching up on a big pile of magazines. I just read a column in last week's Time Magazine by Justin Fox, called Let Someone Else Buy. He thinks we should worry if what he calls the "BIC" nations (leaving Russia out of the usual BRIC acronym for Brazil, Russia, India and China) take up the slack while we learn to live within our means and they grow to meet us.

In fact, the U.S. might turn out to be more competitive. American dominance has in recent years been a mixed blessing. Many countries got addicted to selling to American consumers and poured capital into the U.S. to keep the buying going. These inflows kept the dollar strong, making life tough for U.S. exporters; they also saddled Americans with the unsustainable debt loads that led to the financial crisis. Now no one abroad is willing to lend to deadbeat American households, and the U.S. government has temporarily taken over as the world's chief borrower and spender. But as we've just learned from the example of the American consumer, one can't borrow and spend forever.

Sometime in the near future, then, the U.S. will have to start living within its means — or at least a lot closer to them than it currently does. To keep this new American frugality from battering the global economy even more than it's been battered, somebody has to pick up the resulting slack in demand. Europe and Japan have been hit harder by the downturn than the U.S. has, and they have aging, slow-growing populations unlikely to ignite consumer booms. That leaves the BICs as pretty much the only remaining candidates. These economies are still too small to take up all the slack: together their GDP amounts to less than half that of the U.S. But they are expanding rapidly. Yes, their ascent spells relative economic decline for the U.S. The faster it happens, though, the sooner a durable global economic recovery will get under way. Go BICs!

I don't think Fox sees things as dire as Friedman. We have to let others come to the trough - as long as they clean up after themselves!

I haven't been paying attention

2009-06-28T08:44:00.001-07:00

When I saw that the Clean Energy and Security Act, so far passed by the House, includes a LOT of money for the oxymoron "clean coal" and for nuclear projects, which both with tunnel vision allowably would reduce CO2, but with wide vision will continue to destroy the rest of the plane we're trying to save.

If these are necessary to pass the bill, then so be it. Politics is a nasty business.

But once the bill finally gets passed, we'll continue our pressure to drop coal and nuclear entirely as they can be phased out by developing the renewable industry. I haven't studied the Act (see the above link) to see exactly how much is apportioned to coal, nuclear and renewables. But I'm hoping the coal and nuclear part is a small percentage of the total.

If you Google clean energy and security act you can read about the positive and negative reactions to the bill from environmentalists, politicians, newspapers and bloggers. There's a lot to read.

Clean Energy and Security Act took its first step

2009-06-26T20:44:00.000-07:00

My email Inbox was full of jubilant emails about how the Clean Energy Bill passed the House by 1 vote today. Of course, it has a long ways to go before it can become law. I have also received emails recently from some environmental groups that don't want it. Carbon Cap and Trade is the baby of Environmental Defense, which does a lot of work with industries to get them to change their ways. I rather think that they are the most pragmatic of the environmental groups I support.

With my background in Environmental Management, I found that getting business to change is probably the most effective way to move in the right direction. That's what cap and trade is all about. But it has to be done correctly. I'm hoping that the people who will implement it have looked to Europe to see what went well, what needs improving, and make the American model better!

Even though the situation requires giant steps these days, politicians are not known for more than baby steps. I think a first step is a good thing, and it can grow to met the task.

James Hansen and Darryl Hannah Arrested for Prostesting Mountaintop Removal

2009-06-25T18:39:00.001-07:00

Elizabeth Kolbert has written a long article in the New Yorker magazine about James Hansen, NASA's chief climate scientist, which unfortunately is only available to subscribers. But this blog item "Elizabeth Kolbert: James Hansen Arrested" - along with Darryl Hannah at a mountaintop removal site in West Virginia - has a link to the abstract (and the whole article if you want to purchase it, or go out and buy this week's New Yorker, which they'd probably prefer!)

James Hansen is the guy the Bush administration hassled because he was trying to wake us all up. Of course it isn't convenient if big financial backers just happen to earn their money with coal. He wants to see all coal fired plants stopped entirely in 20 years, which means we'd better start now to find alternatives, and retire the dirties ASAP, so we don't suddenly find us without enough energy.

There are lots of alternative energy solutions ready to go, so it shouldn't be a problem. We just have to get a move on.

By the way, I was at a job fair today looking for a teaching job. Unfortunately some are quite a ways away. I wouldn't mind an hour or so commute if it could be done on public transportation, so I could sleep or read or grade homework during the trip, but I mentioned that to some people and they were thinking more about total time than total available time. why anyone would take a job where they sit in a freeway parking lot for an hour to get to and from is beyond my comprehension, but that's sort of how everyone does in the LA area, because public transportation does not cover the area enough, does not run often enough (and some of the trains share the tracks with freight trains, who own the track!)

Obama, please save the world for your daughters and my grandchildren

2009-06-21T10:33:00.000-07:00

Here on Father's Day, the journalists are all over Obama, our First Father. One of the jobs of a father is to protect his children (and maybe also his grandchildren,) which you would think would include the world they are growing up in. He even gave lip-service to this concept in his Letter to his daughters in Parade Magazine in January:

I want us to push the boundaries of discovery so that you'll live to see new technologies and inventions that improve our lives and make our planet cleaner and safer.

But if Daddy Obama doesn't get it soon, the world his grandchildren play in will be dismal.

If you clink the "label" for Barack Obama in this blog, you will find a blogs at the bottom about how fantastic his speech in Berlin was, and a few other positive items, but then as the campaign neared a close, I got more desperate, because he kept mentioning "coal," while I've been fighting mountaintop removal and coal in general time after time.

Today's news in the LATimes brought it home again. Mr Obama is showing again that he is listening more to Big Coal and Oil, not to the environentalists.

Environmentalists baffled by Obama's strategy
The administration is defending in court environmental measures that the president once vowed to roll back. Officials say it is part of a long-term plan, but critics see it as backpedaling.

As a candidate for president, Barack Obama wooed environmentalists with a promise to "support and defend" pristine national forest land from road building and other development that had been pushed by the George W. Bush administration.

But five months into Obama's presidency, the new administration is actively opposing those protections on about 60 million acres of federal woodlands in a case being considered by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Other cases where our promising administration, who came in supporting sustainability, is backpedalling include "spotted owl protection, energy efficiency standards,...hazardous-waste burning", and of course coal.

Mr. Obama! Coal's costs far outweigh benefits

2009-06-21T08:35:00.000-07:00

Ken Ward of the Charleston, West Virginia, Gazette reported today on a study by University of West Virginia researcher Michael Hendryx which found that the costs of coal far outweigh the benefits for West Virginia and the entire Appalachian region.

"Coal-mining economies are not strong economies," Hendryx said in an interview last week. "[Coalfield communities] are weaker than the rest of the state, weaker than the rest of the region, and weaker than the rest of the nation."

Writing with co-author Melissa Ahern of Washington State University, Hendryx reports that the coal industry generates a little more than $8 billion a year in economic benefits for the Appalachian region.

But, Hendryx and Ahern put the value of premature deaths attributable to the mining industry across the Appalachian coalfields at -- by their most conservative estimate -- $42 billion.

"The human cost of the Appalachian coal mining economy outweighs its economic benefits," they wrote.

Far from providing jobs, the report says that the number of jobs has decreased from 122,102 to 53,509 between 1985 and 2005, which

"corresponded to increases in mechanized mining practices and the growth of surface mining, which requires fewer employees than underground mining per ton mined."

Although people point to the cheap electricity you can get by burning coal, the study says that this does not reflect the true cost of coal if you include the costs of the externalities: ruined natural resources on the surface, and particularly the human lives lost or ruined to asthma and other results of coal's toxicity.

The study does not count costs of the loss of jobs, since far more have been lost recently due to mining mechanization. Instead it recommends a new Appalachian economy.

"Potential alternative employment opportunities include development of renewable energy from wind, solar, biofuels, geothermal, or hydropower sources; sustainable timber; small-scale agriculture; outdoor or culturally oriented tourism; technology; and ecosystem restoration," the study says.

"The need to develop alternative economies becomes even more important when we realize that coal reserves throughout most of Appalachia are projected to peak and then enter permanent decline in about 20 years."

The article in the Gazette was written by Ken Ward, who has been following the coal mining situation closely in the Gazette and in his blog Coal Tattoo.

Please, someone, put this article and the report in front of President Obama. He has been listening to the lies of Big Coal and the politicians dependent on Big Coal for too long. Let him know how citizens in Appalachia really live. Let him kick-start a new sustainable economy for Appalachia that will preserve its natural resources and improve the lives of its citizens.

LA Times says Obame is caving in to Big Coal

2009-06-15T16:04:00.000-07:00

I don't have much time to write these days. (See why at ToDoTheImpossible), but the journalists are finally catching on what I've been writing all along: Obama is in cahoots with Big Coal!Here is today's editorial from the Los Angeles Times:

Is Obama caving in to coal?
The administration deserves credit for some minimal restrictions on mountaintop mining, but the president's hands-off approach to coal defeats his climate-change efforts.

June 15, 2009

Clear-cutting forests, then blowing the tops off of mountains and dumping the debris into stream beds is an environmentally catastrophic way of mining for coal. President Obama and the green activists he has appointed to run his interior-focused regulatory agencies surely know this. But their contortions over mountaintop mining would make a Cirque du Soleil performer wince.

The administration last week announced a number of new restrictions on mountaintop coal mining in the six Appalachian states where it occurs. They are minimal steps that, among other things, will make it harder for mining companies to escape environmental review when seeking permits to blow up mountains. For this, Obama merits polite applause.

That's in contrast to the much-deserved boos he received last month from environmentalists after his administration quietly sent a letter to coal industry loyalist Rep. Nick Rahall II (D-W.Va.) saying the Environmental Protection Agency wouldn't stand in the way of at least two dozen new mountaintop-removal projects. It was a dismaying move from an administration that in March had blocked several such projects on grounds that they needed further review -- yet some of the ones it greenlighted in May were as big and damaging as the ones it blocked two months earlier. What gives?

Obama is clearly intimidated by coal's powerful lobby. The industry is a major employer in West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and other Appalachian states, where miners tend to vote for whichever party is friendliest to Big Coal. Yet there's also strong grass-roots opposition to strip mining in those states because of the effect it has on local communities; the technique poisons water supplies and pollutes the air with coal and rock dust. It also turns forests into moonscapes, ravages ecosystems and buries streams, which is good for neither wildlife nor the tourism industry.

The best approach to mountaintop mining would be to ban it completely. It's cheaper and less labor-intensive than underground mining, but not worth the environmental cost. At a minimum, Obama should address some other highly destructive rule changes imposed by the Bush administration -- a good place to start would be restoring a regulation that forbade mining within 100 feet of a stream, and disallowing the use of mine waste as "fill" material in waterways.

Obama can't sidestep this issue forever, especially because his hands-off approach to coal defeats the purpose of his efforts to fight climate change. Coal is a key culprit in global warming, and it makes no sense to encourage cheap coal while seeking to boost renewable energy.

Obama wants coal ash storage sites to be secret - AP

2009-06-13T21:38:00.000-07:00

My husband cut this little article out of our local newspaper, the Ontario, CA, Daily Bulletin, but since it's from the AP, it's all over the web, with various titles, like Communities at risk, but coal ash sites secret. Time and again, our administration, which is doing admirably on other fronts, shows how much it is in the hands of Big Coal. We have to stop him on this one. Obama is too smart to do this. I doubt he wants his daughters to grow up next to a coal ash site!

Officials cite security concerns, don’t alert those in risky areas.
By Dina Cappiello, Associated Press, Saturday, June 13, 2009

WASHINGTON —- The Obama administration has decided to keep secret the locations of nearly four dozen coal ash storage sites that pose a threat to people living nearby.

The Environmental Protection Agency classified the 44 sites as potential hazards to communities while investigating coal ash waste storage sites after a spill at a Tennessee power plant in December. The classification means the waste sites could cause death and significant property damage if an event such as a storm, a terrorist attack or a structural failure caused them to leak into surrounding communities. The sites have existed for years with little or no federal regulation.

The Army Corps of Engineers in a letter dated June 4 told the EPA and the Federal Emergency Management Agency that the federal government should not alert the public to the sites’ locations because it would compromise national security. The Corps said state officials or the owner of the site should communicate the risks to those nearby.

“Uncontrolled or unrestricted release (of the information) may pose a security risk to projects or communities by increasing its attractiveness as a potential target,” Steven L. Stockton, the Army Corps’ director of civil works, wrote in a letter obtained by The Associated Press.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) in a press conference on Friday, questioned why coal ash storage ponds are not treated like other hazardous waste sites. For instance, the EPA readily discloses the location of Superfund hazardous waste sites and also annually reports pollution released by chemical facilities and other factories in neighborhoods.

EPA officials said Friday the National Dam Safety Review Board, a collection of federal agencies, state agencies and one private industry representative, was notifying local governments and states, some of which regulate the structures like dams.

Eric Halpin, special assistant for dam and levee safety for the Corps of Engineers, said that “we did not direct anyone to withhold or not release information.”

His agency releases that information to local governments “so they can, in turn, communicate it to the public,” Halpin said.

On Dec. 22, more than 5 million cubic yards of ash and sludge poured out of a storage pond after an earthen dike failed at a power plant near Kingston, Tenn. The grayish, toxic muck covered 300 acres and destroyed or damaged 40 homes.

It's not as if the local people don't know they're there. This article from the Knoxville TN News, reports of 11 sites just as dangerous as the one that spilled last Christmas.

Watchdog groups say coal ash sites unsafe. Report claims cancer risk upped for neighbors
By Michael Collins, Friday, May 8, 2009
WASHINGTON - Eleven coal ash storage sites in Tennessee are among dozens across the country that may pose a serious risk to public health, according to a new study based on government data that environmentalists say the Bush administration kept secret for years.

The data, compiled by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and released Thursday by two watchdog groups, indicates that one out of every 50 Americans living near landfills or ponds used to store ash or sludge from coal-fired power plants has a high risk of getting cancer from drinking water contaminated with arsenic...

Let's get them cleaned up and stop adding to them. Let's stop coal!

Obama doesn't like mountaintops

2009-05-31T11:54:00.000-07:00

The LA Times was not fun to wake up to today. On the front page, just over the fold, stood "A quiet OK for peaks' removal," which has become Obama walks a fine line over mining in the online version. The picture just makes me want to cry! (I've found some Flickr pictures to show you what Appalachia looks like, so you can see what they're destroying.) Here is a little quote from the article.

Fall Color In Kentucky
Originally uploaded by JRyle79.
The administration's decision is not the final word on the projects or the future of mountaintop removal. But the letter, coupled with the light it sheds on relations between the mining industry and the Obama White House, has disappointed environmentalists. Some say they feel betrayed by a president they thought would end or sharply limit the practice.

Smoky Mountains, Tennessee
Originally uploaded by carl_r_grant.

The issue is politically sensitive because environmentalists were an active force behind Obama's election, and the president's standing is tenuous among Democratic voters in coal states. West Virginia, for example, voted for George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential election largely because Democrat Al Gore was critical of the coal industry.

You can't say we haven't been aware of Obama's treachery on this topic. I've written about it numerous times here. These are all the posts tagged Barack Obama. They aren't all positive. How can someone we have treated like a god destroy his own country?

The House at the End of the Road
Originally uploaded by UGArdener.

The article goes on to talk about the EPA's role in saving the mountains, which I've also written about in a blog post called Great News from the EPA. But I saw a link to an article about the EPA on FaceBook today, posted by the author of the blog I just wrote about, Seabird's Hollow. From Watchdog to Lapdog: An Insider's History of the EPA by Evaggelos Vallianatos, AlterNet, May 30, 2009, concludes with a possibly much too optimistic version of Obama's EPA. I hope he's right!

Buffalo Mountain Windfarm / Tennessee
Originally uploaded by janet.powell.

Environmental protection is human protection, in addition to being a moral act. It is a last-ditch effort to save the earth from its human masters.
That's why a new EPA, carefully crafted to repair and uphold the integrity of threatened ecosystems while protecting us from our own technics and poisons, could be America's greatest contribution to its own well-being and survival and that of the planet.

In the meantime, we have to sign every petition that comes along, write letters to editors, contribute if you can. Tell Obama you want renewable energy coming from Appalachia, like in this last picture, not coal from destroyed mountains!

Seabird's Hollow - a new blog about dirty coal in Tennessee

2009-05-29T21:19:00.000-07:00

I just discovered a new blog from East Tennessee, called Seabird's Hollow, thoughts from the coalfields of East Tennessee, which so far has drawn attention to the problems of coal dust, even far from the coal mines and removed mountaintops. For example. she describes the ravages caused when Dominion Virginia Power built a golf course with fly ash from its Deep Creek coal-fired power plant near Chesapeake, Virginia, as a way to get rid of the dirty stuff:

The golf course, with 1.5-million tons of fly ash land-sculpting its greens and fairways, is now two years old. Water tests from samples under the course in 2008 revealed high levels of arsenic, lead and other contaminants in groundwater. EPA tests confirmed elevated levels of arsenic and lead. The original study said that 82 percent of residents with wells in the area drew water from the same aquifer that underlies the unlined ash reception areas, and warned that any well drawing from it might suck up elements leaching out from the golf course's toxic fill.

How do these people get away with this sort of thing? Everyone knew how toxic the ash was, specially the guys who were moving it around to landscape it. But they probably earned good money to shut up and do what they were told, while they ruined the drinking water for most everybody nearby.

The miners who participate in removing mountaintops, I understand, are generally not locals, but people who've been brought in, and don't have any relationship to the mountains and streams they've destroyed. And I understand they're not even really earning good money - just better than no money at all. We have to figure out other ways that they can support their families, like producing renewable energy products, putting up windmills on mountaintops instead of removing them, learning how to make homes more energy efficient... That's who the green jobs should be for!

Diane Feinstain on Mountaintop Removal

2009-05-21T08:42:00.001-07:00

I received the following letter from my Senator, Diane Feinstein, about the politics involved in Mountaintop Removal. (I added the links.)

Thank you for writing to express your support for the "Appalachia Restoration Act" (S. 696). I share your concerns about the environmental impacts of mountaintop removal mining, and I welcome the opportunity to respond.

As you know, the practice of mountaintop removal mining - which involves removing mountaintops to mine coal seams within the mountain - has been found to have damaging effects on nearby streams as large quantities of excess rock and dirt may cause the deterioration of the watershed and the filling of streams.

On March 25, 2009, Senator Benjamin Cardin (D-MD) introduced the "Appalachia Restoration Act" (S. 696), which would amend the Clean Water Act to prevent the disposal of mountaintop mining waste into streams and rivers. This bill has been referred to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Although I am not a member of this Committee, I will keep your support in mind should S. 696, or similar legislation, come before the full Senate.

You may also be interested to know that on April 27, 2009, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced that the Department of the Interior (DOI) is taking action to rescind a Bush Administration rule that eased restrictions on mountaintop removal mining to allow discharges of coal mining waste within the 100-foot buffer zone surrounding streams. Secretary Salazar has asked the Department of Justice to file a motion in U.S. District Court requesting that the rule be set aside and sent back to DOI for further review. DOI will draft a new rule and seek public comment.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has also taken action to address concerns about mountaintop removal mining by suspending permitting for mountaintop mining projects until the EPA can assess the impact of this practice on water quality and aquatic life.

Stop Oil Shale Before They Ruin the West

2009-05-21T07:56:00.000-07:00

Oil shale in Australia

America has oil shale, Canada has oil sands, which I've written about a lot. There are those who would love to destroy America's oil shale areas as much as Alberta, Canada, is destroying its tourist areas and native lands, and American coal companies destroying Appalachian and native American home lands.

I received this email today from The Wilderness Society.

Did you know that Bush-era environmental policies are still on the books, jeopardizing our natural places?
Because of a rule issued by the Bush Administration, the Bureau of Land Management is poised to lease millions of acres of public land in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming to develop oil shale – the dirtiest fossil fuel in the world.
Please let the Bureau of Land Management know that you want public lands protected from oil shale development.
Oil shale development is not environmentally sound, nor is it economically viable. If it moves forward now, we don't know if we'll get usable energy sources – but we do know that we'll end up with polluted air, wild lands that are carved up by roads and transmission lines, and depleted water resources in these already arid Western States.
Write the Bureau of Land Management today and urge them to protect our public lands from oil shale development.

In case you were wondering what oil shale is (I was!) I checked out some other sources as well. Wikipedia writes about Oil Shale:

Oil shale is an organic-rich fine-grained sedimentary rock. It contains significant amounts of kerogen, a solid mixture of organic chemical compounds from which liquid hydrocarbons can be extracted. The name oil shale represents a double misnomer, as geologists would not necessarily classify the rock as a shale, and its kerogen differs from crude oil. Kerogen requires more processing to use than crude oil, which increases its cost as a crude-oil substitute both financially and in terms of its environmental impact. Deposits of oil shale occur around the world, including major deposits in the United States of America. Estimates of global deposits range from 2.8 trillion to 3.3 trillion barrels (450 × 109 to 520 × 109 m3) of recoverable oil.

And if you really want to know a lot about oil shale and its impact, you can read the government required Oil Shale and Tar Sands Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (Oil Shale and Tar Sands PEIS).

It is only now that oil prices have been high, and are expected to go up again that extracting and processing oil shale can be profitable. With Obama's new rules on truck and car efficiencies, and the development of more environmentally benign fuels, we can cut our need for oil drastically. No sense even getting started ruining the environment in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, when we won't need it!

So please follow the link to write the Bureau of Land Management today and urge them to protect our public lands from oil shale development.

More China and Coal

2009-05-16T12:20:00.000-07:00

Last Monday I wrote about China and Coal, based on an article in the New York Times that implied that China was starting to think about how coal is affecting it's own climate and the health of its citizens, as well as global Climate Change.

In yesterday's NYT, however, prize-winner journalist Paul Krugman reports on his recent trip to China, investigating its carbon impact in an Op-Ed piece Empire of Coal.

Evidently the Chinese still think that they should have the same opportunity to pollute as we in the West did while growing our economies. They say the current situation isn't their fault, it's the result of years of our profligacy.

Mr. Krugman begs to differ, and fears that all out effects to cut back CO2 will be worthless without bringing the Chinese into to equation. I know that many organizations are working with them, but this is a major issue we all should be concerned about, and do something to abate.

Read his article, and keep posted on what's happening in China.

Energy Efficiency - really sustainable energy

2009-05-12T13:41:00.000-07:00

I've often mentioned energy efficiency as one of many kinds of sustainable energy. The Sierra Club has just made a very nice site on their Global Warming and Energy site called Energy Efficiency: Cleaner, Faster, Cheaper.

My husband and I have been trying to be as energy efficient as possible, installing Energy Star appliances when others break down, and in case of the refrigerator long before, because old refrigerators (not even really old ones, use loads more energy than new ones. The new air conditioner a couple of years ago was the super-saver. That, and driving hybrids and turning of lights, and having all my computer things collected on a strip that I turn off at night, etc.

Read their page. I'm sure you'll find an idea you can use, too.

Obama Budget Snubs Oil, Gas and Nuclear!

2009-05-12T08:33:00.000-07:00

The Associate Press's Josef Hebert reported a few days ago that the Obama budget rescinds energy industry tax breaks.

President Barack Obama outlined a budget plan Thursday that would end $26 billion in oil and gas industry tax breaks, point to a new direction for dealing with nuclear waste and shift government aggressively toward helping to develop renewable energy sources. Obama called the tax break to the oil and gas industry "unjustifiable loopholes" in the tax system that in most cases other companies do not get.

This is really great news, which will start giving oil and gas the same financial handicaps as renewables. This may mean that energy prices will be forced upwards again, but that will only put them at a level where they reflect more their true costs. Government can used to taxes paid by the industry to fund health care for all those people who have developed asthma and cancer from the pollution spewed into their neighborhoods from various exhausts. This will be the incentive financers of renewables need, because they will be on a better cost par with carbon-based (or nuclear based) technologies./p>

Unfortunately, coal is not mentioned in this article, so I don't know how coal is being treated in the budget. I wrote numerous times that both candidates Obama and McCain were too friendly to coal, but at least the courts have been better at cutting them down to size, and financial institutions have also been listening, so they've been finding other uses for their money than to support removing mountaintops and new plants to burn the stuff in (But see below.).

China and Coal

2009-05-11T08:40:00.000-07:00

An article in today's New York Times, China Outpaces U.S. in Cleaner Coal-Fired Plants, starts out by intimating that China's producing mostly "clean coal" power, mostly through much more efficient plants, and retiring one old dirty inefficient plant for each new "clean" one. They are evidently far ahead of the US in "clean coal" technologies, including gasification.

In addition, they are installing large numbers of wind-turbines and leading the world in production of solar panels - which I think mostly go to export, though. Furthermore, they have a number of nuclear plants under construction. All of these new installations will help keep their CO2 at a lower level than otherwise.

But is this a competition we in the US should take up to "better" China? That is, do we want to build more efficient coal plants and nuclear (at present almost all future U.S. construction of such plants are on hold) as our way to cut CO2? I personally believe that we can generate all the energy we need with sustainables, and gradually retire the oldest coal-fired and nuclear plants as the sustainables become the major sources if energy, while energy conserving buildings, appliances and vehicles lower our future needs for energy.

Obviously, China is in a different situation. Their population is yearning for consumer goods we take for granted, like cars and larger homes, all of which will use energy that wasn't needed before. So even if they have higher gas mileage requirements for cars than the US does, they will still be growing their auto inventory faster than we will, and thus produced CO2. Our market for large, energy consuming goods is at replacement, not introducing, as in China. Efficiencies here can lower our present usage, efficiencies there will only slow their growth.

So does it make global sense for China to build nuclear plants, and to do a lot better with coal? Or would it be better for all of us to put all our financial resources into bringing sustainables (including conservation!) into the mainstream, lowering their costs drastically.

Sustainable, renewable methods can be brought online much faster than either new coal or nuclear power plants, and if you add in the costs of externalities, like polluted air causing asthma and mercury-related damage besides climate change, sustainables win on cost hands down.

I just received an appropriate Dr Seuss quote with today's Daily Ray of Hope:
Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.
-- Dr. Seuss

Green Mountain Coffee is trying to make K-cups sustainably

2009-05-07T15:57:00.000-07:00

The topics that have caught the most eyes on my blog are those about Green Mountain Coffee's K-cups, which produce so much trash that the packaging outweighs whatever environmental benefits of the excellent coffee they contain. (My personal estimate, not from an official life-cycle analysis.) (The second most popular topic is about Clif's Bars and candy wrappers.)

I just followed one of the searches that brought someone to those articles, and found a link to the Green Mountain Coffee page called Protecting the Environment: Sustainable Packaging: K-Cups®. I'd like to think that my post was part of what inspired them to look into sustainable K-cups.

Use a My K-cup!

But just remember that they aren't there yet. The only sustainable K-cup is "My K-Cup" for Keurig Brewers, shown in the picture.

As long as you're here, why don't you check out my favorite topics:
coal and renewable energy.

Smart Grid and Renewables

2009-05-07T15:46:00.000-07:00

I just received an email from RenewableEnergyWorld.com with a link to a fantastic series of podcasts, which they've called All There is To Know About the Smart Grid and Renewables, which may be overstating it a bit. But they've called on all the experts they could think of.

I've just started looking at it, but I thought I'd put it out here for others. This is an important subject. Our present grid was started back with Edison, and still includes (I think) some of his initial technology. Since we're so great with other technologies, we might as well move into the 21st century on this as well! And think of all the jobs this will create!

Vets Vote for Clean Energy

2009-04-30T16:07:00.000-07:00

The organization VoteVets.org is very much aware that their fellow soldiers have died in a war that was started because of oil, fueled by oil, and supported the enemy through payments for oil. Therefore they are creating a series of TV ads like this one (for Utah) to convince their own Congressmen to back Clean Energy.

As cofounder of the organization Jon Soltz wrote today in Why Vets Are Backing Clean Energy in the Huffington Post:

It's very rare that you'll find a group like VoteVets.org -- which was initially formed to oppose the war in Iraq -- agree with the neocons who helped plan the war.

But, indeed, one of the staunchest Iraq war backers and self-professed "Member of the Dick Cheney Fan Club", Frank Gaffney, wrote in a column, "We are funding both sides in this war for the free world, as our petrodollars are enabling much of the threat we most immediately confront. This is an intolerable -- and unsustainable -- situation." He's called for a greater focus on efficiency and alternative power.

James Woolsey, the former CIA director, famously now drives a Prius with a bumper sticker that says, "Osama bin Laden Hates This Car." He also partially powers his home -- and even his laptop -- with solar panels.

They need support for the ads and other activities. You can help at VoteVets.org.

Amazon Packaging Rating

2009-04-30T11:55:00.001-07:00

Amazon Packaging Rating
Originally uploaded by bonbayel.

Amazon is listening to its customers about packaging!

Unfortunately, I just discovered this the other day, so I don't remember what the packaging was like on the other ones in the list.

But I will try to remember to go in each time and rate them in the future.

I wrote another post about a particularly bad Amazon package a while back.

BBC says: 'Safe' climate means 'no to coal'

2009-04-29T13:24:00.000-07:00

A BBC report today, 'Safe' climate means 'no to coal', discusses how to figure out what we have to do to keep climate change at acceptable ranges. Evidently someone has figured out that we don't want more than a 2 degrees C increase, and we're already almost half-way there, and will reach it by 2050 (which I guess I could conceivably experience at the age of 107?)

Up to now the discussion has been what percentage of carbon emissions we should be cutting back to, but this article supports Bjorn Lomborg (see a couple of posts back) that we shouldn't be looking at emissions, but just saying "no to coal" in particular and the other carbon-based fuels ASAP.

Of course this is by no means easy to do if we just stand around on one foot and figure "someone" will solve this all. But we all have to start now to move us to renewables.

Put renewables on your home or business.
Invest in renewables.
If you're in the renewables business, put your next plant on one of the lovely "flat places" where mountains have been removed in Appalachia, to provide clean, green jobs for the people who now depend on coal to provide for their short lives.
Send in every petition you get to government officials and business people to let them know you want sustainables, not coal, thank you.
Write letters to your local paper, or better, an Op Ed piece, explaining why this is so important.
Get into the renewable industry, for example, by signing up to become an Ecopreneur for solar panels (see the banner at the top right of this page.)

Sorry about the ads

2009-04-29T10:28:00.000-07:00

I just decided to see if I can earn anything by "monetizing" my two blogs, since right now I don't appear to have any other income. If the results are just pennies, however, I will remove them. On this blog, in particular, there is so much other stuff, that they just take up valuable "landscape." I hope the ads won't be offensive in anyway, like for pesticides or coal! I've seen sometimes that they get to be somewhat related to the labels on the posts. I wouldn't mind ads from sustainable services, for example!

Rule Reversal to Protect Appalachian Streams from Coal Slag

2009-04-28T08:32:00.000-07:00

My Kentucky blog friend told me about the local TV station WYMT's coverage of the President's plan to reverse Bush era kowtowing to coal companies: Possible Rule Reversal on Surface Mining. The Administration is working on "rules that would make it more difficult for coal companies to dump waste near steams, reversing a policy put in place by former president George W. Bush." The news story mostly interviews mine owners and managers, but the reporter also talks with an "environmentalist," a local guy who is concerned about Kentucky, not profit at the expense of the land.

If you read this today, be sure to vote in the online poll in the middle of the page.

The really interesting part is the comments section at the bottom - where you can read local residents' views on the matter. One big argument for mountaintop removal appears to be that they now have "flat land" to build malls and the like which they didn't have before. But there are a lot of commenters who are pleased. You wonder who are the commenters who really like their homeland destroyed! Managers and owners, maybe, who don't even come from East Kentucky? This person puts it into perspective:

The rule being reversed puts the coal industry back into compliance with the Clean Water Act. The Bush Administration illegally allowed coal companies to flaunt the law and then did a last second rule change to effectively reverse the Clean Water Act, which was passed by Congress and signed into law by Ronald Reagan. It is based on an earlier act, the Federal Water Pollution Control Amendments, signed into law by Richard Nixon. Neither of these men was exactly a foaming at the mouth environmental radical and both considered these measures the absolute minimum that could be done to preserve the nation's water supply. The "right" of an individual or company to destroy the watershed, or the "right" of a person to have a new pick-up every year and drown in debt in downturn cycles does not supersede the right of the rest of us to have clean drinking water nor does it override the obligation of the federal government to protect the majority of the people against one industry, blinded by greed, which has willfully broken every law ever made affecting environmental quality and workplace safety.

In the same day's news was another coal related story: Hundreds Of Coal Miners Are Laid Off. The notice the men received says the layoffs are temporary and the managers hope to call them back to work when the market improves. This is of course very bad news for people who have families to support. Unfortunately for them, coal companies have a history of laying off union minors and shutting down mines, only to reopen them with new non-Union hires, sometimes brought in from elsewhere. The only deep mines are also being abandoned for the relative ease of strip mining, where only a few employees can move a lot of coal - destroying the landscape at the same time.

You can't help thinking that there's a connection between the two stories. By laying off workers, with the large local impact, those affected will be unhappy with Obama's proposed rule change, even though it is for the greater good of Appalachia to preserve the mountains.

We have to find new jobs for these people in green industries, fast, to show that leaving the old will result in cleaner, better paying jobs in the long run. But right now, life is pretty miserable around the coal fields, for those who have lost the family farm to slag, and to those who have lost dangerous, relatively well-paying jobs as deep mines are closed. For the rest of us, the poor market for coal sounds promising.

You're right for a change, Bjorn Lomborg!

2009-04-26T12:21:00.001-07:00

Change is what I believe in. My PhD dissertation was about language change (I'm afraid I never completed it, so I'm not a PhD.) I ran a diaper service about 15 years ago to change the way people changed diapers. (Never made a profit, though). I worked for a while with a Danish management consultant who was very big on using motivation to effect change, and used what I learned there in a job working on motivating Danish telephone company employees to recycle more.

Danish Statistics Professor Bjorn Lomborg is interested in cost-effectiveness, which is also a worthy thing to be concerned about. In fact most of my motivational work was connected with the cost-effectiveness of managing resources as part of environmental management programs. Now of course we have to motivate an entire planet to the cost-effectiveness of managing our resources, including habitats, energy, and people.

Mr. Lomborg, the organic vegetarian who calls himself the Skeptical Environmentalist, has long doubted the need for spending lots of money to save the planet from Climate Change. He was more interested in using the same money for very necessary projects for health, education and the like. But he seems to have come around now to thinking that just letting the Climate Change maybe wouldn't be all that cost effective anyway.

But still he doesn't like the methods that have been suggested so far to combat Climate Change. Instead of fighting symptoms, which emissions are, we should be removing the sources of the emissions by spending more money researching (and I assume also installing) renewable energy. That is a great change that is also cost-effective. Climate Change is a change we need to slow down -by changing ourselves, the way we think, and the way we spend our money.

For once, Mr Lomborg, I agree with you. Let's get things moving even faster than they are to implement this systemic change that will save the globe only if we do it fast enough. No more stalling with new coal technology or nuclear plants, which are decidedly NOT cost-effective. Let's get those PV panels up on roofs and over parking lots, or in military areas (as long as they don't affect tortoises, gophers and other desert wildlife.) Lets get those windmills turning in Nantucket Sound, Mr. Kennedy. It's cost-effective, all you conservatives who don't like to spend government money. In the long run it will save you piles of tax-money - or maybe it will be there for you when your insurance company throws you out because you got cancer...

Green green green

2009-04-26T11:26:00.000-07:00

According to today's LA Times, Military embraces green energy, the US Army has discovered what we've been saying all along. Environmental management, including energy management, like all good management, saves money on the bottom line for businesses. Environmental and energy management is resource management. and resources cost money. If you can find ways to use fewer resources, partly by doing the job more efficiently, or by ensuring that the job you're doing is the right thing to do, you save money. If you find less expensive resources that do the (right) job just as well, then you've saved even more.

Of course sometimes you have to spend money to save resources in the long haul. I am getting really tired of reading that Obama's emphasis on renewable energy and carbon caps are going to cost us a lot more money. We're throwing money away hand and foot now, supporting wars and widows, orphans and mentally and physically ruining soldiers, all because we need oil from the mideast. We have a problem with people who can't pay mortgages because they lost their jobs, because it's too expensive to keep them in this country. What support we can give them also comes from tax-payer money. Carbon caps make traditional energy sources more expensive to provide an incentive to conserve energy with insulation, Energy Star houses, hybrid cars - just read more here in my blog, if you don't know what I'm talking about. It also encourages energy companies (or private businesses, citizens - and the military!) to install wind, solar, geothermal, hydro or other methods to avoid the high costs of conventional carbon-based energy. Once they're installed, they provide practically free energy, since their sources do not have to be renewed and they come (mostly) from the pretty undepletable energy of the sun.

Several years ago in September 2005 I attended the Sierra Club Summit in San Francisco. There I went to a fascinating meeting pairing Dave Foreman, co-founder of the radical EarthFirst and the more mature Rewilding, with, believe it or not, Marine Brigadier General Mike Lehnart from Camp Pendelton of the Marine Corps, who initiated a program to protect endangered species and perform environmental management on Marine bases. That was back when "environment" was things like habitat protection. But it was at the Sierra Summit that the Sierra Club decided to focus on sustainability and renewable energy (which my local chapter hasn't really caught up with.)

In the LATImes article you can read how the Fort Irwin army base in the Mojave Desert (not too far from here) has been going green for numerous reasons. By using insulated, sun reflecting tents they have got air conditioning costs (running generators) by up to 75%. By producing energy using wind, solar and geothermal sources, they figure they can soon be off the grid.

In the military, this doesn't just save money, it saves lives. In Iraq many lives have been lost among soldiers defending fuel transport convoys, which understandably are a popular target. If they can avoid the fuel entirely through conservation and locally generated energy, lives will be saved (as well as the costs of supporting widows and orphans, if you want to look at it cynically.)

As the article points out, the military (as well as the space program) have provided us with everything from Tang to cellphones to Hummers. Since the military is an enormous, its conversion to renewables will have a tremendous effect on our fuel needs, as well as the general attitude toward renewables.

Some in the green energy sector hope that as the military adopts alternative power sources, the technology will gain broader acceptance among political conservatives.

"Just hearing that their military is embracing this new technology that was thought of as left-of-center is going to swing people's thoughts" about using it, said David Melton, president of Albuquerque-based Sacred Power Corp., which installed some of Ft. Irwin's photovoltaic panels and wind turbines.

New Coal and Nuke Plants Not Necessary

2009-04-23T12:48:00.000-07:00

I'm not just making that up, and it's not just propaganda, although I've been saying it all along here in my blog. But the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Jon Wellinghoff speaking at a U.S. Energy Association forum said that he doesn't think we'll be needing more "baseload" energy in the form of coal, nuclear or even NG.

With energy efficiency from Energy Star rated products, alternative fuel vehicles, better building insulation, inspired by LEED, etc. reducing our needs for energy in the first place, locally distributed solar, wind, geothermal, and new hydro energy sources will cover our needs sustainably, cheaply, quickly, and providing lots of local jobs. Building new coal and nuke plants is too expensive, he said. You can read about it in this article from yesterday's NYT: Energy Regulatory Chief Says New Coal, Nuclear Plants May Be Unnecessary.

Further support of the future of solar (and other sustainable energy) came an announcement from Alteris Renewables and SunRun that they will be making Solar Power Cheaper than Utilities for First Time in Northeast, which is similar to the plans by Citizenre, which I am associated with. We will be renting panels to homeowners at a rate under that of which they are paying their utility company with a very low deposit, compared with buying panels. SunRun, Citizenre and SunEdison, who have a similar offering for businesses, will quickly be able to make solar a viable component in the energy mix.

Even Walmart understand this. They have announced plans to double their solar power usage by the end of 2010 under a similar arrangement with BP. They have already seen some savings, and with the price of energy increasing in the future and their solar expenses staying flat, the savings will be increasing as the years go by. This of course is a business decision, not just some green public service!

There is even good news about wind now, in this article from the LA Times: Offshore wind turbines get further boost from Obama administration. Soon projects like Cape Wind between Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard and Deepwater Wind, in Rhode Island, will be providing energy for heavily populated areas up and down the Atlantic coast, where the continental shelf provides relatively easy sites for off-shore installations. The Great Lakes also provide perfect sites for future off-shore wind projects near industrial areas. Manufacturing the turbines is already becoming an alternative to jobs in the old dirty industries, as even European companies like Vestas are opening manufacturing facilities in the U.S.

What a great way to celebrate Earth Day!

Lizard visits us on Earth Day

2009-04-22T18:26:00.001-07:00

Lizard visits on Earth Day
Originally uploaded by bonbayel.

Today my email inbox was filled with Earth Day messages, all the newspapers and magazines have been having articles about eating organic and living sustainably, and even Target is selling a line of organic cotton clothing.

And the government's been right there too, with the EPA agreeing that CO2 is endangering, and Obama is getting on to clean energy (unfortunately he hasn't dropped "clean coal.")

But I think the most significant thing for me today was a visit from a little friend, a San Diego Alligator Lizard (I thought it was a skink, but I've changed my mind!) who has been exploring our patio, and finally decided to take a look inside.

Once inside, it was hard to get him out. He (she?) knows when I'm looking at him, so I can't get a picture of him moving, as the video clip shows! When I opened the screen door that he'd crawled under to get in, he finally eyed a chance to get away from me. (After I moved away!)

...you might change the world

2009-04-18T10:01:00.000-07:00

I sometimes think I'm not doing enough to change the world. I just sit at home reading and then researching and typing away at my computer, while others are out there demonstrating, or actually doing practical work.

The big efforts of Citizenre's solar panels for everyone is on hold because of financing problems (but things are looking up recently, so we expect that the first panels will be installed within the year) and I haven't had an environmentally related job since I worked for Vestas Wind Systems in 2002.

However, I think my blog is reaching some people besides the "choir" so this is my activism. (BTW, the most popular entries here are about Green Mountain Coffee's plastic K-cups trash, and the horrible indestructible trash that comes with each candy bar we buy, even though the largest number of entries have been about energy: dirty coal and oil, and the future of solar and other renewables.)

I read an appropriate quote on the Sierra Club's Daily Ray of Hope from April 1, which made me realize that maybe what I am doing does help change the world.

Choose your corner,
pick away at it carefully, intensely and to the best of your ability
and that way you might change the world.
-- Charles Eames

Michigan Citizens for Renewable Energy

2009-04-13T08:36:00.001-07:00

The wonderful thing about renewable energy is that it is locally generated and provides local jobs. This Michigan group is working toward transforming Michigan to a new renewable economy.

Michigan (and many other states, like Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Iowa) is moving from dirty industries and power plants to clean energy and green jobs!

Here is what Governor Granholm has to say about the new jobs the recovery act will provide: Governor Granholm Says Recovery Act will Help Millions of Citizens Throughout Michigan

You can find more about what activist in Michigan are working on at Clean Energy Now.

This is the future! And we can all participate in it, just like the Michigan Citizens for Renewable Energy. Find out where your local group is, and help build the new economy!

The chemical industry is shuddering!

2009-04-11T08:40:00.000-07:00

I got a message today called "Don't Poison the Obama puppy" from Credo. Evidently the chemical industry is up in arms because Michelle Obama is not using garden chemicals in her organic garden. (Maybe they didn't realize that the Bush family are also organic gardeners back home in Texas!)

According the the email, an organization called Mid America CropLife Association (MACA) has apparently convinced itself - or at least its spokesman - that plants can't grow without chemicals. (Whatever did plants do before the chemical industry?)

Their spokesman sent an extensive open letter to Mrs Obama telling of the Wonderful Things Chemistry Can Do For You, which it also sent to its supporters with a cover letter. Spies from a foody blog called La Vida Locavore managed to get a copy of the letter, which is available for your edification on their website. In the cover letter to supporters the spokeman wrote:

spring weather & pesticides
Originally uploaded by gribley.

Did you hear the news? The White House is planning to have an "organic" garden on the grounds to provide fresh fruits and vegetables for the Obama's and their guests. While a garden is a great idea, the thought of it being organic made Janet Braun, CropLife Ambassador Coordinator and [me] shudder. As a result, we sent a letter encouraging them to consider using crop protection products and to recognize the importance of agriculture to the entire U.S. economy. [all emphasis mine.]

The letter tells all about how modern technology since 1900 has made it possible for "an average farmer" to produce enough food for 144 people. He doesn't mention that it would be pretty boring to be the person getting his nourishment alone from the crop of a corn or soy farmer! He tells about how farmers were the "first environmentalists" (that is, before the chemists got to them!) I particularly love this sentence:

Fresh foods grown conventionally are wholesome and flavorful yet more economical. Local and conventional farming is not mutually exclusive. However, a Midwest mother whose child loves strawberries, a good source of Vitamin C, appreciates the ability to offer California strawberries in March a few months before the official Mid-west season.

...since I have been horrified at the quality of even local California strawberries like these compared to what I have known and loved up north in Maine and Denmark! The local strawberries in stores are white inside, rather than red, and they don't reach out to you with enticing strawberry fragrance as you wall by. If you were blind, you'd have to stick your nose in the box to figure out that they were strawberries. I've tried making the favorite Danish summer strawberry dessert Jordbærgrød med fløde but it isn't as red, and tastes sort of watery. I've doctored it by adding ginger and more sugar, and finally fruit juices, but it will never be the same! I remember deserts in Denmark consisting of large bowls of big strawberries that we had picked in the garden just before dinner! I pity those poor Midwestern children who don't even have local strawberries anymore since all farm land has gone to corn and soy. I'm afraid that even local strawberries from our farmers' market don't grab you like fresh Danish strawberries sold by a local farmer outside our supermarket!

The letter from MACA concludes with this fine paragraph:

As you go about planning and planting the White House garden, we respectfully encourage you to recognize the role conventional agriculture plays in the U.S in feeding the ever-increasing population, contributing to the U.S. economy and providing a safe and economical food supply. America's farmers understand crop protection technologies are supported by sound scientific research and innovation.

The email I got concluded with a petition: Tell the Pesticide Peddlers: We support Michelle Obama's organic garden. I urge you to sign it!

We are enjoying our own mini organic garden starting to wake up. Actually here in California we've been harvesting a few red bell peppers all winter long. The strawberries are coming along nicely, too, and it's about time to get some more tomato plants!

Computer Museum in a box

2009-04-09T11:48:00.001-07:00

Computer Museum in a box
Originally uploaded by bonbayel.

My husband is going through his closet and finding all sorts of treasures - 5" floppies, wires, strange boxes, software for DOS, Windows 98, speakers, etc. The 5" floppies are way outdated, but what about those perfectly good 3" ones, like the one in the box? It was only about 4 years ago I was handing in homework for a computer class on a floppy. Now we only have one computer in the house that will take a 3" disk. We've been keeping that computer "just in case."

I have a lot of pictures stored on CD's (from before the time of Flickr) and I'm afraid CD drives may soon also be a thing of the past, now that we have thumb drives. CD and DVD technology has also changed rapidly.

Of course there's the grand switch to HD TV that is really causing a pile-up of old TVs and related equipment as well.

Not in the landfill

But we don't want them in landfills. They contain a lot of nasty toxic materials, including PVC wire coverings (burning causes carcinogenic dioxins to form,) brominated fire retardent, lead, cadmium and mercury, as well as other materials that are worth a lot of money in quantity, including copper wire and gold in switches.

We have found a company that will pick it up for us when we've gathered everything. Normally they only pick up from businesses, so we're lucky we live close by.

Our town toxic waste depot does not accept electronics, and Goodwill doesn't either. Those are the places residents normally would turn to get rid of these things.

I suggested to the company who will pick up our wastes that they leave a container at the town waste area for residents to place E-waste. They guy was actually receptive, so I hope it soon will be easier for the rest of us to dispose of all this stuff we've saved, not because we really thought we'd use it again (well, not entirely!) but because we didn't know what else to do with it. Or the thought that some deserving school or non-profit or African village might want our old computer.

We may be using less paper (now that we're - i.e. "some people," certainly not us!... - not even reading paper newspapers or books) but it looks like all this e-waste is going to be even worse. Companies must design recycling into their products, and be willing to take them back.

What happens to recycled E-Waste?

I found this video about what happens to some e-waste from CBS 60 Minutes, Nov 6, 2009. It looks like we can't even trust recyclers who are purportedly recycling "clean" in the US. I wonder what will happen to our stuff. Maybe we should keep it a little longer?

Here's where you can look to recycle e-waste

What to Do About E-Waste from NRDC
California Integrated Waste Management Board where you can search for locations in California.
E-Cycling: EPA site
Electronic Waste - Wikipedia
E-Recycle.org
Zero Waste from the Sierra Club

And some articles about e-waste:

Momentum builds for 'revolution' to recycle electronic waste from Christian Science Monitor
Don't recycle 'e-waste' with haste, activists warn

Beautiful Alberta

2009-03-30T09:51:00.000-07:00

I've been writing about the Alberta Oil Sands and the new film Downstream recently, so I thought I'd see how Alberta likes to present itself to the world, compared with pictures of Alberta I've been seeing recently, like this lovely picture of a fishing lake ruined by oil.

The website Alberta, Canada has lots of lovely pictures of gorgeous scenery, positive green energy (windmills, for example) and certainly wants you to come for a visit. Or you can see even more at Alberta Brand.com.

Maybe you'd like to go fishing? Look what lovely fish you can catch!

Or perhaps you'd like to see the lovely wide-open spaces. Just forget that this used to be forest lands, home of the First Nations, where they could hunt and fish, and enjoy the sunset!

Imagine Clean Energy from Michigan

2009-03-30T09:06:00.001-07:00

Now people are thinking positively!
Let's not think about lost jobs when a coal plant or dirty industry dies.

Let's imagine the new jobs can make a cleaner, happier and more prosperous future for all of us.
Imagine windmills on mountains, instead of removing their tops and dumping them into waterways.
Imagine windmills offshore, keeping the water and clean to fish and play in.
Imagine solar panels on big roofs (and lots of private home roofs) generating electricity for plug-in hybrid electric cars, so we don't have to import oil from the Middle East or from the oil sands of Alberta!
Imagine windmills and solar systems being built in what used to be a dirty old factory building recycled into a clean and positive workplace!

Imagine that!

Coal River Wind Project

2009-03-30T08:48:00.001-07:00

This is how mountains should be used to generate electricity - proudly standing with a crown of windmills along their crests.

Certainly not by tearing them down!

For more about coal, read my many blog entries on the subject.

Why "Clean Coal" is being abandoned

2009-03-27T13:41:00.000-07:00

I just read an excellent article in US News and World Report about "clean coal" technologies and why they won't work : Why Clean Coal Is Years Away But the author doesn't really believe what he's writing.

Coal is here to stay.... America runs on coal. It's cheap, plentiful (at least for another 100 years or so), and comfortingly domestic. Two hundred years ago, it powered the industrial revolution. Today, it spits out nearly half of the country's electricity.

And then after telling how impossible it all is, he writes:

But given just how reliant the nation is on coal power, the only real question seems to be how clean it will eventually become.

The man has blinders on, and can't even understand what his research is telling him!

In a link next to the article I found this encouraging short message, which is Obama finally becoming realistic:

Clean Coal Program Shift Flawed: By Henry J. Reske, Posted March 16, 2009
A Department of Energy decision to alter course on a program to develop a clean coal power plant potentially involving some $1.3 billion in federal funding was "not well considered." That is the conclusion of a Government Accountability Office study entitled "Clean Coal: DOE's Decision to Restructure FutureGen Should Be Based on a Comprehensive Analysis of Costs, Benefits, and Risks." The Energy Department's FutureGen program was originally unveiled in 2003. In partnership with the electric power industry and later with the coal industry, it set as its goal the designing and building of the "world's first coal-fired, zero-emissions power plant." The report finds that the decision to shift from what was originally a research and development project to a commercial demonstration project was not based on a "comprehensive analysis of factors, such as the associated costs, benefits, and risks." The GAO called on DOE to re-examine its decision based on those factors.

So let's use all that DOE research money on renewables, so that even more jobs become available like the one in the next entry!

Renewable Energy Made In America

2009-03-27T13:29:00.001-07:00

This video shows what the Obama green jobs should be all about. Creating jobs for people in areas that have lost jobs from the "old economy" and building up the mass of available renewables, so that the price will fall because of economies of size. I received the video through this link: Repower America, who have a petition for you to sign at that location.

Congress must support bold national policies this year to transition to a clean energy economy and help solve the climate crisis. We urge you to cap carbon pollution to help create the jobs and businesses that will Repower America.

Now that we're finally getting Big Coal backed in a corner, there will be more money available for supporting these really green jobs.

Poll on Mountaintop Removal

2009-03-27T08:49:00.000-07:00

If you should happen to see this today, Friday, March 27, then please go to http://www.wkyt.com/wymtnews and participate in their little poll, which is located in the center column about half way down the page (you have to scroll.) Please vote "No!"

Great News from the EPA about Mountaintop Removal

2009-03-26T20:59:00.000-07:00

On March 24, the EPA decided to halt some new mountaintop removal projects because of their impact on water: streams, lakes and drinking water. In a news release EPA Acts to Reduce Harmful Impacts from Coal Mining they state:

The United States Environmental Protection Agency has sent two letters to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers expressing serious concerns about the need to reduce the potential harmful impacts on water quality caused by certain types of coal mining practices, such as mountaintop mining. The letters specifically addressed two new surface coal mining operations in West Virginia and Kentucky. EPA also intends to review other requests for mining permits.

They appear to have updated the EPA web page on Mountaintop Removal as well.

This is fantastic news! Maybe we can see the end of coal in this country. The website I Love Mountains, a major hub for activity against mountain top removal, is ecstatic!

The latest Sierra magazine has an article Killing King Coal about how some local activists stopped the construction of the Holcomb Station power plant near Garden City, Kansas. As a sidebar to the article, there is an excellent timeline about the use of coal in this country. The last two entries are:

2003 Bush funds the FutureGen Alliance's "clean coal" carbon capture and storage project. Its funding was decreased in 2004, reinstated in 2005, and cut completely in 2008.
2008 Barack Obama is elected president. During the campaign, he supported "clean coal" and the construction of five new carbon capture and storage coal plants.

Let us hope that the next entry reports that President Obama has realized the destruction coal costs neighbors, habitats and the earth.

Another short article in Sierra It Takes a Little Village tells about a young organizer Marisol Becerra, cofounder of Young Activists Organizing as Today's Leaders, from the Little Village district of Chicago. She was incensed at the health problems caused by

two coal-fired power plants in Little Village and nearby Pilsen, ... responsible for 41 premature deaths, 550 emergency-room visits, and 2,800 asthma attacks per year, according to a 2002 Harvard School of Public Health report.

The future will definitely be brighter when we work together to stop coal and dirty oil, replacing them with energy efficiency and renewables.

Downstream from Alberta Oil Sands

2009-03-26T17:07:00.000-07:00

The Oil Sands in Alberta, which are the source of a large portion of the oil we use in this country, are polluting streams that lead to the Great Lakes, and killing off large numbers of birds who are loosing their northern habitat to oil, according to an article Bird Alert in the NRDC's magazine OnEarth.

In the vast boreal forests of Alberta, Canada, as many as 166 million birds - including the Canada warbler (Wilsonian canadensis) - could die within the next 50 years, predicts a December 2008 NRDC report. The cause: the extraction and production of oil from the province's huge tar sands reserves.

A new documentary Downstream about the Oil Sands in Alberta shows how they are also causing drastic health problems for the native Americans living downstream. The video clip above is the trailer, so you can get an idea about the film, and the devastation going on to provide us with oil. Here is part of the PR I received about it:

Controversial environmental documentary Downstream by filmmaker Leslie Iwerks {Academy Award® nominated for "Recycled Life") is a world-wide exclusive feature on independent Web TV service Babelgum which enters the U.S. market this week with a tailored version of its mobile video application and a redesigned Flash-based website. The 2008 Oscar shortlisted film ... relates how one courageous doctor fights for the lives of the aboriginal people residing downstream from the oil sands of Alberta, one of the most polluting and burgeoning oil operations in the world.

"Downstream" has already exposed the 'downstream' health issues of the oil production to a wider audience, and also vexed Alberta's government when they realized their Alberta Film Development Fund had subsidized $67,000 of the film. Intense national discourse and debate over future arts funding and freedom of artistic expression ensued. Due to overwhelming positive feedback from the Canadian premieres earlier this month, the MP leader of the democratic party in Ottawa, Olivia Chow, is hosting a public screening of the film in Toronto on April 14th. The film also screens tonight at the Burbank International Film Festival.

You can read the full press release here. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers has this to say about Downstream.

The Naked Binder

2009-03-19T11:27:00.001-07:00

I just found out about another company besides Terracycle that is using all those recyclables we put into the container to make attractive and useful products - this time binders from recycled paper.

The Naked Binder writes about its products here:

Made from100% recycled board, 97% of which is post-consumer waste with no decorations, plastics, toxins or vinyl. The board is acid free, so it won't harm your contents - whether you are preparing for tax season, working on your novel or storing your child's artworks.

Naked Binder's mission is to create the highest quality and most sustainable products, constantly striving to do better and work to preserve wild and undomesticated nature. We are members of the 1% for the Planet and donate in support of the wilderness.

We believe that good design incorporates function, aesthetics and sustainability so we designed what may be the most eco-friendly binder in the world - strong, good looking and 100% recyclable. Naked Binders feel good in the hand, look good and being made from 100% recycled board our binders have no plastics, no vinyl and no printing. Safe for you, your children, pets and loved ones.

I just ordered a couple to try them out. They look perfect. I hate all the old vinyl ones I have on my (lowest) shelves! Since I will be starting my new teaching career, I'll be needing more binders, so this is my start.

Going through old emails

2009-03-16T19:25:00.000-07:00

Last week was non-stop studying math, so there is an enormous backlog of interesting (and otherwise) emails in my in-box. Several of them are about coal, so I thought I'd list the links I find among the emails that pertain to mountaintop removal and other coal issues.

Most recently is an editorial in today's New York Times: Appalachia’s Agony, which remarks:

The longstanding disgrace of mountaintop mining is now squarely in President Obama’s hands.

A recent court decision has given the green light to as many as 90 mountaintop mining projects in Appalachia’s coal-rich hills, which in turn could destroy more than 200 miles of valleys and streams on top of the 1,200 miles that have already been obliterated. The right course for the administration is clear: stop the projects until the underlying regulations are revised so as to end the practice altogether.

Then there was a petition from The We Campaign to promote the carboncap

Limiting carbon pollution is the next step in the plan to Repower America.

Acting on our scientists' advice to cap carbon dioxide emissions will usher in a new economic era -- creating jobs, launching new businesses, and bringing struggling communities back on their feet -- all while addressing the climate crisis.

Today, we are seeing opponents spin mis-truths in order to scare the public. They deny the need for change. They say we should keep polluting our air.

They're wrong. Clean energy works for America, and it's working.

It's working in Newton, Iowa, which could have been devastated in 2007 when Maytag closed down a major manufacturing plant that had anchored the town for a hundred years. Today, Newton boasts two wind energy farms and opened a new turbine manufacturing plant last year, even amidst grim news from other areas of our economy. That's new jobs for the people of Iowa.

It's working in Greenville, Michigan, where United Solar brought new green jobs in 2006, after Greenville's Electrolux plant announced their move to Mexico. United Solar has expanded in Greenville and will be building another manufacturing facility in Battle Creek.

Friends of the Earth were elated when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called for the U.S. Capitol power plant to stop burning coal.

Friends of the Earth has been working to green the U.S. Capitol complex for years, and last year, we defended Speaker Pelosi's "Greening the Capitol" initiative from attacks by Republican Representative Vernon Ehlers.

And the Sierra Club reported a NYT article Leaked EPA document shows greenhouse gas endangerment finding on fast track with the good news that the EPA is

"fast-tracking its response to the Supreme Court's 2007 climate decision with plans to issue a mid-April finding that global warming threatens both public health and welfare."

Climate Ark has an Action Alert: Coal Kills -- Time for People Power to Protect the Climate about the successful Capitol Climate Action, saying "Today is the beginning of the end to coal."

That really cleaned out my InBox. I hope you'll find some of it interesting, too!

Fighting the coal industry

2009-03-16T18:54:00.001-07:00

In the LinkedIn group "Clean Tech," Marguerite Arnold contributed the following ideas for fighting Big Coal. I thought I'd pass them on here (slightly edited:)

There is no such thing as "clean" coal. Stop the mining and destruction of the mountaintops.

Bruce Vento and Daniel Inouye will be good targets. I worked with them when I saved the largest area of pristine high desert ecosystem in the lower 48, home to 12 endangered species and an Indian Tribe from the Air Force who wanted to turn it into a bombing range.

Also, it's very effective to start carpet bombing the Department of the Interior, the Department of Energy, and of course the White House on these issues (I don't mean that literally of course). When you call the White House, ask for the Council on Environmental Quality Nancy Sutly and send an email to the White House. When you call the agencies, ask to speak to the heads of the departments. Clog the phone lines and send emails. It's not just Congress anymore.

Also...start a UTube viral campaign. Easy to shoot and distribute - do it on your camera. Very effective, particularly on college campuses, particularly because there's no such thing as "clean coal" - a lesson our President apparently needs to be taught from the grassroots up.

I used to love catching the military dumping mustard gas chemicals into the Chesapeake Bay and showing archival FOIA footage of how they tortured animals in nuclear and chemical gas attack tests on national TV. Trust me. Viral video works. Any of these sites near or in Indian reservations or home to endangered species? Just a few ideas to get you thinking. Transpose that with Exxon footage and you have a winner.

Did the "impossible!"

2009-03-15T11:22:00.000-07:00

One thing that seemed impossible (OK, not really) was taking the California Subject Examinations for Teachers in Math so I can become a HS Math teacher at a mature age when everyone else is retiring.

But I took it yesterday (using every minute available) and survived and probably passed. I'll know the results in about 3 weeks.

There is one more math test - in Trigonometry and Calculus - and the History of Mathematics!(!) that I'm aiming to take in May.

After that I will be taking my teaching internship through Claremont Graduate University, also working with an organization called EnCorps, whose purpose is to help the lack of math and science teachers in California public schools by helping to get retirees with math and science knowledge into the classroom.

I will probably start writing about my thoughts on teaching here as well sometime soon, or maybe I'll start a teaching blog. We'll see.

Wish me (and my future students!) luck!

I did start a new blog, and it's called To Do the Impossible. Check it out!

Doing the impossible

2009-03-10T12:23:00.000-07:00

My Sierra Club Daily Ray of Hope today has a very important quote from Nelson Mandela.

It always seems impossible until it's done.

Here are a few things that seem impossible right now:

Stop using coal
Create all our energy from renewables
Ensure that everyone gets the education that will give them opportunities to use their talents and skills for their own and the common good. (Whatever that may be!)
Convert our agricultural system to one that provides nutritional foods to everyone using sustainable methods - without using artificial fertilizers that weaken plants so they require artificial pesticides, and where possible sourcing our food locally. (I know it's hard to source coffee, tea, spices and bananas locally to the US, for example.)
Peace in our time!

So let's get going to get them done!

Ashley Judd asks us to end the destruction of her home in Kentucky

2009-03-04T14:55:00.000-08:00

I thought this was a very appropriate little video today to add to the anti-coal story.

Particularly after I received an email today from Jennifer Pierce, Vice President of Communications & Investor Relations of the Canadian power company TransAlta, in response to an email I sent to her through Credo. She mentions the company Report on Sustainability available on their site. Their CEO Steve Snyder has also just held a recent speech on alternative energy, the future of coal and the long-term potential of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies.

In her email, Jennifer told that "renewable energy accounts for more than 15 per cent of TransAlta’s generation capability", which is laudable, and that they are investing "hundreds of millions in green energy projects over the next five years." But she continues:

But as much as we support and grow renewables, it is a reality that building renewables alone will not solve the climate change problem. Coal and other fossil fuels represent over 60 per cent of the global electricity supply. We must address emissions from this huge installed capacity which will continue to operate for decades.

At the same time as we pursue investments in renewable energy, we continue our work to address the impacts of the fossil fuel side of our business. On the climate change front, one of the most promising new developments is the emergence of new carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies. CCS captures CO2 emissions and stores them permanently in deep underground geological formations. It is our view that CCS is one of the few technologies that can make major greenhouse gas reductions globally in the next 10-15 years, and be applied both to new and existing power plants.

Both the U.S. and Canadian Governments have announced massive CCS initiatives. President Obama recently committed US$3.4 billion to accelerate CCS technology, while Canadian governments have announced CDN$2.8 billion for the same purpose.

The trouble is, the technology won't be available for 10-15 years on any scale, if it can even do that, and in the meantime we could be using that money and brainpower to figure out how to replace those coal-fired plants instead of just patching the leaks.

Let's support Ashley Judd, and make sure the Obama Administration knows we want Moountaintop Removal coal mining banned, coal fired plants retired ASAP, and the money dedicated to CCS used on sustainables instead.

A Call to Action on Global Warming from Dr. James Hansen

2009-03-02T08:53:00.001-08:00

Be sure to go to http://www.capitolclimateaction.org/ to read a lot more about the action today, and to pledge your support.

Let's go Coal-free - today!

2009-03-02T08:30:00.000-08:00

I just got an email from Bill McKibben about the big Coal-Free protest today (see capitolclimateaction.org/) at the coal-fired Capitol Power Plant, which I've written about elsewhere. He asked me to go to 350.org/Coal-Free/ to sign a petition of support that says:

I share your vision of a coal-free future and a safe climate, not only in Washington DC--but all over the world. I stand in solidarity with the coalition of citizens working for a clean energy future for the entire planet.

As I've mentioned many times before, President Obama doesn't get it yet that coal is really dirty! The protest is to help him also understand this important part of the environmental message that he's otherwise been quite receptive to, and working actively to improve. He has two lovely daughters who will be inheriting the mess we've made. Here's some more from McKibben's email:

Here's the backstory: Washington DC has seen its share of big protests over the years, and most of them center on the White House, the Mall or the Capitol.
But today's event is just a few blocks a way from the White House at the the Capitol Power Plant--a dirty symbol of the dirtiest business on Earth, the combustion of coal.
In that one plant -- owned and operated by our senators and representatives -- you can see all the filth that comes with coal. There are the particulates it spews into the air and hence the lungs of those Washington residents who enjoy breathing. There are the profits it hands to the coal industry, which is literally willing to level mountains across West Virginia and Kentucky to increase its fat margins. And most of all there is the invisible carbon dioxide it spews each day into the atmosphere, drying our forests, melting our glaciers and acidifying our oceans.

So please go to Washington today - if you live nearby - to join the protest, and all the rest of us can sign the petition at http://www.350.org/Coal-Free/ to show our solidarity!
Here are some pictures from the headquarters and power plant - and later from the action itself.

The Coen Brothers take on "clean coal"

2009-02-27T10:08:00.000-08:00

The Coen brothers are into the act against "clean coal" with a series of ads, which you can see after you have seen this one. Unfortunately, the entire campaign is about the sequestering part of "clean coal" even though the ad itself shows black coal soot, which "clean coal" doesn't address at all. There's no such thing as clean coal. It's black, dirty, toxic, and lays waste enormous tracts of once-gorgeous landscape.

We are up against powerful forces, including our own president, who otherwise is doing a lot of good things. He hasn't gotten the full picture yet on coal, even though many organizations have been trying to get through to him. This is one issue he's not really listening on. Why?

Two little words: "...clean coal"

2009-02-25T08:00:00.001-08:00

...ruined Obama's speech for me last night. He said them at the end of a long list of sustainable energy sources that would be strengthened under the Stimulus Package - wind, solar, advanced biofuels... and then he said it: "clean coal!" Here is the quote from the speech:

And to support that innovation, we will invest fifteen billion dollars a year to develop technologies like wind power and solar power; advanced biofuels, clean coal, and more fuel-efficient cars and trucks built right here in America.

I want to believe that he hesitated with that. He must know there's no such thing. I had been waiting through the entire speech for him to come to that part, and hoped he'd leave it out. The camera glanced briefly at our new Energy Secretary, who also ought to know better.

At least there was no mention of nuclear power. That would have gone way too far.

But why "clean coal?"

Why aren't the environmental organizations out with petitions this morning already?

Coal does not belong in a list of sustainable energy forms. And clean should NEVER be used in connection with coal. There's no way coal can be clean!

Credo sent and email yesterday "Big Coal is on the ropes, let's go for the knockout," with a new campaign: Tell the Power Companies: Stop investing in Dirty Coal!" They may be slightly over enthusiastic, although there are definite indications that this is getting closer to the truth. New coal plants are not getting permitted, rules about emissions are being strengthened by the new EPA, and it will be harder to remove mountaintops in the future as well. The price of coal-generated electricity will be priced out the of the competition when it has to be "clean." So why is Obama still supporting it? There is no reason to send our tax-payer dollars to do research on such a lost cause!

The latest Sierra Club Global Warming newsletter reports of the new regulation of Coal's Carbon Emissions. Although former EPA Administrator Steven Johnson made a "midnight memo" to the contrary, the new EPA is planning regulation "that new coal-fired power plants could soon be forced address their carbon dioxide pollution, the main cause of global warming."

Now the coal-fired power plants are starting to fall in response. First was AES announcing that it's pulling plans for its 320-megawatt Shady Point coal plant in Oklahoma. Then on Friday, EPA rejected Northern Michigan University's air permit for its proposed coal plant in Marquette and ordered Michigan's Department of Environmental Quality to consider regulating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. . . Tell the EPA to hold off the permit for a proposed 1,500 megawatt Desert Rock facility in Arizona.

Have you noticed the stream of smoke that rises up behind the Capitol - though not while Obama was being inaugurated? That came from the coal-fired Capitol Power Plant, which, according to the linked Wikipedia article, burned 17,108 tons of coal in 2006, producing about 60,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions. They didn't even try to hide it during the Inauguration? What are these people thinking? A group called Capitol Climate Action is also calling to action in Washington on March 2, 2009. I wish I could be there. If it is at all possible for you to be there, please do! Maybe they will understand it better after that!

Make history March 2, 2009 in Washington, D.C.
Be part of the largest mass civil disobedience for the climate in U.S. history.

You know there is a climate crisis. You know we have to solve it. It’s time to take our action to the next level.

With a new administration and a new Congress, we have a window of opportunity. But we have to open it — together.

On March 2, join thousands of people in a multi-generational act of civil disobedience at the Capitol Power Plant — a plant that powers Congress with dirty energy and symbolizes a past that cannot be our future. Let’s use this as a rallying cry for a clean energy economy that will protect the health of our families, our climate, and our future.

This will be a peaceful demonstration, carried out in a spirit of hope and not rancor. We will be there in our dress clothes, and ask the same of you.

It’s time to take a stand on global warming. We can’t wait any longer for the changes we KNOW we can, and must, make today.

Some of us now living will see the day when the remaining coal gets to stay put where it belongs, under those lovely Appalachian mountains or Wyoming hills. I hope I do!

Tar Sands

2009-02-14T11:05:00.000-08:00

Now we're talking about fuel, there's another black horror story besides coal that we have to fight - oil from tar sands in Alberta. Oil from this enormously dirty source is evidently a major portion of the oil we use in this country, not oil from Saudi Arabia. So it is worth our attention - and another reason to support Josh in his search for sustainable biofuels (see the next 3 postings.)

Here is a link to more information, and a protest to President Obama to ask that we not play a part in destroying Alberta forests, homeland to Native Americans. Here is a short excerpt to show what it is all about:

On February 19, President Obama travels to Canada on his first presidential visit abroad, where he will face pressure from the Government of Canada to support production of Alberta tar sands oil. Called oil sands by proponents, tar sands are the very dirtiest of fossil fuels. Producing oil from tar sands emits three times the global warming pollution as conventional oil, requires excessive amounts of energy and fresh water, and destroys huge swaths of ancient boreal forest.

Tar sands development is the most ecologically destructive project in the world. When fully developed, along with its vast proposed pipeline network, tar sands will indefinitely continue North America's addiction to climate destroying fossil fuels, ensuring abrupt and runaway climate change exceeds safe levels. There is virtually no chance of maintaining an operable atmosphere and achieving global ecological sustainability should tar sands production continue or expand.

"Tar sands oil is the dirtiest form of energy in the world. It has no place in President Obama's plans for a clean energy economy," said Sierra Club Dirty Fuels Campaign Coordinator Pat Gallagher. "Tar sands oil accelerates global warming. It destroys forests. It endangers public health. Instead of importing this expensive, dirty oil, we can invest in clean energy that will create millions of much-needed, sustainable jobs."

With the passage of the stimulus bill, numerous companies have projects which were waiting to be financed are ready to get sustainable energy out there to the people, including the company I have been supporting (virtually) for 2 years during its search for financing. If you want to be in line for rental solar panels, just go to Join The Solution and sign up. (Because of the financial stop, you'll still have to wait a while, but things are going to be moving very quickly now!

FUEL (2008) - Official Movie Trailer

2009-02-14T10:58:00.001-08:00

More on the Fuel film

2009-02-14T10:26:00.000-08:00

According to the Wikipedia Article on the "Fuel" film, it started out as a love-song to biofuels called "Fields of Fuel."

According to director Josh Tickell, since Sundance, the film has gone through major editing changes and additions. The name was changed from Fields of Fuel to Fuel. This edited film and is a re-cut of the same film with 45 minutes of new material in its total 100 minute running time.

The discovery that biofuels were competing with food and tropical rainforests caused a major turn-around, which is well documented in the final 45 minutes of footage, where the director Josh Tickell almost brings you to tears in the film's emotional lowpoint, where he asks if all his work has actually been doing more harm than good. But he discovers that all is not lost. The set-back actually makes the film more interesting, particularly since you have a feeling that it has to come sometime, just like even a romance has a parting of ways before the couple finally find each other,

The LA Times had a short review of "Fuel" yesterday, on its opening day in our area (after the sneak preview we saw.)

'Fuel' to the fire of oil addiction
"Fuel" is a vital, superbly assembled documentary that presents an insightful overview of America's troubled relationship with oil and how alternative and sustainable energies can reduce our country's -- and the world's -- addictive dependence on fossil fuels.The film's structure is built around director-narrator Josh Tickell's personal journey of enlightenment, which started in childhood after moving with his family from idyllic Australia to murkier Louisiana, where he came to realize the oil-rich environment was being ravaged by the omnipotent petrochemical industry. Later, as a young adult, he spent 11 years crossing the country in his vegetable oil-powered "Veggie Van," promoting biofuels and compiling footage for what would become this impressively comprehensive film.The events of Sept. 11 and Hurricane Katrina factor in both visually and thematically, providing provocative anchors for the movie's indictment of what Tickell believes is the Big Oil-cozy, ecologically indifferent Bush administration. Johnny O'Hara's WGA Award-nominated script doesn't dwell on muckraking, however; it's more focused on broadly inspiring viewers than preaching to the converted.Interviews with a wide range of environmentalists, policy makers and educators, along with such "green" celebrities as Woody Harrelson, Sheryl Crow and Larry Hagman offer serious fuel for thought -- as well as for action. Smartly animated interstitials, memorable archival material and a lively soundtrack round out the fast-paced proceedings.

Or maybe you'd like this little blurb from the radio station Kink:

The Fuel Film
Thursday, October 30, 2008 - Most Americans know we’ve got a problem: an addiction to oil that taxes the environment, entangles us in costly foreign policies, and threatens the nation’s long-term stability. But few are informed or empowered enough to do much about it. Enter Josh Tickell, an expert young activist who, driven by his own emotionally charged motives, shuttles us on a revelatory, whirlwind journey to unravel this addiction—from its historical origins to political constructs that support it, to alternatives available now and the steps we can take to change things. Tickell tracks the rising domination of the petrochemical industry—from Rockefeller’s strategy to halt ethanol use in Ford’s first cars to the mysterious death of Rudolph Diesel at the height of his biodiesel engine’s popularization, to our government’s choice to declare war after 9/11, rather than wean the country from fossil fuel. Never minimizing the complexities of ending oil dependence, Tickell uncovers a hopeful reality pointing toward a decentralized, sustainable energy infrastructure—like big rigs tanking up on biofuel at Carl’s Corner Texas truck stop, a new Brooklyn biodiesel plant serving three states, a miraculous Arizona algae-based fuel farm, and the Swedish public voting to be petroleum free by 2020. Sweeping and exhilarating, Tickell’s passionate film goes beyond great storytelling; it rings out like a bell that stirs consciousness and makes individual action suddenly seem consequential.

Josh Tickell, a leading expert on alternative fuels, grew up in Louisiana, where members of his family suffered from diseases linked to pollution from oil refineries. After discovering biodiesel, he earned an MFA in film from Florida State University's School of Motion Picture, Television, and Recording Arts to chronicle and vitalize the green-energy movement. He has been working on Fields of Fuel for 10 years. Tickell also authored a controversial companion book, Biodiesel America—How to Achieve Energy Security, Free America from Middle-East Oil Dependence, and Make Money Growing Fuel.

Fuel - the film

2009-02-12T09:31:00.000-08:00

My husband and I were invited to a prescreening of a new film called Fuel at our local Laemmle movie theater. It tells about one person's journey across the US and to China and Europe (and back in history) to figure out how we can replace ugly, dirty petroleum as a fuel.

He starts back in the beginning, with the primordial algae that became oil, and ends now and in the future, with algae farms growing nice clean oil. In between he visits historians, politicians, pundits, scientists, financiers, truckers, school children and even movie stars, of course, to find out what is the right thing.

Through most of the film he is really hepped on biofuels - until, of course the market fell out from under it, in the deepest darkest emotional pit of the movie.

But he quickly rebounds and discovers algae - and solar, wind, energy conservation, public transportation, etc. etc. and how YOU and I can get this going. As someone told him, "Change a light bulb first and then change a politician."

If you enjoyed the movie KilowattOurs you will enjoy Fuel. And there are loads of other great films out there after you've seen these.

I want to conclude with today's Daily Ray of Hope from the Sierra Club:

It is not the strongest of the species that survives,
nor the most intelligent that survives.
It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.
-- Charles Darwin

Addendum:
I just wanted to add (a couple of days later) that there is a fascinating book called Internal Combustion: How Corporations and Governments Addicted the World to Oil and Derailed the Alternatives by Edwin Black, about the early history of the use of petroleum for transportation.

Coal and nuclear can't be a "stimulus"

2009-02-03T18:40:00.000-08:00

Carl Pope in his new Sierra Club blog Take the Initiative wrote about how exicited he is about everything our new President is doing for the environment. However there are a few things we have to keep our eyes wide open about!

I noticed a couple of days ago that the "alternative energy" part of the stimulus package includes some support for nuclear. Today I also read that it includes support for "clean" coal, which I've been ranting about through quite a few posts here.

When you think of all the emails we've sent to our congressmen and senators, and to candidate Obama it makes you wonder how they could continue to waste money on such things, when real sustainables, solar, wind, geothermal, new hydropower and some versions of biofuels, are what will really make a difference, both in terms of jobs, CO2, clean air, our health, and ultimately our personal bank accounts.

Here is the email I received from CREDO Action that mention "clean" coal, with the link they provided to contact your Senators, since the stimulus package is in their ball-court now.) Of course I'm maining interested in their first suggestion, but I agree with the others as well. (The 5th one is there because CREDO/Working Assets competes with Verizon on long distance and cellphones.)

This week, the Senate will consider a mind-bogglingly large stimulus package — the latest figures put it somewhere in the neighborhood of $900 billion. Here at CREDO, we believe a stimulus package this large is necessary because our economy is in dire straits. But there is a right and a wrong way to stimulate the economy. Join us in asking the Senate not to screw up the stimulus in five easy steps:
Get rid of a $2 billion provision for "clean coal" plants. Instead, invest this money in green infrastructure and alternative energy development.
Invest in infrastructure, not tax cuts. Don't reward businesses that got us into this mess with tax cuts that won't create new jobs in the future.
Reinstate the Medicaid Family Planning State Option. Funding state healthcare programs for women will protect jobs of healthcare workers and make sure women living in or on the edge of poverty get the care they need.
Include meaningful bankruptcy reform. Bankruptcy judges should regain the ability to restructure mortgages (that is, lower the amount owed and the interest rate, reflecting the lower value of the house) so that borrowers can stay in their homes.
Don't give Verizon $1.6 billion in tax cuts without generating a single new job. Money originally earmarked to encourage companies to bring high speed internet to underserved low-income and rural communities has turned into a billion dollar giveaway to big telecom.
The stimulus package will never be perfect, nor will it please everyone. However, these five key suggestions can help to make it the kind of package that will truly help our economy and aid those Americans who need it the most.

So here's one more opportunity to fight dirty coal. I hope they listen this time. Otherwise they're just throwing money down the coal mine, or might I say "tilting with windmills?"

Winter idyl

2009-01-19T08:05:00.001-08:00

Path behind Sunnybrook Village
Originally uploaded by bonbayel.

The day after the snow, we were awakened with sunshine and the most delightful dynamics outside as the snow falls off the branches. I've been thinking I should try the video function on my camera to catch it.

I had to go out to clear the snow from my car (until the grounds man here at Mom's retirement home helped me out!) But it was fun walking in the deep snow to get this picture, and even clearing snow off the car is great upper-body exercise.

I love the snow, particularly on a day like today, where it lies without a footprint in it. I remember clearing the snow from our driveway and sidewalk in Denmark, and going out on cross-country skis right from the front door. (But I was younger. I'm not sure my back would appreciate that work now.)

Tomorrow!

I had thought I'd be spending all day tomorrow watching the inaugaration, but my sister pointed out that my plane tickets are tomorrow, not Wednesday as I thought. (I had checked the flight, but it timed out before I ordered it, and didn't check the results well enough, I guess.) But I'll be seeing parts of it on all the screens at the airports. I wonder if they will be able to have it on the screens on the planes?

I don't ever recall so much build-up to an inaugaration before, but this one is very special. We all have placed so much hope and so many expectations on Obama's shoulders, but I think people are also willing to give him some space to get things done. Nevertheless, I expect his first 100 days will be spectacular.

This isn't Southern California!

2009-01-18T11:19:00.001-08:00

View from Mom's living room
Originally uploaded by bonbayel.

I am visiting Mom in Brunswick, ME, for the week, to celebrate her 94th birthday! She has a delightful view over a little pond with the same name, Moose Pond, as the one Mom and Dad lived next to for more than 30 years in Denmark, ME.

I today I got a real treat (for a southern Californian - who doesn't have to go out and shovel!) It's been snowing nicely all day, without being a nasty blizzard. But I am glad that the weather report the next few days means that the roads should be clear before I drive back to the airport in Portland!

Dirty coal keeps flowing

2009-01-09T09:45:00.000-08:00

I always thought that coal was hard rock, like we got in the bottom of our stocking when I was a wee child before we moved to a new house with an oil-burning furnace (Dad and Grandpa both worked for Esso Refineries in NJ at the time.) There are also those who think that liquid coal is the future - part of the so-called "clean" coal myth.

Coal flows, but it isn't clean, as we saw in Tennessee at Christmas, and now in Alabama, where the retaining pond at another TVA plant at Widows Creek was reported overflowing at 10:15 am Central Time today, which you can read here: Second TVA spill reported in Alabama.

Scott Hughes, spokesman for the Alabama Department of Environmental Management said, "The only thing we've got right now is that there was a release from a gypsum treatment operation." "We do understand that some of the material has reached Widows Creek."
The creek from which TVA's coal burning plant gets its name, crosses the plant property. Gypsum is one of the byproducts when special filters capture and treat ash. It can be sold for use in wallboard, but markets have been slow and it like more standard ash can build up in waste ponds."We're in the process of gathering more info and getting a full report."
The Widows Creek Fossil Plant is located on Guntersville Reservoir on the Tennessee River. It has eight coal-fired units and was completed in 1965. The plant consumes about 10,000 tons of coal a day. The ash from that coal was in the pond that broke there.

Yahoo news reports today that Toxic coal ash piling up in ponds in 32 states.

An Associated Press analysis of the most recent Energy Department data found that 156 coal-fired power plants store ash in surface ponds similar to the one that collapsed last month in Tennessee. Records indicate that states storing the most coal ash in ponds are Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Georgia and Alabama.
The man-made lagoons hold a mixture of the noncombustible ingredients of coal and the ash trapped by equipment designed to reduce air pollution from the power plants. Over the years, the volume of waste has grown as demand for electricity increased and the federal government clamped down on emissions from power plants.

So lets help those people downriver from the lagoons in Tennessee, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Georgia and Alabama, and Just Say No to Coal!

Tell Obama to Just Say "No" to Pesticides!

2009-01-08T16:19:00.000-08:00

spring weather & pesticides
Originally uploaded by gribley.

After all the sweetness of the strawberries, I have to remember that the growers most certainly used chemical fertilizers to grow them, which means the plants are most likely not strong enough to combat pests on their own. So they must have used pesticides, too, because I haven't seen them out in the field with a hoe to hack out weeds, or picking off insects and grubs with their fingers.

Which means we have to be very careful with what pesticides are permitted in this country. We don't want a lovely bowl of strawberries to cause cancer, or birth defects in the children of farm workers!

Therefore the Pesticide Action Network and Beyond Pesticides would really appreciate it if you would sign onto their letter to President-elect Obama: Transforming Government's Approach to Regulating Pesticides to Protect Public Health and the Environment. (You have to read/scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page to do so. )

Enclosed for your consideration are priorities for change within key areas of your Agenda for America – priorities that we imagine could be embraced within the first 100 days of your administration. We are pleased to note that many of our priorities overlap with yours, and offer this analysis in an effort to proactively assist in developing an agenda for change in America that prioritizes:
Public and environmental health;
A green and fair economy;
Environmental protection;
Scientific integrity;
Transparency and accountability.
Because of the widespread and unnecessary use of over 5 billion total pounds of pesticides a year, hazardous chemicals invade our lives through the contamination and poisoning of our bodies, air, land, water, food and the built environment.
Recommendations affecting the hazardous production, transportation, use and disposal of hazardous pesticides intersect with numerous federal agencies, including EPA, FDA, USDA and DOJ. It is our goal that the Obama administration embraces both improved chemical restrictions and policies for advancing practices that avoid reliance upon these toxic technologies altogether, thereby eliminating their hazards to public health, workplace conditions and the environment, and their contribution to global climate change.

So you have something positive to do, to encourage Obama in his positive efforts to make American (and the world) the better place we all are looking forward to!

Local Strawberries in January

2009-01-08T16:17:00.001-08:00

Local Strawberries in January
Originally uploaded by bonbayel.

I promised you a positive post today after all the negative.
Driving home from a meeting yesterday I passed the only farm store in our neighborhood (since everything else, except for a few small citrus groves, has been covered with houses (or warehouses, or roads...) - except the Angeles National Forest about 6 miles to the north, of course!

I think the property for this farm is also offered for sale for development, but thanks to the housing market, we can buy strawberries here at least 1 more year!

These strawberries can't compare with the ones I've known in the North, i.e. Denmark and Maine, where they are much smaller, a darker red, red all the way through (these are white inside,) and have a heavenly perfume that you can smell at quite a distance. These smell good if you have your nose within about 6 inches! And for lack of other, they also taste good.

But they do not work in the marvelous Danish summer desert "Rødgrød med Fløde" or "Jordbærgrød!" which you make by cooking the berries in small amount of water until they are mostly juice, adding a little sugar and then thickening them with cornstarch (or potato flour to be authentic.) Served with cream (or milk,)

You can't help wondering why they are growing so well this early in the season, particularly since we've had some cold nights (down to 35 F.) I won't say it, since I'm trying to be positive! (And unfortunately these are not organic - but they are local!)

Just Say "No" to Pesticides!

2009-01-07T13:55:00.000-08:00

Central Valley
Originally uploaded by NC3D.

The Clean Air Act hasn't always been heeded as intended. Usually my present state of California has done what it could because of our enormous pollution problems, which are partly caused by our large population, and industrial and agricultural base, partly caused by inconvenient geography, which boxes in smog with mountain ranges in places like the "Inland Empire" east of Los Angeles, where I live, and in our agricultural Central Valley, where you can see the low-lying smog in the picture.

But California's Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) evidently hasn't been talking with the Air Quality Management Districts (AQMD) because the draft regulations to address pesticides that form smog (giving the Central Valley California's worst air quality, so that you usually cannot see the High Sierra mountain range which borders it to the East.)

So Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA) sent out an email asking us to voice our "opposition in writing by Jan 15th and in person at the public hearings January 12th in Bakersfield and January 14th in Sacramento."

Take Action Now! Demand DPR comply fully with the Clean Air Act by reducing the use of smog-forming pesticides.
Pesticides are one of the largest contributors to smog in the San Joaquin Valley and Ventura County and a major contributor in the Southeast Desert, which includes the Coachella Valley. DPR should prioritize pesticide use reduction because pesticides are highly toxic, causing many mass farm worker and community poisonings, and volatile organic compounds (VOC) from pesticides contribute to smog and fine particulate matter formation. The only guaranteed way to reduce smog-forming, particulate matter-forming, and toxic emissions from pesticides is to reduce pesticide use.

So there you are - all three posts today say "NO!" Please read all three, sign the petitions and do whatever else you can to protect us and our environment. I will try to find something positive for my next post!

Just Say "No" to Coal!

2009-01-07T13:36:00.000-08:00

I've been writing a lot about the Tennessee Coal Sludge disaster, and received another email about it today from Friends of the Earth, with the encouraging news that yesterday's New York Times had a front page report Hundreds of Coal Ash Dumps Lack Regulation about all the other dumps just waiting to become a disaster. The article includes a map of dumps (look for one near you!) a link to the E.P.A. Report: Coal Combustion Waste Damage Case Assessments, a slide show and a video, Coal Ash Spill Raises Broader Questions.

The email from Friends of the Earth asked for our help to make Congress aware:

Coal is dirtiest form of energy there is -- a fact that's underscored by the disaster in Tennessee. And there is only one solution. We must transition away from our use of coal. Will you help us send this message to Congress today?
Too many members of Congress still don't understand how serious this problem is. They need to hear from you, their constituents, that coal is public enemy number one. A ban on new coal-fired power plants is needed immediately, and we must rapidly phase out existing coal facilities and replace them with clean energy alternatives and energy efficiency.

So please read more about it, add your name to the petition to Congress, and even write a letter to the editor of your local paper to help your neighbors (and your politicians) learn more about why coal has always been dirty, and no modern technology can make it "clean" even if it can sequester small amounts of CO2 from burning coal.

Just Say "No" to Vilsack!

2009-01-07T12:54:00.000-08:00

I really am sorry that this blog has become so negative recently. I am looking forward to the coming years when there will be wonderful positive things happening. But we aren't there yet!

First of all, Obama has nominated Tom Vilsack as Secretary of Agriculture. Here is part of a couple of emails I received from Organic Consumers Association about Mr. Vilsack and this job:

President-Elect Obama's choice for Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, will be responsible for directing the U.S. Department of Agriculture and its $90 billion annual budget, including the National Organic Program, food stamp and nutrition programs, and agriculture subsidies. But you can help stop his confirmation. . .
Far from representing the "Change" which Obama has promised, Vilsack has a disappointing record of promoting controversial genetically engineered foods, biopharm crops, and animal cloning, as well as cheerleading for unsustainable biofuels derived from corn and soybeans. In addition Vilsack has come under fire for aiding and abetting chemical and energy-intensive industrial agriculture, including Iowa's infamous Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). . .
Please join the Organic Consumers Association and help us stop Vilsack's Senate confirmation and lobby for a Secretary of Agriculture that reflects our organic and social justice values. Urge your friends and family to take action today: http://www.stopvilsack.org/

I just found an AP article about Vilsack online which implies that there has been "little opposition." We must make sure that the opposition to him is heard!

Vilsack confirmation hearing set for next week
By MIKE GLOVER Associated Press Writer, 11:30 PM CST, January 5, 2009
DES MOINES, Iowa - U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin says the confirmation hearing for former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack as the nation's next agriculture secretary will be on Jan. 14. President-elect Barack Obama chose Vilsack for the post. Harkin, an Iowa Democrat who chairs the Senate Agriculture Committee, predicts an easy confirmation for Vilsack.

Since leaving office, Vilsack has taught at Drake University's law school in Des Moines and has been a consultant with a variety of clients. ... Though Vilsack hasn't had a broad history with agricultural issues, his appointment has stirred little opposition and his confirmation is likely to be routine. If he wins confirmation, close attention will be paid to who he selects from Iowa to help him run the agency.

At fooddemocracynow.org you can read about their suggestions for Under Secretary of Agriculture, who will have to be very strong to stand up to Vilsack's friends in companies like Monsanto.

Dirty, Dirty Coal continues

2009-01-06T12:35:00.000-08:00

One of the editorials in the The LA Times today is Coal ash -- a Tennessee wake-up call. They write

Of all the environmental and health problems caused by coal -- mining it destroys rivers and blackens miners' lungs, and burning it emits climate-changing gases, toxic pollutants and heavy metals -- perhaps the least recognized until recently was the solid waste it generates. The Kingston Fossil Plant in Harriman, Tenn., had a pile of ash covering more than 100 acres and rising 65 feet, the product of more than 50 years of operations. More than a billion gallons of it poured out Dec. 22, marking the nation's worst coal plant spill.

and compare coal burning with cigarette smoking - the one ruins our bodies, the other our environment. They also compare the spill with the oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara in 1969, which effectively put a stopper to more oilwells off the California coast. They hope that this spill will finally be the eye-opener to get us off "cheap" coal power, by finally requiring environmental regulation that will make coal more expensive than the renewables that are trying to replace it.

However an email I received today from Laurie David of http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/ calling Coal Plant Spill Worse Than Exxon Valdez: "It was the largest coal slurry spill in U.S. history, and the amount released was more than 50 times larger than the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill," is less confident when she writes: "Yet the story has not received the level of press coverage it deserves," which others have also noted. Nevertheless, she, too, concludes on a hopeful note: "Hopefully the spill will ignite the debate over the environmental safety of coal power plants," although I could find no mention of the spill on their site.

Don't let climate change divert us from combating other environmental dangers.

My worry is that, although the dangers of climate change are invigorating environmental activists, the entire goal of activism is now is to combat climate change, forgetting entirely all the other issues that have driven environmental activists, since 1990 under the umbrella of "sustainability:" our wilderness, since Thoreau and Teddy Roosevelt, and toxics since Rachel Carlson wrote Silent Spring, with its outing of DDT (and then other agricultural chemicals) as more detrimental than beneficial. More recently Ralph Nader started the interest in consumer security, which also involves the use of chemicals in food, clothing and other products.

Let's fight coal for all these reasons:

CO2
habitat destruction
toxic substances
water quality
quality of life
"thinking globally while acting locally,"
all the personal reasons the people in coal country, or downwind from a coal fired plant may have.

Dirty, Dirty Coal

2009-01-05T18:18:00.001-08:00

The Tennesse Valley Authority tried to calm residents near the Kingston Fossil Plant ash spill, saying that the water wasn't dangerous. Reminds you of the EPA saying that the area around Ground 0 wasn't toxic!

Some members of Appalachian Voices and Waterkeeper Alliance's Upper Watauga Riverkeeper Program decided that this was not something they wanted to trust TVA with, so they took their own samples and had them tested at the Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry labs at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC, by Dr. Shea Tuberty, Associate Professor of Biology, and Dr. Carol Babyak, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, who you can see in the video.

Concentrations of eight toxic chemicals range from twice to 300 times higher than drinking water limits, according to scientists with Appalachian State University who conducted the tests.
"Although these results are preliminary, we want to release them because of the public health concern and because we believe the TVA and EPA aren't being candid," said Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., chair of the Waterkeeper Alliance.

You can read more at www.ilovemountains.org/tvaspill/, and access the preliminary report on the same page.

No matter how you treat the CO2 that comes from burning coal, there are so many other aspects of coal that some people are just ignoring, like mountaintop removal, poor working conditions, polluted streams, and the dangers of retention pools, both for the ground water, and for accidents like this one in Tennessee and earlier ones in Kentucky and elsewhere, where entire villages have been wiped out by spills.

There is NO WAY to make coal energy clean. Our goal now is to ensure that no new coal-fired plants are built, and to make sure that existing ones can be phased out ASAP. This is possible by coordinating two different methods:

hastening the use of renewables, like solar, wind, geothermal, some biofuels (algae) and new minimally invasive hydro-power systems.
learning how to conserve energy - and that means me and you! Turn off lights, insulate, install a programmable thermostat, purchase Energy Star appliances, including light-bulbs, TVs and refrigerators for starters. (No plasma TV, please! LCD is much more energy efficient!) The current Time Magazine has a cover article Wasting Our Watts with everything you need to know about efficiency. The good thing is that you will save a lot of money on energy costs, and some states have rebates for energy conserving products.

Bill Moyers interviews Michael Pollan

2008-12-28T16:13:00.000-08:00

I just watched this video about the Food Industry Challenges That Obama Needs to Address in which Bill Moyers interviews Michael Pollan, author of several books about the food industry, including The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals and In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. I had linked to it yesterday in a post about Obama's Agricultural Secretary choice. When I finally had time to watch all 45 minutes, I found it so compelling that I thought I'd embed it here, so you'd be more likely to find it.

Please note that although there are many who would like to see Pollan as the next Agriculture Secretary, he figures he would not have the political skills to do the job. He recommends that Obama should make a new post of Food Czar to work holistically with food, agriculture, health, energy and global issues, separate from any particular Department, rather like his new Energy and Environment Czar.

B the way, the LA Times editorial today, Obama's well-stocked Cabinet indirectly includes Vilsack in its praise. I wrote a letter to the editor about the one rotten apple in the cabinet. You might want to, too.

Food and Water watch answers my question

2008-12-28T09:32:00.000-08:00

As if in answer to my question in the previous post asking whether we have to become vegans (eating processed faux meat) I received yet another email today asking for the usual year-end tax-deductible support, this time from Food and Water Watch with a great message from Chef Rocky Barnette, their Chef/Restaurant Liaison, which I figured I might as well just quote here (with the link requesting support:)

My great-grandmother raised me in North Carolina. I grew up in her kitchen and I had the hospitality gene passed on to me. She had a produce stand and cooked from traditional ingredients. Looking to re-create those dishes and memories, I started working in restaurants when I was 15. I have been a professional chef for 10 years - my expertise is in Southern regional cuisine.
This season presents a special challenge for cooking. Without the bounty of the other seasons, I have to be especially creative. I have to think about what people want to eat and then reinvent and innovate recipes for delicious soups, hearty foods, lentils, cassoulets: flavorful, nourishing dishes.
Another challenge to good, nutritious cooking is finding healthy, safe ingredients. In my work reaching out to independent and chef-owned restaurants around the country for Food & Water Watch, I'm talking to people who have the capacity to determine trends in cooking and eating. My goal is education - education on sustainable seafood, on the benefit of using local organic foods over imported factory farm ingredients and on how to find local or regional food sources. The chefs learn they will benefit by serving fresher, better-tasting food that is less expensive because it doesn't have to be hauled from halfway around the world. The public also benefits because local businesses are supported and our food is healthier. Healthier food in restaurants supports the community and improves our quality of life.
In my work, I see the American palate changing. It's changing so fast - the public is leading the demand for better food. My job is to reach out to chefs and help them meet these consumer needs. This effort is gratifying because I advocate for the dining public, the chefs, and local businesses, and in so doing help renew the American relationship to good, nourishing food. . . .
P.S. Find out what's on my New Year's menu and make your donation now.

So the answer to my question is that I can still eat meat, and I will continue to eat my usual small portions interspersed with ovo/lacto but non-meat meals. But I will also continue to eat organically produced food, and look for local products as well.

Local Agriculture in the "Inland Empire"

The definition of "local" has to be stretched a little for us in Southern California. They have taken almost all agricultural land in the area and planted houses instead, many of which have not been sold, or are in foreclosure. I pity the people who live in the ones built on former dairy cattle lots, because when the weather is humid, going for rain, and the wind in our direction, it all smells definitely bucolic here, 10 miles away!

I expect the people living on former vineyards are doing better. They are also up the hill in places like Fontana, while the cattle yards are at the bottom of our hill, in Ontario and Chino.

That all reminds me of the international flavor agriculture brought to our area. The dairy farms were mostly owned by farmers from Holland, and there are still a large number of Dutch names in the area. What are left appear to be taken over by new Latinos, taking over where earlier Spanish immigrants had their large ranchos 200 years ago!

On the other hand, Fontana was settled by Italians, who came west from Pennsylvania to work in the Kaiser Steel Mill, which was only recently dismantled. (Now there are malls and office parks there.) But some of them figured they could grow grapes here, just like back in the old country, so this area became the largest wine district in the world, in particular at Guasti, mass-producing wines way before Gallo. But there are few vineyards left, like Joseph Filippi Winery and Galleano Winery in Cucamonga. I understand that the local wines became very sweet in our hot dry climate, which is no longer popular, and now there are other parts of California that have taken on the challenge of world-class wines, leaving us with empty houses! The closest new wine district is in the Temecula area, in the mountains on the way toward San Diego.

Upland, where I live, was an agricultural offshoot of Ontario, founded by the Canadian Chaffey brothers, who later went on to help found the town of Mildura in Australia, which is now our sister city. Upland and other neighboring towns up the hill from Ontario had vast citrus groves. Now there are just small remnants of these groves, mostly as small private plots.

Reject Obama's choice for Secretary of Agriculture

2008-12-27T14:17:00.000-08:00

There is so much to do in the Department of Agriculture. President Obama needs the correct information about food as well as energy, economics and climate change. His currect choice for Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, cannot give him the correct information. Please go to Organic Consumers Association website to Oppose Tom Vilsack's Confirmation as Secretary of Agriculture. There you can read why:

While Vilsack has promoted respectable policies with respect to restraining livestock monopolies, his overall record is one of aiding and abetting Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) or factory farms and promoting genetically engineered crops and animal cloning. Equally troubling is Vilsack's support for unsustainable industrial ethanol production, which has already caused global corn and grain prices to skyrocket, literally taking food off the table for a billion people in the developing world.

And then you can go here to hear about the real Food Industry Challenges That Obama Needs to Address in this Bill Moyers interview of Michael Pollan, author of several books about the food industry, including The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals and In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto.

Do we all have become vegans?

Following a link in my blog entry about Natural Flavorings a couple of days ago, I came across the site Mercy for Animals, which offered to send me a Vegetarian (actually, vegan!) Starter Kit booklet, which came yesterday. It starts out graphically showing how poorly animals are treated on factory farms, using that as the reason for becoming vegan. The brochure offers some recipes to help you get started at being a vegan. After you've read my bit about Natural Flavorings, how do you fancy "Sweet and sour meatballs" made with "ground beef substitute (try Lightlife Gimme Lean)," or maybe Fried "chicken" using "mock chicken (try Worthington Foods Chic-Ketts or White Wave wheat meat)" - or the holiday favorite Tofurkey? (tofurky roast ingredients) I prefer eating a much unprocessed organically grown food as possible, including butter instead of margarine! (Looking for a link about margarine was interesting. Note the comments about the Wikipedia article or check out margarine.org.)

However, I think humans were created omnivores, just like Michael Pollan, and the correct solution would be a complete make-over of the way animals are raised and slaughtered, as well as prepared for sale. In other words, the Department of Agriculture has a lot to do, not just figuring out how to use farmland to provide alternative energy, which I think is Mr. Vilsack's biggest agricultural interest.

Please, President Elect Obama, select a Secretary of Agriculture who is eager and knowledgeable to change agriculture, so I don't have to run all over the place to find acceptable food products, or feel guilty that the animal products I am eating come from animals whose short life was miserable!

The Black Christmas in Tennessee

2008-12-27T13:27:00.001-08:00

A couple of days after the fact, my husband told me about the sludge spill in Tennessee, ruining Christmas for all the families in its wake. Somehow, it was not considered Breaking News by the LA Times, and I think not even Front Page news the next day.

That's why it took a while before it sank in that everything we've been saying about dirty coal isn't all that newsworthy at Christmas time, even though this blogger used the title I wanted to use here: Coal In The Stocking - And The Drinking Water already on the 23rd, the day it happened. As is quoted in his blog:

"Coal can never be clean."

There will always be sludge from the plants that has to be stored somewhere (using what used to be clean drinking water, or a lovely fishing stream.) Coal has to be mined (by very few - non-unionized - miners) leaving the lives of their neighbors dirtier and poorer.

United Mountain Defense: No Such Thing As Clean Coal: The un-natural disaster is keeping close tabs on the disaster and the people it has affected. If you'd like to contribute to help them, there is a opportunity at the bottom of the page.

TVA is advising families to boil water however they are not informing anyone about the reasons for needing to boil the water or sharing any chemicals that may be present in their water.
TVA has reported that preliminary water test show that the drinking water at the nearby water treatment facility meets standards, but lots of community members have well water or depend on water being pumped from a spring located in the flooded area. There is also still the potential for more sludge to enter the water supply thorough waste runoff.
TVA says the area is not toxic but you can see coal sludge in the water and dead fish on the banks. The members of this community are without clean water and many without electricity or gas heat. We met people who were given motel rooms by TVA and others on the same street that have been without heat for days in 27° weather and others who have been vomiting for more than 12 hours after drinking the water.

Here are a few more articles with pictures about the sludge spill:

From CNN: Tennessee sludge spill runs over homes, water
From It’s Getting Hot In Here: This is “Clean Coal”: Massive Coal Sludge Spill Dwarfs Exxon Valdez Disaster
From Truth Out: Flood of Sludge Breaks TVA Dike

Coal is dirty!

The Sierra Club magazine this month has an article called The Dirt on Coal: A messy business comes home to roost, showing graphically how much of the dirty stuff we consume personally to live our daily lives. The editorial "Rant" eggs on Obama, who evidently is still listening to those who think they can innovate methods to make coal clean.

And if Obama clings to the belief that there might be such a thing as "clean coal," Sierra's crackerjack art staff could step in to show him the pictures at right. If they need dust masks for a photo shoot (see "The Dirt on Coal"), Mr. President, coal can't be all that clean.

They're thinking of sequestering the CO2, which is very unlikely to be possible in the continued scale needed. They're not thinking of towns buried under sludge, lovely Appalachian mountain tops removed and pushed into streams.

Is This How Americans Change?

2008-12-27T12:40:00.000-08:00

This cartoon in the LA Times today caught my attention, because a lot of what I've been writing about is change, and having lofty ideas, and then running into a lot of resistance in the end.

The cartoon is rather ironic, because during my many years in Denmark I would praise America's dynamic capability for change, which I attributed to the fact that we are an immigrant / pioneer / pilgrim nation. Our ancestors and our neighbors came here to change their lives, since they couldn't live the lives they wanted "back home." So they came here and many put up with great hardships to get what they wanted. Some of course hoped that their hard work would at least enable the next generation would attain "IT" even if they never quite got IT themselves. For many this meant rethinking the way they "always did things" to achieve this one thing they couldn't get or do in their old life or location.

These new Americans were go-getters, changers, activists. But maybe we've done so well that the newest Americans just want things like "we" created, and have no further desires.

The cartoon isn't really about reluctance in changing how much we eat and exercise, although that's part of it. It's also about changing what we eat, how it's produced. It's not just about how much energy we use, but how it's produced, or about how much we travel, but how we travel, and how the vehicals we travel in use energy. (Read all the other messages in my blog to find out what I'm getting at.)

The new Obama America has to become the old, innovative, explorative, tolerant America. (I know, some of that is history book myths, but we believed in them when we were schoolchildren!) Lets get out of our armchair and clean up the mess we've produced (by innovators, to be sure,) getting the whole picture about what our food, energy, travel, etc. mean, not just to us personally, or to America, but to the whole globe.

Happy New Year of Change!

"Natural Flavor" for your holiday meal?

2008-12-20T13:49:00.000-08:00

Have you ever wondered what "Natural Flavor" means when you see it on packaged meats from reputable firms at your favorite grocery store? Brands like Safeway, Foster Farms, Krogers... I kept looking at them and wondered why they have to add any flavoring to meat! The 29 years I lived in Denmark I got spoiled with meat, since my first husband's family were mostly farmers. We had meat right from the farm usually. In the last 10 years I lived there, we could also get organically grown, free range poultry, pork and beef.

Twice when a supermarket staff member was near, I asked what those words "Natural Flavor" meant. They hadn't a clue. One thought it might be salt.

That means I have mostly been buying meat at a local store called Wolfe's in Claremont, although it is too far away to walk, so I only get meat there if I'm there for some other purpose as well. That means a lot of meat-less meals when it's my turn to cook!

So finally I decided it was time to investigate the situation. I found what looked like a very helpful flyer called Natural Flavorings on Meat and Poultry Labels from the United States Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service, Food Safety Information. Here I could read this interesting information:

What substances or ingredients can be listed as “natural flavor,” “flavor,” or “flavorings” rather than by a specific common or usual name?
Ingredients such as ginger, black pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, celery powder, and garlic oil may be listed as one of the three categories mentioned above. They may be designated as “natural flavors” because they are substances used chiefly for flavor. They do not make a nutritional contribution, are not derived from an animal species, and there are no health concerns linked to them.

Note that bit in red, and read on!

The next thing I found was an article from the Michigan Daily, Mystery meat: Preparation processes upset those wanting meat-free meals dated September 29th, 2003. It starts out:

Last spring, University alum Supriya Kelkar noticed something peculiar about her vegetarian Lipton pasta sauce. It tasted distinctly "meaty," she said. She examined the back of her label and none of the ingredients contained meat, but the words "natural flavors" gave her pause.
Concerned, Kelkar, a vegetarian, got in contact with various manufacturers including Campbell's soup division and Unilever Best Food Services, Lipton's parent company. In a series of e-mails, both Lipton and Campbell's acknowledged that some products, even those believed to be vegetarian, could contain dairy, egg or meat products.

Then I discovered a very interesting blog called A Lucid Spoonful, Thoughts on the culture, history and policy that informs how we eat, where the blogger had finally decided to investigate the situation.

Natural flavoring, under the Federal Code of Regulation is: “the essential oil, oleoresin, essence or extractive, protein hydrolysate, distillate, or any product of roasting, heating or enzymolysis, which contains the flavoring constituents derived from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof, whose significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional.”
Sure these are all natural items to begin with, but then why is the flavor industrial complex (which also includes makers of HFCS [High Fructose Corn Syrup]) shrouded in secrecy? Often it is in the mix, which can contain chemical solvents which "disappear" after being used, or rotting fruits or vegetables, boiled down and distilled for the last bits of flavor they have left.
International Flavors & Fragrances, Givaudan, Haarmann & Reimer, and Takasago are four of the world's top flavor companies, all located conveniently in New Jersey. They keep their boiling witch's brew a 'trade' secret, and don't want the public to know exactly who their clients are so that we only associate the taste of what we eat with the product. They make artificial flavoring too, with which we could be getting any chemical combination under the sun, tricking us into thinking grape Kool-aid is actually made from grapes. Or what makes a Jelly Belly pop with flavor all from a little bean.

That explains what Supriya Kelkar had discovered, that those "natural flavoring" can legally contain even extracts from "edible" meat, despite the assurances against this in the Department of Agriculture flyer!

If you really want to read about this, you might find this Directive document useful: QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS RELATING TO INGREDIENTS THAT MAY BE DESIGNATED AS FLAVORS, FLAVORINGS, NATURAL FLAVORS OR NATURAL FLAVORINGS IN THE INGREDIENTS STATEMENTS ON THE LABELS OF MEAT AND POULTRY PRODUCTS
It presents a new term here: The Proprietary Mix Committee (PMC)Letter, which the above-mentioned flavor companies get to keep their concoctions a secret.

QUESTION: If the processor has a PMC letter, must specific flavor ingredients be identified on the label submittal form?
ANSWER: No, the processor need only identify the ingredients of the flavor mix as specified by the PMC letter. The label approval can be handled more efficiently if a copy of the PMC letter is enclosed with the label application, but this is not required.

A friend just gave me another related government link, the regulations for the GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) food category. (She told me she heard about it from Michael_F._Jacobson, a fascinating guy, who coined the terms "junk food" and "empty calories." He is a vegetarian and sits on the national board of the "Great American Meatout." After doing this bit of research, I understand why.)

What are the criteria for GRAS status?
Under sections 201(s) and 409 of the Act, and FDA's implementing regulations in 21 CFR 170.3 and 21 CFR 170.30, the use of a food substance may be GRAS either through scientific procedures or, for a substance used in food before 1958, through experience based on common use in food.
Under 21 CFR 170.30(b), general recognition of safety through scientific procedures requires the same quantity and quality of scientific evidence as is required to obtain approval of the substance as a food additive and ordinarily is based upon published studies, which may be corroborated by unpublished studies and other data and information.
Under 21 CFR 170.30(c) and 170.3(f), general recognition of safety through experience based on common use in foods requires a substantial history of consumption for food use by a significant number of consumers.

When you think that Rachel Carlson published Silent Spring in 1962 and that all the pesticides and fertilizers came into use during the 50's, I'm not sure that 1958 is a good cut-off year. Some time before WWI might be more appropriate! (Mustard gas was first used in WWI, the beginning of chemical warfare, and the rise of the chemical industry.) Or how about margarine, which goes even further back?

I went by Wolfe's today to order a locally grown roasting chicken for Christmas, but they weren't sure the farm would deliver. (Guess it's not a factory farm, then, thank goodness.) And then he suggested a Foster Farm chicken, which they also carry. But I told him about the "Natural Flavors" in them, which really surprised him. I promised to bring him some of the information I included here next time I come.

When even the butchers in the little local shop you trust don't know, and when the Department of Agriculture deliberately lies in its flyer on the subject, it looks like it's every wo/man for her/himself. Check those labels and be sure to inform your butcher about what those "Natural Flavors" are. Maybe some day we'll be able to get pure unadulterated organic, grass-fed, locally grown meats whenever we want them. If course there are good environmental reasons to avoid meats entirely, but I haven't gotten there yet.

I hope that you can find a nice locally grown turkey right off the farm for your holidays! And if you are a vegetarian, you might be getting meat in your tofu-turkey, so you'd better "check [the label] twice to see if it's naughty or nice!"

Evaluating the alternatives

2008-12-19T09:53:00.000-08:00

I found this interesting article in Renewable Energy World, a great newsletter about the great variety of renewables. Wind, Water and Sun Beat Biofuels, Nuclear and Coal for Energy Generation, Study Says. The author reviews an research report by Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford, for which a large number of alternative energy sources were evaluated to find the best way to get the most energy from these sources, based on a number of variables.

The best ways to improve energy security, mitigate global warming and reduce the number of deaths caused by air pollution [, he says,] are blowing in the wind and rippling in the water, not growing on prairies or glowing inside nuclear power plants...[while] "clean coal," which involves capturing carbon emissions and sequestering them in the earth, is not clean at all.

"The energy alternatives that are good are not the ones that people have been talking about the most. And some options that have been proposed are just downright awful," Jacobson said. "Ethanol-based biofuels will actually cause more harm to human health, wildlife, water supply and land use than current fossil fuels." He added that ethanol may also emit more global-warming pollutants than fossil fuels, according to the latest scientific studies....

The raw energy sources that Jacobson found to be the most promising are, in order, wind, concentrated solar (the use of mirrors to heat a fluid), geothermal, tidal, solar photovoltaics (rooftop solar panels), wave and hydroelectric. He recommends against nuclear, coal with carbon capture and sequestration, corn ethanol and cellulosic ethanol, which is made of prairie grass. In fact, he found cellulosic ethanol was worse than corn ethanol because it results in more air pollution, requires more land to produce and causes more damage to wildlife.

My son sent me the link to a video with Bjørn Lomborg (see below) where he agrees entirely with Jakobsen that it is ridiculous to put food in gas tanks, when there are other, better, ways to spend our environmental dollars.

I love to read the comments to any article, because they sometimes provide extra insight, and sometimes show how people seem to read with tunnel vision. At the end, I added my own comment:

As [one of the commentors] Jay Rosenberg says, you have to take "scale, location and logistics" into consideration when considering alternate fuels.
I expect that Mark Jakobsen did include them in connection with "not only their potential for delivering energy for electricity and vehicles, but also their impacts on global warming, human health, energy security, water supply, space requirements, wildlife, water pollution, reliability and sustainability."
Obviously, where there are great thermal resources, such as in Northern California, they would rank higher than some other resources. Wave energy isn't much use as a local resource in the midwest. Wind has to be supplemented with something else when the wind doesn't blow - but the newest 3 MW turbines allow much greater generation of energy per acre than small 50 kw models, of course!
As we can read here (and elsewhere) the logistics and output of solar power will vary from area to area. I assume that these have all been part of Jakobsen's equations. We don't need just one type of energy, but many, so that it can be sourced as locally as possible.
I, too, am much distressed at Obama's selection of energy and agriculture people enamored of ethanol. I think Vilsack's job as Agricultural Secretary must be to remove subsidies from factory farms and support organics more. Ethanol is the baby of factory farms and their lobbies. I don't think Vilsack is the person for the job. Strange that agriculture and energy are being discussed in the same sentence!

And then there's Bjørn Lomborg

Bjørn Lomborg has made a career about being the "Sceptical Environmentalist" using statistics to prove his point. In that way, what he has been working on is very similar to Mark Jakobsen's - trying to find out how to spend best to provide the greatest benefit for the buck.

In this video, taken at a conference sponsored by the Libertarian Reason Magazine, Lomborg (who previously was the darling of global warming sceptics) repeats again and again that global warming (or, as I prefer to call it, Climate Change) is occuring and will cause casualties. But he believes that we should be spending more money on research at this point to find the best ways to alleviate it, while, as the same time, using resources now being spent on inefficient alternatives on things like improving nutrition for poor people, painting streets and roofs with reflective material and providing more green areas in cities to reduce heat build-up in urban areas, which are demonstrably hotter than the surrounding countryside, all of which are laudable to should be implemented. (He even suggests that it would be cheaper to provide little old ladies with air-conditioners, so they don't die of the inevitable heat, and that we stop the hunting of polar bears, which kills more than climate change right now.)

Lomborg compares the cost of each of his individual recommendations with the total costs of installing renewable energy. The equation would be different if he added up all the costs of his alternatives, and subtracted the benefits of developing renewable energy, like providing jobs, making the energy network more secure, replacing what will soon become very expensive petro-fuel (because of dwindling resources,) etc. This is all, admittedly an enormous equation. But Lomborg loves to make economic models, so that could be his next big project - not picking one thing over another, but figuring out what the proper mix of all of it is. Just like Jakobsen is not suggesting that we should only invest in wind-power, but in the proper mix, based on price, geography and other factors.

Support Fair Pay for Women

2008-12-17T15:31:00.001-08:00

Women and men increasily perform the same jobs in the workplace, but that does not mean that they receive the same pay for their work. Sometimes the same jobs are categorized differently, or women don't get beyond middle management. We all know examples of this, which is why http://outofthewayoffairpay.org is starting a campaign to improve the situation. The organization that is "in the way" is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Watch the video, and try out the little app below, and then contact your local Chamber of Commerce to tell them what you think about equal pay for equal jobs.

George W. Bush's Nightmare Before Christmas

2008-12-16T13:05:00.001-08:00

See the LA Times editorial today Bush rewrites the rules about some of his nasty Christmas dirty tricks.

Clean Slate Energy Agenda

2008-12-15T18:49:00.000-08:00

The Sierra Club is asking you to sign a new petition to President-elect Obama asking that he adopt their Clean Slate Agenda. As they say:

Obama can jumpstart a clean energy economy and start reducing global warming pollution immediately by doing the following:
He can end the rush to build new coal plants by directing his EPA to require all new power plants to limit their global warming emissions.
He can direct his EPA to approve plans by 18 states to require clean cars.
He can direct his EPA to end mountaintop removal mining by stopping coal companies from dumping rock and waste into valleys and streams.
He can restore America’s international leadership in the fight to end global warming by publicly committing the US to cut its CO2 emissions at least 35% by 2020.

Since two of these are directly related to many entries I have posted on this blog about coal, one includes California's (and 17 other states') efforts to do what the Federal government wouldn't - and should be adopted at the Federal level) and the last just makes sense, I urge you to go to http://action.sierraclub.org/CleanSlate yourself and sign the petition.

Yes, we can make America a leader again!

President-elect Barack Obama and former Vice President Al Gore discuss

2008-12-11T12:58:00.001-08:00

President-elect Obama, by calling to Repower America, is removing (almost) all my fears of American's energy future.

I say "almost" because he (and Gore) have never specifically said "no more coal"! That's why Wendell Berry and Bill McKibben are calling for a demonstration in March to call attention to coal-fired power plants.

Maybe there soon will be

Joy to the World
and Peace on Earth to All People!

No more coal fired power plants - demonstration in DC

2008-12-10T14:16:00.000-08:00

Letter from Wendell Berry and Bill McKibbon

Dear Friends,
There are moments in a nation's and a planet's history when it may be necessary for some to break the law in order to bear witness to an evil, bring it to wider attention, and push for its correction. We think such a time has arrived, and we are writing to say that we hope some of you will join us in Washington D.C. on Monday March 2 in order to take part in a civil act of civil disobedience outside a coal-fired power plant near Capitol Hill.
We will be there to make several points:
Coal-fired power is driving climate change. Our foremost climatologist, NASA's James Hansen, has demonstrated that our only hope of getting our atmosphere back to a safe level˜below 350 parts per million co2 lies in stopping the use of coal to generate electricity.
Even if climate change were not the urgent crisis that it is, we would still be burning our fossil fuels too fast, wasting too much energy and releasing too much poison into the air and water. We would still need to slow down, and to restore thrift to its old place as an economic virtue.
Coal is filthy at its source. Much of the coal used in this country comes from West Virginia and Kentucky, where companies engage in "mountaintop removal" to get at the stuff; they leave behind a leveled wasteland, and impoverished human communities. No technology better exemplifies the out-of-control relationship between humans and the rest of creation.
Coal smoke makes children sick. Asthma rates in urban areas near coal-fired power plants are high. Air pollution from burning coal is harmful to the health of grown-ups too, and to the health of everything that breathes, including forests.
The industry claim that there is something called "clean coal" is, put simply, a lie. But it's a lie told with tens of millions of dollars, which we do not have. We have our bodies, and we are willing to use them to make our point. We don't come to such a step lightly. We have written and testified and organized politically to make this point for many years, and while in recent months there has been real progress against new coal-fired power plants, the daily business of providing half our electricity from coal continues unabated.
It's time to make clear that we can't safely run this planet on coal at all. So we feel the time has come to do more--we hear President Barack Obama's call for a movement for change that continues past election day, and we hear Nobel Laureate Al Gore's call for creative non-violence outside coal plants.
As part of the international negotiations now underway on global warming, our nation will be asking China, India, and others to limit their use of coal in the future to help save the planet's atmosphere. This is a hard thing to ask, because it's their cheapest fuel. Part of our witness in March will be to say that we're willing to make some sacrifices ourselves, even if it's only a trip to the jail.
With any luck, this will be the largest such protest yet, large enough that it may provide a real spark. If you want to participate with us, you need to go through a short course of non-violence training. This will be, to the extent it depends on us, an entirely peaceful demonstration, carried out in a spirit of hope and not rancor. We will be there in our dress clothes, and ask the same of you. There will be young people, people from faith communities, people from the coal fields of Appalachia, and from the neighborhoods in Washington that get to breathe the smoke from the plant.
We will cross the legal boundary of the power plant, and we expect to be arrested. After that we have no certainty what will happen, but lawyers and such will be on hand. Our goal is not to shut the plant down for the day: it is but one of many, and anyway its operation for a day is not the point. The worldwide daily reliance on coal is the danger; this is one small step to raise awareness of that ruinous habit and hence help to break it.
Needless to say, we're not handling the logistics of this day. All the credit goes to a variety of groups, especially EnergyAction (which is bringing thousands of young people to Washington that weekend), Greenpeace, the Ruckus Society, and the Rainforest Action Network. A website at that latter organization is serving as a temporary organizing hub: http://ran.org/get_involved/powershift_and_mass_civil_disobedience_updates/
If you go there, you will find a place to leave your name so that we'll know you want to join us.
Thank you,
Wendell Berry, Bill McKibben

This is one of 4 blog entries I've written today on environmental issues. Please read all of them!

Sustainability or Saving the World from Greenhouse Gases?

2008-12-10T10:09:00.000-08:00

I have noticed that some environmental organizations have acquired tunnel vision. They are so concerned about solving the global issue of climate change that they forget the local issues of pollution, toxicity, destruction of homelands and invaluable natural settings, or even the pesticides people use on their lawns.

Sustainability with its emphasis on

Think globally, act locally!

is lost in the struggle to save our planet. But if in the meantime we ruin the planet we are trying to save, poisoned its inhabitants with toxic chemicals, and destroyed homelands and habitats, we will have nothing left to save.

Mountaintop Removal

Ignoring Mountaintop Removal while praising "clean" coal (Mr Obama, I'm talking to you!) is one egregious example of forgetting the people on this planet. I have written about this often on the blog, including one of the other 2 entries today. Please read more about this issue if you aren't aware of it yet.

Pesticides

Another issue came up recently when an environmental group connected with a college I support did not have the time of day for reports on toxic pesticide use on campus, brought by a cancer-survivor alumna who happens to live in the college town. They were all caught up in supporting laudable capital projects like LEEDS buildings, and energy saving dorms. I'm pleased to report that responsible people on campus, whose staff are affected by these toxics, have been very interested in the information and contacts she has provided them. Pesticides Activist Network is working on it. Click the link to read their priorities for an Obama Agenda.

This is one of 4 blog entries I've written today on environmental issues. Please read all of them!

Dirty Coal

2008-12-10T10:05:00.000-08:00

All this talk of "clean coal" also has to stop. Politicians (and that includes Mr. Obama!) seem to have completely ignored the dirt and destruction of the coal mines in Appalachia and other places when they praise the concept. Even if someone did figure out the technology for clean coal (which is next to impossible on the scale needed) the mines will still be destroying one of our most beautiful landscapes, the mountains of Appalachia, and the homes and homelands of (poor!) people who have lived there for generations! I understand that the mountains they are removing are never the ones in full view of the Interstates and the homes of the comfortable middle classes of West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, who tend to ignore the destruction going on in their own states, and vote what the Big Coal owned media tell them to do.

NPR ran a "conversation" about this as well: Gore Group, Industry Butt Heads Over 'Clean Coal' but Gore also ignores the major issue. As Teri Blanton wrote me:

I just don’t like it when the argument gets stuck here. Sequestering the carbon still does not make coal clean....unfortunately the focus is just on what comes out of the stacks as long as they keep this debate going the true cost of coal does not get to surface like the destruction of the oldest mountains on earth, the desert and the upper mid west farmland. and the destruction of fresh water resources.
Please go to the [NPR] site and blog about it or write about. Someone tell Al Gore to look at the entire death march of coal....

That is what I am trying to do here on my blog, as well as is in comments I leave on other blogs.

You can watch the ad Al Gore is sponsoring on "Clean" Coal, or read a lot of facts about "Clean Coal" on a site sponsored by the We Can Solve It campaign from the Reality Coalition (a project of the Alliance for Climate Protection, with support from our friends at the The League of Conservation Voters (LCV), the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and the Sierra Club.)

But, as Teri points out, this organization unfortunately does not include mountaintop removal in its case against "Clean Coal." See also The Dirty Side of Coal from Scientific American.

Please check out my other entries on this topic through my labels list.
This is one of 4 blog entries I've written today on environmental issues. Please read all of them!

Mr. Obama, We Need Change in the Energy Market!

2008-12-10T09:18:00.000-08:00

The quoted message below was written before I hear about President-Elect Obama's choice for Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, who, according to the Reuters article Obama starts filling energy and environmental team " was an early advocate for finding scientific solutions to climate change and had guided the laboratory on a new mission to become the world leader in alternative and renewable energy research, particularly the development of carbon-neutral sources of energy." I found a PowerPoint presentation by Chu on Alternative Energy Sources from 2005. I am very hopeful now that we will be able to go forward to become a leader in working with Climate Change.

Furthermore, he has selected Nancy Sutley, Deputy Mayor for Energy and Environment of Los Angeles, to head the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Former Environmental Protection Agency chief Carol Browner will take on a new position coordinating White House policy on energy, climate and environmental issues.

Neither of these is the head of the EPA, so that position is still to be filled. These are exciting times! But thank you, President-Elect Obama, for allaying our misgivings and selecting these competent people with their hearts and minds (apparently) in the right place!

I have been receiving a continuous flow of emails from environmental organizations with their recommendations to President-Elect Obama for our future energy sources, and for the environment. These include such admirable concepts as "cap & trade," using the Big 3 Buyout (from the Sierra Club) to get them to build more environmentally friendly vehicles, supporting solar, wind and geothermal in a big way as part of the economic incentives package.
But even before the new government works on cap & trade and other energy issues, Obama has to select an Energy Secretary. This person must believe whole-heartedly in this kind of change. He must not just be green-washing a life of dirty coal, destruction of homelands and habitats, as the coal industry and the power companies that use coal currently are doing. He must not be professing that "clean-coal" is just around the corner (because it's not!) or believe that our real low CO2 future lies with nuclear.
We have to do everything we can to make sure Mr. Obama picks the right person. So far he is not on the right track. Unfortunately, according to Al Kamen in the Washington Post, Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers is on his short list, Next on Obama's Dance Card, Mother Nature. Kamen says that a decision could be announced this week, so we have to be fast.
According to an email I received this week from a Teri Blanton, who lives in Kentucky, but has managed to escape her Harlan County childhood home (who told me she "shuddered" when she read this):
Rogers would not be "change we can believe in". As head of one of the largest U.S. power companies, Rogers' idea of change is finding creative ways to "green-wash" while building coal and nuclear plants and limiting energy efficiency and renewables. Environmental and consumer groups in states where Duke operates have been challenging Rogers' actions, which grossly contradict his PR-crafted image as a visionary concerned about climate change.
Please contact all the environmental organizations you can think of, asking them to work together to create a short-list of visionary and acceptable people for this job. The new Secretary must not have any connections to the currect power, nuclear, oil or coal industries! We've been there, done that, and it's been a catastrophe!
Here are some more links about Rogers:
Duke Energy CEO: Coal not going away CNET April 13, 2008
A Green Coal Baron? fromt he NYT June 22, 2008
Rogers and Me, An interview with Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers, by Amanda Griscom Little on Grist 04 Apr 2007
Duke Energy CEO Rogers Calls For "Paradigm Shift" to Realize Full Potential of Energy Efficiency Edison Electric Institute February 12, 2007
The email I received recommended emailing comments through the Obama website: http://change.gov/page/content/contact/ which I have already done. Please do so as well!