Last spring, I spent an entire semester working for Congressman Ed Markey, chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. I can say unequivocally, that out of 435 members, Markey is our biggest champion in the United States House of Representatives. Many other members of Congress are still supporters of the coal industry, and I encourage you all to read this article in The Hill, about the recent Subcommittee hearing on “clean coal.”
Markey is different. He understands that coal is not clean, and during a recent hearing for the Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment, Markey gave the coal industry an ultimatum. Essentially, Chairman Markey challenged the coal industry to prove that coal-fired power plants will not harm our environment.
We all know that coal can never be clean. Extraction of fossil fuels harms communities across our country, threatens ecosystems, and destroys mountains and watersheds. Congressman Markey held a hearing with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., highlighting the destructive nature of the coal industry (See RFK Jr.’s Testimony and Video). He also held two hearings with youth testifying about coal and our future (in 2007 and 2009). To top it all off, Congressman Ed Markey introduced legislation last year to place a moratorium on all new coal-fired power plants without emissions controls. This is a great step, with Congressmen Markey and Waxman leading the way to a clean and just climate future.
We need to put pressure on the fence-sitters and our opponents, who think that continuing to use coal-fired power, with or without CCS, is an option for our future. Congressmen Markey is in our camp – we need to convince his other 434 colleagues to take as bold of a stand against the powerful coal industry as we have seen him take over the past few years.
I plan to spend the rest of my life fighting for a clean and just climate – whether its through CALPIRG’s campaign to clean up the Port of Oakland or standing in solidarity with my friends to close down Capitol Hill’s coal fired power plant. Attacking our biggest champion in Congress will not help us achieve our goals, but putting pressure on the other members of Congress is the way to make the future, we envision, a reality.
I think all too often these discussions become short-sighted in focusing on carbon in the atmosphere: the problem we are dealing with is much larger, a symptom of patterns of racism, colonialism, patriarchy, human domination over animals and the earth, and other forms of oppression. If we ask for the very institutions that have perpetuated this problem to give us a solution, we’ll prop up the systems that we seek to combat.
The solutions that they are trying to give us fuel these systems of oppression — whether it be clean coal technology or Markey’s proposal for new coal plants with the “best available technology”, which is just another false solution. This is hardly the hand that feeds us: it’s the hand that seeks to perpetuate inequality.
(For more background info on false solutions, check out Rising Tide’s new False Solutions booklet at http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/special/fsbooklet.pdf)
“If we hold up banners saying climate change kills and we want more government action, the very power groups driving the destruction will cheer and might give us even more carbon finance or agrofuels. Instead, we need to mobilize against the false solutions and for real, meaningful actions that will actually cut emissions and deliver climate justice…The time for marching for ‘global action on climate change’ without denouncing the false solutions and the drivers of climate change is over.”
-Simone Lovera, activist with Friends of the Earth Paraguay and the Global Forest Coalition
I agree with Pete. We spend a lot of time trying to get politicians and corporations to solve the very problems they created. Then in turn give us false solutions like clean coal and agrofuels. It’s like asking your heroin dealer to help you kick your addiction and he then shifts your addiction to crack.
Pete and Sparki,
My discussion focuses on the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere because I believe that should be our first priority. Now, before I get denounced for not elevating “the pattern of racism, colonialism, patriarchy, human domination over animals and the earth” as the top priority let me explain myself.
The climate crisis needs to be solved first. By 2020, the world needs to make dramatic reductions in CO2 emissions to prevent run-away climate change – at which point there will be NO more solutions (these numbers are usually 25% reductions below 1990 levels worldwide). If we don’t achieve these reductions through any means possible the consequences for lower-income communities and people in developing countries are devastating. Rejendra Pachari, the chairman of the IPCC, says that without immediate reductions in CO2 emissions, by 2020 almost 2 billion people won’t have access to clean water. That threatens international stability and billions of more people.
Fixing the current economic paradigm we live in will be done through baby steps within the political process. We need to stop using coal. But we won’t be able to shut down all the coal plants in the next 10 years, that is unrealistic. What we do need is co2 reductions to prevent larger consequences, and we need to work within the system to achieve these reductions in the next 10 years.
There will be time to address inequality, destruction of communities, and fixing our economic system. But we need to prevent run-away climate change or the entire human race will be destroyed.
We need climate legislation in 2009. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Gabriel, or anyone that may know Markey’s politics as well as you may, what is his stance on natural gas?
Thanks
Deirdre,
I’m not sure what his position on new natural gas is, but his iCAP bill includes ng. As a result, most ng would become economically unsound and reduce the use overall.
If you want more specific info, call his office at 202 225 2836.
-gabe
I listened in on the Energy and Environment hearing of Tuesday, March 10.
Not only was the witness panel stacked with industry reps (and only one rep from NRDC, who from his comments, one could have assumed he was backing coal), but not a single Representative or witness stood up and said “Coal is dirty, there are better options”.
Not even your “Champion” Ed Markey. In fact, here is a direct quote from Markey’s statement:
“Carbon capture and storage – or “CCS” – offers a path forward for coal, an opportunity for the U.S. economy and a bridge to a low-carbon future. CCS generally involves capturing CO2 emissions at the source, and disposing of the CO2 in deep geological formations. All indications are that CCS is a viable interim solution to the coal problem. CCS could also dramatically increase domestic oil production – by providing abundant CO2 for enhanced oil recovery. Ultimately, CCS can go beyond geological disposal. For example, Silicon Valley-based Calera Corporation is proposing to convert captured CO2 into cement. That technology could be a game-changer – a win-win solution that would dramatically reduce cement’s carbon footprint while sequestering billions of tons of CO2 from power plants.
All these advances are possible, but only if we enact the right policies to drive innovation. The economic recovery package passed last month includes $ 3.4 billion in advanced coal technology funding – much of which will be used for CCS demonstration projects.”
CCS Markey? Really? Yup, he said it – “a path forward for coal”, a “win-win solution”. Way to really stick it to the industry, Ed…
Oh ya, that’s definitely the kind of bold leadership I want to celebrate. Let’s get one thing straight, Markey is not in it to take big steps forward for humanity’s sake. Markey is in it for Markey. He loves the attention…feels he deserves it. Loves the sound of his own voice and seeing himself of TV.
Really though. Tell me one thing that Ed Markey has actually accomplished after all these years of talking.
I live in Massachusetts. Ed Markey won’t publicly support Cape Wind. Ed Markey gets red in the face when asked to support Cape Wind. Talk about being a champion – he won’t actively support the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions ever proposed for his HOME STATE that would create an entire industry in Massachusetts. He won’t meet with his constituents – including a fantastic community group that has done more to reduce emissions in his district than any other local organization I’ve seen. HE WORKS FOR THEM! I personally collected THOUSANDS of postcards from citizens asking Markey to be a champion for clean energy and make the easy decision to support Cape Wind and make MA a leader. Clean Power Now, Greenpeace, and other grassroots groups in MA collected 8,000 postcards from 8,000 individuals…he would not meet with us, he never responded to our delivery. No letter, no email, no courtesy whatsoever.
I attended a conference put together by enthusiastic youth in Massachusetts where Ed showed up to speak. It rained that night and the plenary that night was poorly attended. Ed didn’t think it was worth his time, there was no press, so…he left.
Let’s face it. Continuing to woohoo and high-five eachother every time Markey graces us with his presence will not accomplish anything. Ed Markey needs to be pushed…hard. Or challenged in office. Hyping up students about combating climate change while simultaneously encouraging king coal to pursue CCS is hypocritical and wrong. Ed Markey is a politician – his status as a climate change “champion” should inspire us to hold him to the highest standards possible.
“Markey is not in it to take big steps forward for humanity’s sake.”
I really hope you are joking here.
CCS must be an option. China is building one new coal plant A WEEK. YES, ONE PER WEEK. If we don’t figure out how to make CCS cost effective, the world is doomed.
SO yes, 3.4 billion for new coal research, lets do that. It pales in comparison to the 80 BILLION to clean energy research and clean energy tax breaks.
Again, the perfect can’t be the enemy of the good. This fight is going to take decades, not months or years. And we need to be strategic and look at the big piture when we go about targetting.
He is being strategic. By bringing in the coal lobby (with pressure from OTHER members in the committee), by debating an important issue for our energy future, he is also appeasing the opposition. The coal industry knows that they are on a tight timeline, and Markey has let them know that.
Markey is looking at the big picture. Even Vice President Biden said that we don’t want coal here, we want to capture China’s emissions. CCS must be figured out, for China, and Markey recognizes that as part of the bigger picture.
The image of a “hand that feeds you” nicely captures the undemocratic position we find ourselves in. This is a practical debate that those of us on the left must confront, and that has no easy answers. Yale sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein just wrote a short piece in a series for the Nation that helps put some context on the debate here about support versus criticism using the example of popular political power in Brazil:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090323/wallerstein
“The MST would be a good model for the US left, if we had anything comparable in terms of a strong social movement. We don’t, but that shouldn’t stop us from trying to patch one together as best we can and do as the MST does–press Obama openly, publicly and hard–all the time, and of course cheering him on when he does the right thing. What we want from Obama is not social transformation. He neither wishes to, nor is able to, offer us that. We want from him measures that will minimize the pain and suffering of most people right now. That he can do, and that is where pressure on him may make a difference.
The middle run is quite different. And here Obama is irrelevant, as are all the other left-of-center governments. What is going on is the disintegration of capitalism as a world system, not because it can’t guarantee welfare for the vast majority (it never could do that) but because it can no longer ensure that capitalists will have the endless accumulation of capital that is their raison d’être. We have arrived at a moment in which neither farsighted capitalists nor their opponents (us) are trying to preserve the system. We are both trying to establish a new system, but of course we have very different, indeed radically opposed, ideas about the nature of such a system. ”
The economic system will not be changed by babysteps because is already in motion much faster than that as even the likes of Thomas Friedman “Hot, Flat, and Crowded” and Newt Gengrich “Contract with the Earth” are trying to jump in at the head of parade they have long opposed. This is a sign of their weakness and an opportunity for us to find our strength.
Being late, I won’t go into great detail: many of China’s new power stations are being built in order to satisfy China’s industrial demand to produce an ever increasing number of products for those of us in the global north who live energy-intensive lives; using the number of plants also misrepresents their cumulative effect, as a great deal of these are smaller than the behemoth power stations that exist here.
If you’re going to harp on about the neccessity of CCS (carbon capture & sequestration) while also discounting other issues to push carbon emissions to the forefront, keep in mind that even the strongest proponents of this techno-fix admit that they won’t be seeing this for at least 20 years, a timeframe that we cannot allow for. Quite frankly, carbon capture and sequestration is a flat-out scam brought to us by the very same people who are responsible for creating the climate crisis. The answer is simple: leave fossil fuels in the ground.
“Don’t bite the hand that feeds you?” WTF? That sounds like something a segregationist said back during Jim Crow to civil rights workers. The role of the activist is to challenge the power-holders and the status quo. To imply that we are somehow subservient to a politician is contrary to social movements seeking democracy and justice, if anything they WORK FOR US.
Maybe you want to spend your days begging politicians for crumbs, but the rest of us would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.
Markey has long been a supporter of LNG in addition to solar and wind. It is not that he is evil (though do not ask any of my engineer colleagues…), but Everet is in his district and has an LNG port. He would not get re-elected by going anti-LNG.
As for the doom of capitalism, I think the famous quote on Mark Twain could be paraphrased [reports of its demise are exaggerated]. It is not a perfect economic system, but it seems to work not as badly as alternatives that have been tried.
Mitch,
comparing my post to what a segregationist said during jim crow is simply uncalled for and disrespectful.
i am an activist and i do challenge the status quo, my point is that we should challenge our opposition, not the member of congress who is with us on 90% of our agenda. challenge the climate deniers, skeptics, etc…
did you even read the post and conversations on this topic?
im not begging for crumbs from a politician, im strategically building relationships that will help us achieve our goals. we need to move past the angry bush era mindset – obama is on our side, he wants to create millions of green jobs, stop climate change, bring in a new era of clean energy. its time we start working with our allies
Wallerstein is referring to capitalism as it has developed world-system, there have certainly been many premature eulogies, and it quite possible, as Wallerstein notes in the full article, for much a much more brutal version to arise.
Yet as of last night, El Salvador seems to be yet another nation to disagree with Mr. Margolis after asking the question “works better for whom?”
So, if we are going to quote Mark Twain, an outspoken anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist, on the matter I would imagine he would prefer this one:
“Who are the oppressors? The few: the King, the capitalist, and a handful of other overseers and superintendents. Who are the oppressed? The many: the nations of the earth; the valuable personages; the workers; they that make the bread that the soft-handed and idle eat.” -1886 speech to The Knights of Labor
Certainly we need government regulation and other checks on pure capitalism to avoid excessive social problems (e.g., those criticized by Mark Twain…), however my guess is that even El Salvador is not going to completely get rid of private property and private exchange of labor and capital. Even countries such as Sweden remain mostly privately held and run economies. I am not a laissez faire capitalist, but I have not seen a system that can entirely eliminate profit and private capital and still function (i.e., exchange goods and services efficiently while giving people opportunities for better lives).
To bring this back to the carbon issue, profit can be destiny’s bait as well as its curse. Any solution to the carbon problem will have capitalistic elements as well as the non-profit side of the economic house.