It’s Getting Hot In Here

2 years ago I and several friends shut down construction at the site of the Cliffside Coal Plant in North Carolina. It was April 1^st, Fossil Fools Day. After public hearings, petitions, legislative efforts, and protest failed, we knew we had to do something to up the ante in the fight against coal plants in this country. So it was that we found ourselves locked to Duke Energy’s bulldozers on that dark, drizzly morning.

Did we permanently stop the Cliffside construction site? No. However this action, along with the countless other actions like it by groups around the country, have greatly increased the cost, both politically and economically, of building coal plants in this country. While the construction at Cliffside continues, I feel confident that our direct actions, and those of others, is in part responsible for the wave of coal plants that have been canceled in the US (100 and counting).

No doubt utility companies and state governments pursuing new coal plants took note of the fight against Cliffside and decided that the constant controversy and harassment was not worth it (of course the recession and prospects of CO2 being regulated has helped as well). Well its 2010 and Fossil Fools Day is once again rounding the corner. We’ve witnessed the spectacular failure of Copenhagen, the Obama administration time and again capitulating to big business, and corporations doing there best to stall our efforts.

Yet we’ve seen inspiring resistance around the country, from Climate Ground Zero’s relentless direct action campaign against mountaintop removal to citizens shutting down Chevron’s refinery in Richmond, CA. The question is: What are you going to do to raise the stakes on April 1^st?

www.fossilfoolsday.org

If you live in the Southeast and want to do something for the struggle against mountaintop removal coal mining come on over to Atlanta March 1st to tell the EPA to ban MTR.

End Mountain Top Removal!

* Rally for the Mountains in Atlanta *

1:00 pm Monday, March 1^st

EPA Region 4 Headquarters
Meet outside the Sam Nunn Atlanta Federal Center
61 Forsyth Street, SW
Atlanta, GA 30303

To date, the practice of mountain top removal coal mining has leveled more than 800 square miles of mountains across Appalachia, destroyed over 2,000 miles of freshwater streams, and poisoned and displaced countless communities that call the mountains home.  Each working day, 3,000,000 pounds of explosives are used against the mountains of West Virginia alone.

It is time to end this tragedy.  On March 1^st, join Asheville Rising Tide, Rainforest Action Network and other allies as we demand that the EPA do their job to protect the land, water, and livelihoods of Appalachian coalfields residents.  EPA’s Region 4 office in Atlanta has the power to stop granting new mountain top removal mining permits, and the EPA nationally has the power to ban this devastating practice forever.  They need to hear from us!

Help shine a spotlight on the central role that our regional decision-makers play in perpetuating the practice of mountain top removal.  Come out on March 1^st and show your support for the mountains and communities of Appalachia!

For more information, check out www.ran.org, dirtymoney@ran.org or call 828-280-3462.

To continue recent IGHIH discussions on language and framing, as well as responding to a surprisingly long debate on ‘whether renewables can solve it’ in the comments of my last blog, I wanted to share this extract from ‘Beyond Yes We Can’ – a piece that I wrote this time last  year,  in a period of post-Poznan reflection.

Post-Copenhagen, much of what I wrote then still applies.

“The Language of Certainty”

The choice on whether or not to speak with certainty and faith about ‘winning’ and ‘success’ on climate change is similar to our choices of language around the effects of climate change. Consider, for example, the difference between the two sentences:
Continue reading ‘Framing: “We’re going to solve it”‘’

Originally published by The Stanford Review

“If you gave me only one wish for the next 50 years,” declared the world’s wealthiest man during last week’s TED 2010 conference, “I can pick who is president, I can pick a vaccine… or I can pick that [an energy technology] at half the cost with no CO2 emissions gets invented, this is the wish I would pick. This is the one with the greatest impact.”

Bill Gates is right. And he is not just talking about the impact on climate change, which does of course present a major threat. He is also talking about one of the most critical global imperatives to make poverty history: making clean energy cheap.

“If you could pick just one thing to lower the price of to reduce poverty, by far you would pick energy,” said Gates in his introduction. Gates should know as well as any development expert, since the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation – the world’s largest transparent private foundation – has invested billions of dollars in extreme poverty alleviation since 1994.

Nearly 1.6 billion of our fellow human beings have no access to electricity, and around 2.4 billion people – over one third of global population – meet their basic cooking and heating needs by burning biomass, such as wood, crop waste, and dung. “Without access to modern, commercial energy, poor countries can be trapped in a vicious circle of poverty, social instability and underdevelopment,” concludes the International Energy Agency.

Continue reading ‘Make Poverty History: Make Clean Energy Cheap’

Last Tuesday DC was lucky enough to host an all-star panel of global justice activists in a panel discussion called “Evaluating Copenhagen: What it Means for Ecology, Economy, and Equity“, convened by leading movement organizations and moderated by Ray Suarez of PBS.

Among the panelists were leaders and experts of the global justice movement like Martin Khor from the South Centre, Maude Barlow from the Council of Canadians, Victor Menotti of the International Forum on Globalization, Chair of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, and Gopal Dayaneni from Movement Generation. You can view the full event online here, or by clicking the image below. I’ll discuss some highlights and possible movement-building lessons.

Movement-Melding in Copenhagen

The experts left very little doubt that the fight to avert climate catastrophe is the fight for the direction of the global economy.

Climate justice + development justice + trade justice = true global justice. Continue reading ‘Justice Beyond Copenhagen’

Pittsburgh youth aren’t waiting to kick-off their Define Our Decade efforts.  They launched it this past week with “Rustbelt Renewal: a town hall forum on the promise of a clean energy future.” More than eighty young people and community members engaged with a distinguished panel on the issues of climate legislation and building a clean energy economy.   The four panelists were Congressman Mike Doyle; Patrick McMahon President of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 85; Dr. Constantine Samaras of Carnegie Mellon University and RAND Corporation; and Bob Wallace, director of Penn State University’s BioBridge Program.

The panelists touched on the importance of educating the masses, changing mindsets around energy usage, and how creating clean energy jobs could boost the local economy. Congressman Doyle explained how “the US will benefit from a green revolution,” and spoke about Pittsburgh’s importance as a hub for the new clean energy economy saying, “there doesn’t have to be a trade-off between a healthy environment and a good economy,” because clean energy jobs are just “good business sense.” The sentiment shared by all panelist was that even if we’re wrong about anthropogenic climate change, we’ll still have made the best economy in the world.

Continue reading ‘Pittsburgh youth kick-off what Congressman Doyle calls a “swell of grassroots action”’

Sarah Palin may be right about the whole hope and change thing, but what are you gonna do about it?

Right now three pro-mountain activists sit in jail on excessive bails.  Two of those three began a hunger strike today in protest of those excessive bails.

The legal system is loaded against people fighting King Coal in Appalachia. Over the past year, we’ve seen excessive “cash-only” bails for non-violent activists in jail and excessive fines once their legal matters are settled.

Now two of the three activists arrested last week at the Marfork Coal Company’s offices are fighting back against their excessive bails ($5000 for two and $7500 for the third activist, Mike Roselle).

These folks are putting their health and safety on the line in resisting big coal and the corrupt legal systems. In the very least, please donate to help Climate Ground Zero fight King Coal in southern West Virginia.

BEAVER, W.Va.—Tom Smyth, and Joe Hamsher, from Charleston, W.Va., began a hunger strike in jail today in protest of the absurdity of their $5,000, cash-only bonds compared to that of violent criminals. Smyth and Hamsher went to jail last Thursday when they chained themselves to office furniture in Massey’s Marfork Mining Co., office in response to mounting permit violations and the continued blasting on Coal River Mountain. They also presented a citizen’s arrest warrant to Marfork president Christopher Blanchard, on charges of attempting to injure by poison, malicious or unlawful assault or assault of a child near a school, and wanton endangerment. Continue reading ‘Two Jailed Pro-Mountain Activists Stage Hunger Strike Against Excessive Bail’

“How’s that hopey, changey stuff working out for you?”

These are the words of contempt Sarah Palin aimed at the Obama Administration two weeks ago, but she may as well have taken shot at the climate movement.

The Copenhagen negotiations were largely a flop.  Climate legislation has stalled out in Congress.  Red States and Fossil Fuel Corporations are suing the EPA to revoke their authority to regulate emissions.

In 2008, millions of Americans were inspired by the message of Hope: hope that government can change, hope that yes, we can change the direction of this country.  Many of those people have now become disappointed, jaded, disengaged.  They hoped for change and they didn’t get it.  But as Mrs. Palin so eloquently reminded us, that hopey, changey stuff isn’t working so well right now.

Why isn’t it working?

Continue reading ‘When Sarah Palin is right’

Written by Taj Schottland, a member of the College of the Atlantic delegation to the Copenhagen Climate Negotiations this past December

When discussing climate change, liberals love to cite facts. We believe facts can’t be argued with. Scientific facts are neither political manipulations nor individual opinions. They are well-reasoned, neutral statements that will convince any rational person – provided the person understands them. This is what we believe. But have you ever tried to “lay out the facts” to a climate skeptic? You probably didn’t get very far. Likely, regardless of what you said, they countered with some unfounded argument. In the end they weren’t swayed and you were left frustrated because they couldn’t see the logic behind your brilliant argument. Why did your facts fail to convince them? After much thought, I believe I have an answer.

George Lakoff, a renowned cognitive linguist and political thinker, asserts that people reject facts that are outside the frame with which they see the world. That frame, or framework, is often created by values that are instilled during childhood. The frame ensures that we see the world, and only the world, that agrees with our values. In other words, we block out facts and reasonable arguments to ensure that our core values are justified. The frame alters the reality that our senses detect.

Continue reading ‘Climate Security: How to Frame a Winning Argument’

Cross-posted from Hip Hop Caucus

Tour Launch at Dillard University

Great start to the Hip Hop Caucus Clean Energy Now! Bus Tour. Rev. Yearwood, joined by D. Woods, Gloria Reuben, DJ Biz Markie, and community and student leaders, rallied with hundreds of students on Dillard University’s campus in a call for clean energy.

The tour bus arrived at Dillard University at noon. As the sound systems were brought online and the music began to play, students gathered in anticipation of the events to come.

Continue reading ‘Hip Hop Caucus Clean Energy Now! Bus Tour Launch in New Orleans’