It’s Getting Hot In Here

In case you haven’t heard, Facebook recently announced the development of its first data center in Prineville, Oregon, and instead of buying electricity from a clean source within the state, they’re going to mostly rely on coal electricity. Why? Continue reading ‘Facebook to run on Coal!?’

Yesterday, the hard fought for Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) stimulus grants were awarded to applicants around the country.  These were $1.5 billion worth of for innovative transportation ideas, and boy was there fierce competition.  Requests for funds were about 40 times the $1.5 billion available.  I’m pleased to say the local DC region benefited from one of these grants, including my college town of College Park.  We were awarded one of the largest grants for bus transit, which can be found on page 14 of the TIGER grant recipients list. Continue reading ‘Eye of the TIGER’

Kicking off today in New Orleans, Consequence youth partners are teaming up with the Hip Hop Caucus, Repower America and a diverse coalition of organizations to launch the Hip Hop Clean Energy Now! Bus Tour, an exciting initiative to amplify the voices of the young people and communities of color calling for a clean energy future.

Over the next week, the tour will swing through 5 states, bringing together leaders from the faith, business, and climate communities alongside entertainers and prominent figures, including DJ Biz Markie, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, actress Gloria Reuben, performer D. Woods and many others.

Continue reading ‘Hip Hop Caucus Clean Energy Now! Bus Tour Gets Rolling’

Cross posted from the RAN Understory

By Kate Rooth

This morning. three activists began an occupation of Massey Energy subsidiary Marfork Coal Company, Inc.’s main office.  The protestors plan to present a citizen’s arrest warrant and list of violations on the Marfork processing plant, Bee Tree Surface Mine and Brushy Fork sludge impoundment to company president Christopher Blanchard and Massey CEO Don Blankenship.

The above image shows two areas, in purple, where Massey Energy is blasting dangerously close to the Brushy Fork Impoundment and multiple gas wells.

Marfork Coal Co. has started work on the Bee Tree Surface Mine, and is blasting within 1,000 feet of the impoundment. The blasting threatens to decrease the stability of the Brushy Fork dam, which sits above a honeycomb of abandoned underground mines.

Just last week, the W. Va. Department of Environmental Protection issued a violation on the impoundment for failing to meet an engineering safety factor. This measurement determines how much force a structure can withstand beyond the amount that is expected to be exerted upon it. At the time of the issuance, the dam could withstand thirty percent additional force, rather than the fifty percent mandated by law.

Continue reading ‘Activists occupy Marfork Coal Company, Pettus WV’

JP Morgan Chase is the biggest U.S. financier of mountaintop removal.

They have financial relationships with the poster child of mountaintop removal, Massey Energy.  That means their money is funds sludge impoundments like Brushy Fork which is currently holding 7 billion gallons of coal waste above the Coal River Valley.  Their money funds the dragline that 14 of my friends shut down in Twilight last June that scrapes away house size chunks of earth after the mountain has been blasted.  Their money funds the security guards and noise machines that harassed and abused 3 tree-sitters last month defending Coal River Mountain with non-violent direct action.  Their money funds Don Blankenship’s helicopters, mansion and corrupt junkets to Spain with WV Supreme Court Justices .

Chase has hired PR firms to re-brand themselves on the internet as “charitable” and “benevolent” through their “Chase Community Giving sites and Facebook Fan Pages (even though they disallowed “political” groups from participating in any fundraising).  Chase touts themselves as a green environmentally friendly bank.  Their greenwashing, social media branding and high powered PR firms can’t hide the truth about what Chase really does.  They are complicit in destroying Appalachia’s mountains, poisoning it’s communities with dirty water and ruining it’s economy by creating conditions that lead to the worst poverty in the country. Continue reading ‘Internet to Chase: Stop Destroying the Mountains’

Our generation is already implementing clean energy solutions in our communities, but we know that we must communicate our successes and our vision to our political representatives in order for them to translate into a strong climate bill.  Unfortunately, our chances of passing a progressive climate bill are being blocked in the Senate and are weakened every day; Big Oil and Big Coal are salivating with the taste of success.  It is time for us to stand up and make our voices heard!

This week, Show Me Democracy organizers are hosting Senate Field Office visits in local offices across nine states.  Please join us this week by showing up at your nearest Senate Field Office and demanding a climate bill that will propel America towards a clean energy future.  Visit www.ShowMeDemocracy.com now for more information as well as resources, support and to connect with other activists in your area!

Together we can pass a climate bill that will…

Continue reading ‘Step up for Democracy this week!’

We sat in trees at the edge of a mine site for 9 days in the middle of the Appalachian winter in West Virginia on Coal River Mountain. It was a divinely fun and empowering experience that I highly recommend to anyone who is physically able and properly trained.

We stopped blasting for 9 days within sight of the Brushy Fork toxic coal waste impoundment that holds over 7 billion gallons of black sludge above the Coal River Valley. Massey Coal says that if the impoundment’s dam fails it will kill approximately 998 people in that valley, and Massey impoundments have failed in the past.

We hauled our gear in at night without flashlights, hiking for miles up the mountain that was quite foggy throughout the night. Then we rested for a bit. Then I climbed a beautiful tall oak tree with stirrups made of climbing rope attached to a climbing harness I was wearing, which I kept on for 9 days straight. I had to break a few branches off the tree on the way up, and I kissed that tree several times during the whole set up process. After getting as high as I wanted, I anchored a climb line to the trunk above me and hauled the platform up after my direct support person below attached it to the rope. I anchored the platform to the trunk after hauling that heavy thing up. Then I hauled the rest of my gear up as direct support attached it to the rope. I don’t remember how many loads I hauled up, but if felt like a lot. I attached each load of gear to the tree or the platform. Next I lay my exhausted body on that platform gently swaying in the pre-dawn light and looked up at the craggly bare branches above me against the divine blank gray sky and felt like I was on the border of heaven and earth. The sunrise was beautiful. Once the light gave us a much wider view of our surroundings I could see the beautiful forest on one side of us and the mining on the other side with giant machines, holes dug for explosives, the toxic lake of waste in the distance, and the life-giving soil ripped away. It felt like being on the border of heaven and hell. Continue reading ‘Memoir of Coal River Mountain Tree Sit’

Jobs, jobs, jobs – that was the message during today’s “Let’s Talk: Michigan” event with Chris Adamo, from Senator Stabenow’s office, and Alice Yates, from Senator Levin’s office.  Both legislative aides agreed that the climate bill is not just about climate – it’s also about jobs and energy.  They also agreed that forward movement on climate legislation will benefit Michigan, the nation, and the world.  At its heart, said Adamo, climate legislation is an economic bill, one that will jumpstart investment and jobs in renewables, cleantech industries, and biofuels.

The discussion needs to shift, Adamo continued, to climate legislation as national security from an oil perspective to a technology perspective.  There’s widespread worry in the American public about our dependency on foreign oil – but we don’t want to turn this into a reliance on foreign manufacturers for solar, wind, and other renewable energy technologies when we have the capacity and expertise to develop and innovate in these areas within our own nation.

Unsurprisingly, both Adamo and Yates feel that Michigan is primed to take over the role of clean energy manufacturer.  According to Yates, green jobs have recently grown at a rate of 9.1% overall and 10.7% in Michigan. Yates pointed out that Michigan offers a tremendous physical, intellectual, and working infrastructure for clean tech industries to invest in. Continue reading ‘Let’s Talk Michigan’

Originally published by The Stanford Daily

Two months ago, hundreds of world leaders and tens of thousands of activists gathered in Copenhagen to craft a new global treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol in 2012. Green groups put on a spectacle – yes, Greenpeace even docked two of its famous boats nearby to “help in pushing the delegates” – and some observers declared it a make or break event in global climate history.

Today, there is strikingly little to show for the whole affair, momentum has slowed to a crawl and hardly anyone is discussing the aftermath. For good reason: the Copenhagen Accord is basically a voluntary agreement with obscure objectives, and its impact will be negligible. Michael Cutajar, the former chairman of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiation group, said that “Beyond the lack of clarity in its drafting, its main weakness is the lack of ambition and identifying responsibilities… Who should do what, and when, in order to limit warming to two degrees?”

What went wrong at Copenhagen? As I recently argued on BBC World View, the outcome was primarily the result of a flawed UNFCCC process and policy framework. The first and most obvious problem was imagining that 192 countries – some of which represent thousands of times more people than others – could produce a meaningful climate mitigation treaty. The UNFCCC process is kind of like the U.S. Senate (today one of the most dysfunctional national legislative bodies in the world) but at least four times as complicated.

Continue reading ‘Remaking the Global Climate Framework’

Today the Yale Project on Climate Change released its latest (3rd) report: Americans’ Actions to Conserve Energy, Reduce Waste, and Limit Global Warming. In brief, they found that there is a significant gap between Americans’ conservation attitudes and their actual behaviors. For example:

• 88 percent of Americans say it is important to recycle at home, but only 51 percent “often” or “always” do;
• 81 percent say it is important to use re-usable shopping bags, but only 33 percent “often” or “always” do;
• 76 percent say it is important to buy locally grown food, but only 26 percent “often” or “always” do;
• 76 percent say it is important to walk or bike instead of driving, but only 15 percent “often” or “always” do;
• 72 percent of Americans say it is important to use public transportation or carpool, but only 10 percent say they “often” or “always” do;

On the positive side, large majorities of Americans think these actions are important. Yet there is also plenty of room to improve. It is important to recognize, however, that each behavior confronts its own set of barriers. For example, public transportation may not be locally available or convenient. Policies to lower these barriers will make it much easier for people to act in ways consistent with their values.

The survey also found that, in the past year, approximately 1 out of three Americans have rewarded companies that are taking steps to reduce global warming by buying their products, while slightly fewer report that they have punished companies that have opposed steps to reduce global warming by not buying their products. Finally, in the past year 12 percent of Americans have contacted government officials about global warming. Of these, 72 percent urged officials to take action to reduce global warming.

A copy of the report can be downloaded from http://environment.yale.edu/uploads/BehaviorJan2010.pdf