It’s Getting Hot In Here

by Kimia Ghomeshi, Canadian Youth Climate Coalition, G20 and Climate Organizer

The World Peoples Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia, has been a completely new experience for me.  With over 10 000 participants, groups from the global north are the minority here, the opposite of my experience in Copenhagen.  For the first time, I am amongst community members from developing countries who are first and foremost already affected by the climate crisis.  Indigenous peoples from around the world (but primarily the Americas) are participating alongside government representatives, academics, scientists, trade unionists, activists and NGOs.  The Cochabamba conference is a space for social movements to come together and build alliances, a space to have democratic, inclusive discussions, a space for the world’s poor and disenfranchised who have been effectively silenced by the world’s rich to have a voice and be part of a democratic, inclusive process to find real solutions to the climate crisis.

So why did I decide to come to Cochabamba?  What am I hoping to get out of this experience?  In the last year, the climate youth movement exploded in Canada and young people have become far more committed to climate justice both at home and abroad.  It was only a year ago that I started to get involved with Rainforest Action Network’s campaign against Royal Bank of Canada, the top financier of the Tarsands, and this was my entry point into the grassroots climate movement.  Young people have been mobilizing from coast to coast to coast to hold the Canadian government, fossil fuel & extractive industries, and financial institutions accountable for causing the climate crisis. While some might argue that Copenhagen was a failure, it instigated a necessary growth and heightened resistance in our youth movement and it’s been truly inspiring to part of this process.  For this mobilization to continue, we need to address a real challenge we’ve faced and that is a lack of understanding by Canadians of how climate change has human costs.  Because of our disconnection with the land and the mere fact that climate change is something intangible for us, it is difficult for Canadians to make the connection between climate change and issues of survival for millions worldwide.

Continue reading ‘Canadian Youth Report Back From Cochabamba’

Tomorrow is the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, always a good time to reflect on the significant progress we’ve made and the work we still need to do.

We’re not the only ones who like to celebrate Earth Day. Corporations have a PR bonanza, outdoing themselves in an effort to buy themselves a green image they don’t deserve.

In this week’s Greenwash of the Week webisode we take a look at some of the most ludicrous examples of corporations greenwashing Earth Day.

Continue reading ‘Greenwash of the Week: Earth Day!’

Forty years ago tomorrow, there was a call for justice. Twenty million Americans heard that call and came together for the first Earth Day. It was bold. It was loud. It was right. And soon politicians who opposed strong environmental legislation started losing their jobs. There has been progress since 1970. But by and large, the movement to save the Earth has been wandering in the desert for the past forty years. Forty years is enough time to wander in the desert. It’s about time we crossed the river.

We cannot wait any longer. The world is burning. We need to get bolder. We cannot accept compromises. There is no room for negotiation. If real action on climate destabilization is not “politically feasible” then the politics need to change, because as Bill McKibben is fond of saying, physics and chemistry are very poor negotiators. And we need to get louder. A lot louder.

In Washington, a bill is about to be introduced that will almost certainly do next to nothing to stop global climatic disruption. And this is not unexpected — it is foolish to expect our politicians to lead us to a just and stable future. We must lead them. We must make real demands, and remove any politician who does not meet them. That is what democracy looks like.

Across the country now we are hearing a call. 100% Clean Electricity within this decade. It’s a good call, because it makes clear that this is a moral issue. People are losing their homes. People are dying. We never heard a call for 80% less slavery in in the next fifty years. Or 35% increases in a woman’s right to vote. Or get rid of segregation eventually. When something is wrong is has to stop completely and it has to stop immediately. Burning fossil fuels is wrong. It must be ended right now.

Continue reading ‘Earthday: The Movement We Need’

What do you do if someone puts a whole mountain in your lobby?

That’s the big question that the coal finance monkeys at Chase keep asking themselves now that their love affair with mountaintop removal (MTR) has drawn the attention of Rev. Billy and the Church of Life After Shopping.

I’ve been a fan of Rev. Billy since I first saw him preaching the anti-corporate gospel in 2002 at an IMF/World Bank protest in Washington D.C.  Always out in front of the issues whether it’s Disney’s consumerism, Starbucks’ gentrification or creative communications with the 1st Amendment at the 2004 Republican Convention in New York, now the good reverend is taking on Chase’s financing of MTR.  On a weekly basis, Rev. Billy and his flock are leaving piles of Appalachian dirt recycled from actual MTR sites in Chase branches around Manhattan.  The Rev and his flock are bringing the mountain to Chase, because you’re damn sure Chase ain’t going nowhere near those mountains.

You’d think the Masters of the Wall St. Universe at Chase would appreciate having a little residue from their investments hand delivered to them (it’s not like he’s leaving them foreclosed homes or something… yet!), but they’ve already had Billy arrested once.   Continue reading ‘Mountain-a-lujah! There’s a Mountain in My Lobby!’

I have an Op-Ed column in my school’s college newspaper: The Diamondback.  It summarizes some of the main reasons why we need to pass climate legislation, mentions the release of climate legislation in the Senate, and alerts students of a Clean Energy Town Hall with US Senator Ben Cardin that my group UMD for Clean Energy is holding this upcoming Friday.  If you’re in Maryland, you should come.

Energy Legislation: Time to Clean Up

Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.), Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) are scheduled to release their long-awaited comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation to the U.S. Senate on April 26. This will begin the most important environmental debate of our time: whether to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that are warming the planet.

But regardless of whether you consider yourself an environmentalist, the benefits of addressing our carbon pollution are so vast there’s something appealing for everyone —  except for the oil and coal companies. Here are some of the reasons why we must act: Continue reading ‘Op-Ed “Energy legislation: Time to clean up”’

Written by Will Fischer, student at Washington University

St. Louis is a good place to talk about coal. According to the US Energy Information Administration, 83.5% of the state’s energy comes from the black rock, making it one of the nation’s brownest states. St. Louis is home to the corporate headquarters of the two largest American coal extraction companies, Peabody Energy, and Arch Coal. Peabody Energy’s coal products fuel 10% of all U.S. electricity generation and 2% of worldwide electricity.

With the CEOs of both Peabody Energy and Arch Coal on Wash U’s board of trustees, as well as a heavily-funded coal energy research group, Washington University in St. Louis is a good place to talk about coal as well.

To continue campus dialogue on the role of coal in our future, Student Union will be hosting a debate between Fred Palmer, VP of Governmental Relations at Peabody Energy and Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, moderated by Bryan Walsh of Time Magazine. Mr. Nilles’s work with the Sierra Club aims to move the world economy toward an energy future powered by carbon emission-free energy by halting construction on new coal-fired plants, retiring existing coal-fired plants, and ending the mining and selling of US coal reserves on the international market. Continue reading ‘The Great Coal Debate’

Written by Kalen Pruss, Policy Director for Show Me Democracy

The climate bill slated to drop next week is far from perfect, but time is running out and we need legislation. We have to pass a climate bill in order for the US to bring anything concrete and meaningful to the international negotiations. Even a bill resulting from compromises will be incredibly difficult to pass in the Senate. Yet if we don’t act to pass clean energy and climate legislation this spring, we will lose our opportunity to do so for several years. As we all know, the world cannot afford to wait: the U.S. Senate must enact a bill that makes real and aggressive steps to address climate this term.

Now is the moment—the last moment, the critical moment—to make sure that our voices are heard. Big Oil and Dirty Coal already have a death grip on Washington. If we fail to stand up and tell our elective representatives that we want a clean energy future, corporate polluters will weaken the energy and climate bill even further.

Senators Kerry (D-MA), Graham (R-SC), and Lieberman (I-CT) plan to release their climate and energy bill next Monday. Oil and coal interests have long been planning their response; as young people and constituents, it is our responsibility to respond to the bill as well. In the coming weeks, it is critical that all of us organize our friends and fellow activists and tell our Senators to strengthen comprehensive climate and energy legislation. When the bill is released next week, we must work together to ensure that it:

• Regulates carbon emissions from manufacturing before 2016
• Addresses global warming with a sound carbon pricing and reduction mechanism
• Preserves the Clean Air Act authority to regulate dangerous pollution
• Maintains state authority to regulate emissions – their innovation helps to craft effective policy across the country
• Strengthens clean energy standards to spur clean energy innovation and jobs here in America

Continue reading ‘Climate Bill to Drop Next Week: Our Generation Must Respond!’

Cedar Grove Composting, a company in Seattle, has announced a plan to generate energy from methane they plan produce when composting yard and food waste. This methane will come in the form of an anaerobic digester, which they plan to have operating in 2011, breaks down the waste and releases energy.

The company has been collecting yard and food waste for some time, and according to the Seattle PI, saves the city $10 in trash collection and landfill costs for every ton of waste they compost. They will draw on this already existing network of waste collection to produce methane, and then energy.

The Cedar Groves Composting facility in Everett, WA (image from SeattlePI.com)

Cedar Grove takes in roughly 350,000 tons of waste per year, and for every 50,000 tons they collect they will generate 1.3 megawatts of electricity. Their energy output is expected to increase as they begin to collect even more waste at different spots around the city. Continue reading ‘Composting Energy’

There’s an old mining ballad has been on my mind a lot lately.  One of the lines goes “Which side are you on? which side are you on? Oh workers can you stand it? Oh tell me how you can?  Will you be a lousy scab? Or will you be a man?“  Classic narrative of the have’s vs. the have nots in Appalachia.  Sadly, it’s still going on and being played out in the world of the non-profit industrial complex.

Thanks to Alternet and some citizen journalists, we now know that Environmental Defense (ED) board member (and billionaire hedge fund manager), Stanley Druckenmiller, is also a major investor in a coal mining company.  And not just any coal mining company, but F*&$ing Massey Energy!  He’s invested roughly $200 million in Massey.  To me this is just outrageous.  Massey- the poster child of mountaintop removal.  Massey- the poster child of profits over worker safety. Massey- a major climate denier.  Massey, the worst of the worst outlaw coal companies,  does business with an Environmental Defense board member.

To add insult to injury, just a couple of weeks ago when Rising Tide North America did an online action demanding that “Big Green” NGO’s stop taking corporate donations and end corporate partnerships, the president of Environmental Defense, David Yarnold, called up a Rising Tide activist and patronizingly told her that ED didn’t take corporate donations and promoted the best environment possible.  Ok, maybe ED takes corporate donations and maybe they don’t.  But I’m guessing as a billionaire board member Mr. Druckenmiller is also a major ED donor.  This is pure speculation on my part, but often board members join organizations because of their donating and fundraising abilities.  If so, then he’s giving them money earned from investing in Massey Energy drenched in the blood of miners, the debris of Appalachian Mountains and a burning climate.  Continue reading ‘Massey’s “Green” Patron’

This is the second post of a series highlighting the global impacts of LNG, which strongly resemble the global impacts of oil production. Is LNG going to be “the new Foreign Fossil Fuel”? n the Pacific Northwest, NW Natural Gas claims that the Palomar pipeline and Bradwood Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminal will bring “clean” fuel to the United States. But the truth is the real impacts of LNG importation are enormous, and extend far beyond the Pacific Northwest.

LNG in the Peruvian Amazon, by Nick Engelfried.

When a violent police crackdown on non-violent indigenous rights activists in Peru left around 100 people dead, the human rights abuses of government-backed corporate ventures in the Amazon exploded into the concsiousness of the international community. Many factors – most notably implementation of the US-Peru Free Trade Agreement – contributed to the impasse which prompted 30,000 indigenous Peruvians to take non-violent direct action against seizure of their traditional lands for private profit. Yet when Peruvian police fired on protesters outside the city of Bagua, it was in some ways the predictable result of an economic model which has long shunted human rights and environmental concerns to the side while paving the way for industrial projects like LNG.

While the “Bagua massacre” cannot be linked directly to the LNG industry, what’s clear is that pro-industry policies in Peru have consistently put the needs of local people in the backseat while extracting the natural wealth of the Amazon for private gain. Oil, timber, and gas companies have all taken their toll on the Peruvian Amazon and its inhabitants, yet the situation is poised to get even worse. If companies like Northwest Natural get their way, LNG from the Peruvian Amazon could soon be headed by tanker straight for the Oregon coast – the fruit of industrial practices that are systematically destroying one of the most biologically and culturally diverse areas on the globe. Continue reading ‘Is LNG the new foreign Oil? Part 2: Peruvian Amazon’