It’s Getting Hot In Here

You’ve probably heard about the “Cash-for-Caulkers” program that was recently passed in the House and is likely to make it to the Senate this summer. It’s a good first start in helping people get the money they need to start getting to work on retrofitting their homes and businesses to make them more energy efficient.

Houston Neal of HVAC Software Advice just put up a great blog post that helps demystify the different rebates in the bill that could become available to homeowners. Click the link above to check out the info and make sure to pass it along to handy friends or family (and remember, this October 10 is the Global Work Party — the perfect time to put some of these incentives into action!)

A few years ago I had what I thought was a brief minor life tangent– a stint organizing against industrial offshore fish farming in the Gulf of Mexico. It was, I reasoned, a breather from youth climate organizing that would take me somewhat closer to my former life in marine biology.  I didn’t expect then that those experiences would ever come anywhere near the pages of itsgettinghotinhere.  But here we are.

Continue reading ‘Snapshots from before the spill’

Remember those other fossil fuels, besides oil?

Yeah, we’re still fighting them too.  If you’re like me and want a little bit of good news amongst all the bad news from the Gulf, today is your lucky day. Today, the Army Corps of Engineers announced that they are going to stop rubber-stamping valley fill permits in Appalachia.

As of today, the Corps will stop issuing Nationwide Permit (NWP) 21, which is has been used to “authorize discharges of dredged or fill material into waters of the United States for surface coal mining activities.”  Valley fills are a crucial aspect to mountaintop removal mining, because once the mountaintops are blasted off, all that material needs to go somewhere.  In Appalachia, that somewhere has been streams and headwaters.  Without the ability to shove all that rubble, i.e. former mountain, into valleys, mountaintop removal mining becomes far less…well, feasible.

Continue reading ‘Victory for the Mountains!’

A little Thursday inspiration… crossposted from the ACE Blog.

11 year old Olivia Bouler of Islip, NY, cried when she heard about the devastation going down in the Gulf.

A budding orinthologist who already knows she wants to study at Cornell University, Olivia…was shaken by the growing disaster and wanted to do something. So she wrote a letter to the National Audubon Society and told them she had one skill to offer: drawing. (from NYTimes)

Her offer was met with open arms. AOL ponied up more than $25k — and soon enough several other other donors hopped on board. Olivia is making 500 drawings — all of them are already spoken for — and with every drawing, money will be donated to help with gulf recovery.

Way to go, Olivia!!

While her efforts are remarkable, we know there are even more Olivias out there. Please share what you’re doing in the comments below!

Written by Kim Huynh

Coalfield residents and organizers from across Appalachia gathered on the West Virginia state capital steps in Charleston, to announce Appalachia Rising, a mass mobilization set for September 27th in Washington, DC. They issues a rallying call for thousands to join in demanding the Obama Administration abolish surface mining and invest in sustainable economic diversification in Appalachia.  Photos are available here. Watch it here:

While local officials and the legislature are kissing the sooty ring of King Coal, Appalachians are losing their homes, their health, and their jobs.

Speaking an truth to power about the destruction wrought by surface mining, Boone County resident and Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition organizer Maria Gunnoe yesterday said, “Lindytown, Sharples, Mifflin, Jack’s Branch…I’ve literally watched throughout Boone County as places have disappeared forever, erased.”

Surface mining is destroying the Appalachians and everything that relies on them, including Appalachian communities. The mining practice releases cancer-causing particulates into the air and contaminates water. Giant reservoirs of toxic coal slurry loom over schools and community spaces. Coal companies are required to restore mountain elevations after their mines are used up, but they do little more than hydro-seed the gravel where mountaintops used to be. Nothing can grow or live on these “restored” mountains thereafter.

Continue reading ‘Appalachia Rising: Mountaintop Removal Abolition Mass Mobilization to Washington DC Launched in Charleston, WV’

Today the Oregonian, the largest regional paper in Oregon, ran a guest opinion piece arguing that ratepayer money shouldn’t be used to prolong the life of an aging, dirty coal plant.  The piece was co-authored by youth climate organizers Jenny Bedell-Stiles, Katie Taylor, Sarah Westover, and myself: we argue keeping Oregon’s Boardman Coal Plant open isn’t just bad for Oregon’s environment, but for ratepayers as well.  Regional decision makers like the Oregon Public Utilities Commission should require PGE, the plant’s utility operator, to replace Boardman with cleaner fuel sources by 2014 or earlier. 

As described in our column, ten student governments in Oregon have passed resolutions urging the quick closure of Boardman.  Almost all single out 2014 as the date that makes most sense; collectively, these ten student governments represent a constituency of well over 100,000 students.  Youth in Oregon are organizing for a coal-free future, and today’s Oregonian column will help our movement reach a new and wider audience.  Below is an excerpt from our column.  Click the “more” tab for the whole thing.

Don’t let PGE hand its pollution costs to ratepayers

After seeing unfettered speculation on Wall Street lead to financial meltdown and the oil industry’s lackadaisical attitude toward safety produce the BP Deepwater Horizon spill, you’d be right to question the wisdom of letting corporations regulate themselves. Yet most Oregonians would be surprised to realize this is just the approach that’s been taken for too long when it comes to the biggest polluter in this state: the Boardman coal-fired power plant.

The Boardman plant, operated by Portland General Electric, is the largest stationary source of greenhouse gases in Oregon. It’s by far the state’s largest mercury emitter and the biggest contributor to haze, smog and acid rain in the Columbia River Gorge. This year PGE is asking the Oregon Public Utilities Commission to approve a plan to keep Boardman running until 2020 or much longer.

But relying on PGE to tell us when is the best time to close Boardman would be like counting on Wall Street to regulate itself, or looking to BP and ExxonMobil to prevent oil spills. Indeed the analysis PGE uses contains flawed assumptions. The PUC should protect ratepayers from being saddled with the costs of prolonging Boardman’s life and reject PGE’s plan.

Read the whole column at OregonLive.com

Cross-posted from Americans for Energy Leadership
The biggest news from President Obama’s Oval Office address is that cap and trade legislation is probably dead for the foreseeable future, and the administration is seeking new ideas.

Instead of using last night’s prime-time opportunity to push cap and trade in the form of the Kerry-Lieberman American Power Act — as many climate advocates saw as their last hope for “comprehensive” climate reform — President Obama pressed the reset button on energy and climate policy, saying he was “happy to look at other ideas and approaches from either party, as long they seriously tackle our addiction to fossil fuels.” He made no mention of setting a price on carbon or establishing an emissions cap and trade system.

As Andrew Revkin observed at New York Times Dot Earth, the president “signaled that he is leaving open a variety of paths on energy and climate policy and no longer hewing tightly to the idea of a cap and trade system for restricting heat-trapping emissions — which he never wavered from during his campaign.” David Roberts of Grist, one of the few remaining hopefuls for cap and trade reform, wrote “Final thought: Obama didn’t drive the carbon cap tonight, so there won’t be a carbon cap in the energy bill this year.”

If cap and trade is dead, then what’s next? The only serious alternative that could attract bipartisan support is a comprehensive national strategy for clean energy competitiveness and innovation — including substantial new federal investment in research, development, demonstration, deployment, and manufacturing — to accelerate America’s transition away from fossil fuels, build a strong and competitive clean energy industry, and rapidly drive down the price of low-carbon power and transportation technologies. These investments could potentially be included as part of a comprehensive energy package, building upon the proposed American Clean Energy Leadership Act.

Continue reading ‘Obama Signals Need for New Energy Agenda’

Photo: Washington Post via Reuters

It can’t be a good sign of the state of energy legislation when I’m giving President Obama points for not mistaking clean coal, natural gas, or nuclear power as clean energy.  The problem with Obama’s speech is that his core message on clean energy wasn’t any different from it when he was a candidate, or how he’s sounded since he’s been in office.   Continue reading ‘Obama’s Oval Office Address Falls Short’

Last week I had an action packed night figuring out how best to respond to the BP Oil Spill in Seattle and I wanted to share my thoughts that came out of the night.  I started off at a work party helping an awesome urban farm group called Alleycat Acres harvest lettuce and other veggies to donate to a local food bank (by bike).  From there I biked to an oil spill/BP protest at a park.  A big banner read “Boycott BP” and a number of people gave short speeches to the fairly quiet crowd of maybe 75 assembled people.  We then went on a short march around the park and along the street, culminating at a busy intersection where cars honked in support (ironic?)  From there I biked to Seattle U and joined a conversation hosted by a socialist group on the nationalization of BP and other related topics.  Then a quick jaunt up the stairs to yet another meeting convened by the Huffington Post by a number of concerned but a little confused citizens who were trying to figure out, “How to shame Obama by tomorrow.”

At the end of the night, I did some reflection and decided that of all the activities that night, I felt best and most effective at the garden work party.  Not only was it calming and peaceful, but I directly impacted, even if in a small way, our dependence on oil.  I recently had a chance to ask Bill McKibben’s advice on how best to scale back our out of control society and he gave me a ratio.  He said 80% of the time we should be in our own communities, working directly on transitioning from fossil fuels, over consumption etc.  That means urban farming, energy efficiency retrofits, etc.  The other 20% should be reserved for policy work, working for policies that make it easier to do that 80% work.  That made a lot of sense to me.

So, my advice, if I may so humbly offer it.  We’re all busy tackling the paramount problem of transitioning to a green energy economy.  But the next time you have to choose between sitting in a meeting or helping out at an urban farm or putting up some solar panels, pick the garden 80% of the time and take a direct bite out of our oil dependence.

Well it appears that Obama continues to be big on talk but short on action when it comes to the oil industry. According to a press release from the Southern Environmental Law Center the Minerals Management service has awarded 198 leases for wells since BP’s April 20th oil spill began; and BP was the winning bidder on 13 of them! Below is the full press release.

Meanwhile the Big Greens are once again coming under fire in the blog world for going too easy on the Obama administration. Check out this post from Common Dreams. It’s far past time to stop kissing up to the Obama administration and to start fighting back! Continue reading ‘Obama Administration continues leasing deepwater wells to oil companies including BP’