It\'s Getting Hot In Here » williedodson

Miami Residents Make a Show Against King Coal (from within their designated free-speech pin)

williedodson — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 21:04:56 +0000

On January 31st local residents and activists associated with Mountain Justice and Rising Tide North America showed up to confront coal kingpins at their exclusive annual gathering at the public entrance to the Ritz-Carlton Resort in Key Biscayne, Florida only to find out that they could not demonstrate because they didn’t have a permit. After some hassle a permit was granted so long as the grassroots dissent was kept to a reasonable volume and confined within the designated area under the watchful eye of a unit of militarized law enforcement officers. Ethan, a nomadic Rising Tide and Mountain Justice activist has spent the past several weeks in the region organizing this demonstration and connecting with the local group ‘Save It Now Glade’ (SING) working to fight Florida Power and Light’s proposed 1,960 mw coal plant in their Glade County community. He is now travelling to join the Southern Energy Network for our 4th annual Southeast Student Rewnewable Energy Conference to share his experiences and connect students running the Campus Climate Challenge to Rising Tide North America and the local communities they are working to support.

more info can be found at www.risingtidenorthamerica.org and www.mountainjusticesummer.org.

2 arrested as Rising Tide protests North Carolina power plant

williedodson — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 17:10:57 +0000

Local residents braved the frigid cold this morning perched atop a billboard, to protest Progress Energy’s proposed oil fired plant.They unfurled an enormous banner reading, “Burning Oil Ain’t Progress – No New Power Plant in Woodfin!” The residents are part of Rising Tide North America, a group dedicated to fighting the root causes of climate change. The protest lasted over three hours until local police and fire department forced them down.

“Western North Carolina is already suffering from some of the worst air pollution in the country. By building an oil burning plant that we don’t even really need, Progress is choosing to endanger our health for the sake of profit instead of making the necessary investments in energy conservation and clean energy.” said Micah Lee, a life-long Asheville resident who was perched atop the billboard.

According the Environmental Protection Agency, pollution from power plants in North Carolina is responsible for 1,000 premature deaths each year. Progress Energy’s proposed 130 MW oil power plant is projected to emit 247 tons of smog forming nitrogen oxide, 2.4 tons of sulfur dioxide, and 97 tons of lung damaging particulate matter each year. This would put Progress’ plant among the top 5 polluters in Buncombe County. Even these statistics are optimistic, based on Progress’ projection that the plant will only run 10 percent of the time. A recent Wall Street Journal report found that such “peak” power plants often run up to 80 percent of the time, greatly increasing emissions.

In addition to the immediate health concerns caused by the power plant, the activists hope to bring attention to the devastating impacts of climate change, to which this plant would only contribute. “Given the increases in droughts, hurricanes, and massive species extinction that we are already experiencing as a result of climate change, burning oil for electricity is totally insane. In the face of total government inaction, regular people need to take action to transition our society away from fossil fuels,” said Abigail Singer from her perch atop the billboard.

The scientific consensus is that we need to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80 percent by the year 2050 to avert the worst case scenarios of climate change. By building a new oil plant at this critical juncture, Progress Energy would be taking us further down the road of fossil fuel dependence at a time when we need to drastically reduce our consumption. According to EPA statistics oil fired power plants emit on average1672 lbs of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour.

The protest ended when police placed the protestors under arrest and forced them down from the billboard. Rising Tide will keep the pressure on corporate and political officials until the power plant is scrapped, since the energy needs it would meet could easily be met through conservation measures. “It is my generation that is going to have to live with the devastating impacts of climate change caused by power plants such as Progress Energy’s. It is totally irresponsible and insulting that they are willing to gamble away our future when clean alternatives exist,” said Lee.

Buncombe County residents plan on attending this evening’s county commissioner’s meeting to keep the heat on their elected officials.

DDT Cures Malaria. Rachel Carson Killed Millions of People.

williedodson — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 15:34:56 +0000

Once upon a time the other night, in a land far far a few miles up the road from my apartment, in the enchanted and haunting land of Furman University, an epic and timeless lecture about how global warming isn’t happening occured…

The Furman University Environmental Action Group (EAG) had been bravely championing a green fee in order to purchase Renewable Energy Credits to offset a percentage of the school’s CO2 emissions. Throughout the months, the epic and fairy-tale-esque months of September and October, EAG hosted a number of educational events, offered presentations to various audiences in the University community and presented their idea as a resolution to the Association of Furman Students, the school’s student government body.

But wait, something lurks in the darkness. “What’s that!? Who’s there!? Could it be the perpetrators of this video…?”

“It is we, some little free market guys with suits! And with our money combined – I mean powers combined – we are the College Students for a Better Tomorrow!”

You see as the EAG, moved by the urgency to address global warming and other negative impacts of fossil fuel dependence, were busy taking steps locally to reduce this complex and catalyze a clean energy future, the dark forces of Collegiates for a Better Tomorrow had devised another plan…

“We will muddle the discussion! We will host events that portray global warming as an issue that is shrouded in question and uncertainty! We will scoff and smirk at this Willie character as he testifies before the Student Government about his friends’ children who have kidney stones because of the coal-sludge in their well water! But wait… popular movements draw their power from the people by appealing to their self-interest for the right to a decent life. While our cause only pursues a “better” tomorrow for ourselves, we’ll have to draw our influence from elsewhere. We could play on people’s fears and insist that wind energy will destroy families just like gay marriage is statistically and scientifically, unrefutably proven to do, but that requires a lot of time and effort. From what other source can we draw the power needed to stamp out the clean energy movement at Furman University? Aha! Oil-industry-funded think tanks!

Enter the Competitive Enterprise Institute…

Yes the CEI, child of the long-standing unholy union of industry and government, spawned in the darkest, most particulate-matter-per-square-foot-infested pits of Washington D.C., and funded by the deep and sinister pockets of Exxon Mobile amongst others, the CEI had something to say to the students, I mean woodland creatures, sprites and whatnot of the magical land of Furman University. Represented by the maniacal, bearded policy wonk, Fred L. Smith Jr., President and Founder of this unoliest of unholy lovechildren, this is what the CEI had to say…

“Moderate warming is better than cooling.”
“People retire to Florida not Alaska”
“Warmer is better at least in a world with air conditioning.”
“CO2 is dry ice basically.”
“CO2 makes plants grow better.”
“I think Siberia and Canada would be happy if the world got a little warmer.”
“Is it fair for us to deny Siberia of a good year? They’ve had bad weather for hundreds of years.”
“The goal is to create as much CO2 as possible.”
“The transition to carbon-based fuels was ecologically critical. It lessened our impact on the earth.”
“The approximate funding of the Environmental movement is $2 billion, dwarfing any policy groups on the other side.”
Things were a lot worse before we “liberated carbon”.

But the woodland creatures, sprites and other assorted fairy-taley-kinda-critters who live, work and play in the glitter-dotted land of Furman University did not believe his lies. While the students, I mean elves and all that, were civil and kind to the outsider as is the custom in the land of Furman University, they could hold back their laughter no longer when he uttered, “Efficiency does not reduce energy use.”

The CEI’s leader, Mr. Smith concluded his speech with this thought,

(paraphrased, but I swear only slightly) “DDT cures Malaria. Rachel Carson killed millions of people. If we make energy more expensive it will kill millions of people.”

The end?????

Hell No! The Environmental Action Group and The Southern Energy Network are on the case organizing for a truly better tomorrow. Meanwhile SCASC (The South Carolina Alliance for Sustainable Campuses) is solidifying, building power and positioning itself to mobilize support across the state for the work of EAG at Furman and any other Sustainability and Environmental Justice projects undertaken in any SC campus or community.

While the College Students for a more Personally Profitable Tomorrow have caused some setbacks for the Campus Climate Challenge in the land of Furman University this past semester, their antics have shown clearer the path to clean energy on campus. The lessons learned by EAG and the SEN make us all the stronger, and that ridiculous lecture moves the student body all the more in-line with the Campus Climate Challenge.

*now here’s a note. i discovered researching CEI as I was writing this that they no longer receive funding from Exxon Mobile. I chose not to take it out of the Fairy Tale text because it flowed so well, and I could correct it here. Exxon Mobile is evidently not funding the CEI anymore due to pressure from human beings for a tomorrow, sometimes called “environmentalists.” source for this is the British Royal Society*

The Roots and Growth of Mountain Justice

williedodson — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 16:10:51 +0000

This past weekend I found myself spending out my time in Price Hall at Virginia Tech, the University’s oldest building and currently home to the entomology department. Amongst display cases full of bugs and big refrigerators presumably also filled with bugs or bug-related paraphernalia I sat with friends, old and new, to discuss past developments, present status and future plans of the Mountain Justice Campaign to end Mountaintop Removal (MTR) coal mining. MTR is a method of mining coal by which up to a thousand vertical feet are blasted off of Appalachian Mountains and dumped into the adjacent valleys in order to access underlying coal seams. The process is eco-cide and culture-cide destroying not only some of Earth’s most biodiverse temperate forest ecosystems, but also upheaving and displacing those human communities where such mining occurs. It was late in Winter 2004 that folks from the four Appalachian states where MTR occurs decided it was time to do something big in defense of our mountains, our communities, our past and our future. Inspired By SNCC’s Mississippi Summer project in 1964, and Earth First!’s Redwood Summer in the early nineties, Mountain Justice Summer was born. Linking up communities across Appalachia and issuing a call out for volunteers from near and far, we would coordinate a summer of action and organizing to confront the coal industry in our ancient, sacred mountains.
Some two and a half years later, sitting in a cramped little room with fifteen or twenty other people, I am amazed at the power of caring, knowing and doing. The meetings aren’t parliamentary. The campaign is not funded (and I mean seriously not funded). The people aren’t so-called experts. Mountain Justice is a non-heirarchical, decentralized movement of people who believe in their own power and since it’s inception we have made a tangible change in Appalachia. Not only have we done this by interfering with this or that mine permit, or this or that company’s dealings; for we have challenged and altered the power dynamics between King Coal and the people.
Just yesterday, after the Mountain Justice planning meeting concluded for the weekend, some of those old and new friends and I visited the ruins of a burnt-out cabin up on a steady slope along one side of a wide valley in Giles County. We were there to remember and honor our friend Sue Daniels who just over two years ago died up there on that slope at the hands of another friend whose evident mental illness had grown too severe for a happy ending. It was a big story in the Roanoke Times and the New River Free Press in November of 2004. Just like the inception of Blacksburg’s local Mountain Justice group and the initial actions taken by Sue Daniels and others involved with this group had been one month prior.
After those of us who had known Sue said some words and we all stood around in silence burning insence the group made it’s way back down the mountain except for my good friend Erin and myself. We stayed. Sue Daniels is a big reason that Erin and I are such close friends in the first place. We sat and cried and talked. We related how we each felt about Sue’s impact on our lives and we understood one another and knew that we felt a lot of the same things. She was smart. She was solid. She taught us that rage is a natural and positive emotional response to the rape of life on Earth. She showed us that action is the logistical next step when coming to understand a problem. She challenged us to accept that responsibility and act to our fullest potential.
The beginning of Mountain Justice can in some sense be traced to the death of a child in Wise County Virginia in late August of 2004. Some men expanding a haul road on an A&G Coal Company MTR mine at 3 in the morning dislodged a boulder. The rock rolled down the mountain into a trailer and killed Jeremy Davidson in his bed. The company was fined a maximum of $15,000 for operating without the proper permits – fines that A&G chose to appeal making evident just how much King Coal values a human life. After this tragedy the local community held a march and a vigil. Folks came from all over Appalachia, and orchestrated largely on the gumption of Sue Daniels, this gathering was followed up by a meeting between Earth First!ers from Tennessee and North Carolina and Coal River Mountain Watch, a community group based in WV’s southern coalfields. I suppose the rest is herstory.
And now the present moment…
What came out of the meeting this past weekend? In 2005, MJ’s inaugural summer, we hosted a “traveling horde” of activists who moved throughout Appalachia supporting the work of the local groups throughout the region. While this worked great at gaining media and injecting a major shot of energy into the movement, organizing in the most directly-affected communities was to large-degree overlooked. In 2006 the pendulum swung and the “traveling horde” model was switched out for an intake process that matched volunteers with specific communities in which they would work for the whole summer, a few weeks or whatever time they could give. While this has produced well in terms of cultivating local organizations, our numbers went down in terms of volunteers and public exposure. Now for 2007, we will be combining the best from each model, community-focused organizing projects, but plenty of mass-mobilizations and actions in the cities. In addition to the summer influx of energy, there’s the Mountain Justice Spring Break coming up in March and plans for a 2nd annual ‘Post-Coal Economic Convergence, date TBD (this is a conference focused on building sustainable economic alternatives to coal in Appalachia). In 2007, like the two years before, Mountain Justice Summer will kick-off with a training camp conveniently occurring right around the time most of y’all will be finishing up with exams. (again, exact dates TBD)
Keep checking www.mountainjusticesummer.org for more info on how to get involved in Mountain Justice, and www.climateaction.net/mjsb to plug into the Mountain Justice Sprig Break project.