It’s Getting Hot In Here

[Update - May 1st, 2008: "Burning the Future: Coal in America" will be airing again soon on the Sundance Channel, May 13th, 16th, and 18th. In addition, the DVD's will go on sale next week on the film's website: www.burningthefuture.com.]

Can coal ever be clean?

These guys are spending tens of millions trying to convince you, the American voter, that the future of America’s energy lies with “clean coal.”

A new documentary film, “Burning the Future: Coal in America” aims to clue Americans in on why “slightly less deadly coal” is probably a more accurate term for what the spooked coal industry is trying to push these days. Or maybe “laundered coal.” But “clean?” Well check out the trailer and see what you think:

Continue reading ‘Can Coal Ever Be Clean? Check Out “Burning the Future: Coal In America” to Find Out’

Econ 101 taught us increased supply = lower prices. That’s the main argument for new liquefied natural gas import terminals. Unfortunately, the Wall Street Journal warns things are a bit more complicated than that and we shouldn’t bet on LNG to reduce North American natural gas prices. This is Econ 202 stuff at least…

Amidst concerns about a potential North American natural gas supply crunch, several energy developers are betting big on new terminals to import liquefied natural gas into the United States market. Three terminals are proposed in Oregon, and they have generated considerably controversy and strong opposition from local communities.

There are many reasons to be concerned about imported liquefied natural gas, or LNG, natural gas that has been supercooled to -260 degrees F in order to turn it into a liquid ready to transport on specially-designed tankers from LNG exporting countries like Indonesia, Russia, Iran and Qatar. From increased dependence on foreign fossil fuels to increased greenhouse gas emissions, seized farmland for new pipelines and health and safety concerns, citizens of potentially impacted communities have found plenty of reasons to rally against LNG terminals and pipelines.

The principle argument to forge ahead with new LNG terminals despite these concerns is the assumption that increasing North American natural gas supplies with LNG imports will reduce prices. It’s a simple “laws” of supply and demand that increased supply will reduce prices, right? That’s what we all learned in economics 101, right?

Unfortunately, a recent front page article in the Wall Street Journal (April 18th) warns us that the economics of LNG is a bit more complicated than that. This is economics 202 stuff at least (the online copy is here, sub$cr. required).

The gist of the story is that we shouldn’t be betting on increased LNG imports to help lower natural gas prices in the US. Read on to find out why…
Continue reading ‘WSJ Says: Don’t Bet on LNG to Reduce US Natural Gas Prices’

Last year, Friends of the Earth Canada (FOE) launched a lawsuit against the Minister of the Environment to hold him accountable for the fact that Canada won’t meet its Kyoto target. Not only the country won’t meet its Kyoto target, but the actual Government didn’t even try.

The lawsuit rests on the fact that the Minister ignored the will of the Parliament by not complying with the requirements set by the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act (KPIA). The KPIA required the Minister of the Environment to release, within 60 days after the Act came into force, so before August 21st, 2007, an environmental plan that would enable Canada to meet its Kyoto target. Obviously, when the KPIA was adopted by the Parliament, I was hoping it would have an impact on the Government. Visibly, it didn’t.

Consequently, when Friends of the Earth launched its lawsuit, I was intrigued and excited, for different reasons. It was mainly about the fact that the “case raises the fundamental question of whether a Minister of the Crown is accountable for ignoring the will of Parliament” because what if he is, in fact, responsible? Wouldn’t it give us arguments and, more importantly, a strong mean of action? Lawsuits have been used for many years by individuals and by the Government against companies and other individuals that broke environmental laws and have been proven to work pretty well, so why not use the same mean against the Government itself! Continue reading ‘Is That Where We Are?’

The World Health Organization estimates that 150,000 people die annually due to climate change related causes including in floods, droughts, and heat waves. It’s for this reason that the WHO chose to name World Health Day 2008 “Protecting our Health from Climate Change,” thus recognizing the fact that climate change will dramatically affect global health. World Health Day, celebrated on 7 April, involved some pretty splendid celebrations worldwide, including a straight-from-IGHIH rap for the Southeast Asian Regional Office of the WHO (see below for lyrics). Two days later - yesterday - the US celebrated with a presentation to Congress by Howard Frumkin, one of the directors for the Center for Disease Control, on the public health impacts of climate change. “CDC considers climate change a serious public health concern,” he said — but he still kept a lot under wraps.

Mr. Frumkin presented the fact that climate change will directly impact health in the United States, particularly the health of children and the elderly. He described the increase in droughts, heat waves, flooding, increased extreme weather events, and the spread of vectorborne diseases. Yet, in a move more worthy of Fossil Fool’s Day than World Health Day, he then did not comment on whether carbon dioxide, a leading greenhouse gas, was thus a public health threat. Instead, his cautious phrasing was: “To the science, there is strong evidence that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas… and there is strong evidence that climate change affects public health.” Thanks, Frumkin!

The issue is, if Frumkin, the CDC, or the WHO do declare that because of the “strong evidence” connecting the simple dots, they would force the EPA to recognize that carbon dioxide IS a danger to public health, which would thus mean that the US EPA would be required to regulate it, according to a Supreme Court decision last year. But the EPA is stalling, saying that such a regulation would have major implications across sectors. Yeah! Exactly! This week, a coalition of states, led by Massachusetts, have brought this issue back to the US Court of Appeals, demanding that the EPA publish its findings related to emissions, after their 2003 claim that there remained “substantial scientific uncertainty” regarding the impacts of greenhouse gases. There wasn’t uncertainty then; there isn’t now. And as James Milkey, head of the environmental protection division of the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office, said to NY Times reporters, “One year ago today, the court rejected E.P.A.’s claim that it lacks authority under existing law to regulate greenhouse gases. It has the duty to regulate, not just the authority.”

Continue reading ‘World Health Day: Raps & Under Wraps’

The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968

There are few speeches that people remember. Most of us know at least the first few lines from the Gettysburg Address, or FDR’s ‘a date which will live in infamy’ response to the attacks on Pearl Harbor. And who hasn’t heard a politician quote from JFK’s inaugural ‘ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country’ speech? But no speech is more powerful or symbolic of a movement than the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I Have a Dream’.

On this fortieth anniversary of King’s assassination, I feel that it is important for all of us to stop and take a minute to appreciate all the amazing strides the civil rights movement made in the 60’s. Dr. King and other civil rights leaders laid the groundwork for the social justice movements going on today. As we continue to strive for equality and we work to improve our environment, take some time to remember how far we have come and be inspired by the changes we have already made.

The bustling halls of the United Nations climate negotiations still ringing in my ears, it’s been an incredible few months since I and other youth delegates from SustainUS returned from Bali. So many friends and neighbors emailed or stopped by to say “Thanks for sending your email updates from Bali!” and “Welcome home!” I still feel the excitement of working with the best & brightest of the youth climate movement around the world.

Upon returning from Bali as a US youth delegate, I was filled with hope that humanity will create a global consciousness by rising to meet the climate emergency. In the last few months, worsening scientific predictions have only strengthened my belief that we are the leaders we seek. It’s up to us. We have the power to make the climate emergency, and the immense economic opportunities we will realize from solving it, our top priority. A bold, broad movement is needed on a scale larger than the mobilization for World War II. This mobilization will only be accomplished by unleashing a renewed civic engagement.

Continue reading ‘Post-Bali Dispatch: “Lighting Up” a movement in Upstate New York!’

Looking for an amazing experience working with other youth leaders of the climate movement this summer? Check out the Summer of Solutions:

We’ll be using the principles of Open Space organizing to empower participants to engage in creative action on their own terms, yet as vital members of the team. As student climate organizers at Macalester College, the organizers have been building grassroots community partnerships and strategic initiatives around green manufacturing, entrepreneurial community energy efficiency, community-based clean energy development, and much more for the past two years. Using this base and our collective skills and insights, we will work together to advance these initiatives and create more while building a base of young leaders ready to lead their communities all across the country towards a sustainable future. We will realize the Climate Positive Vision by using “a mind-set that engages eagerly in the opportunities inherent in solving the climate crisis” to generate the solutions that will get us there. In the process, we’ll meet lots of amazing people, discuss so many amazing things, build skills that will last a life-time, and have lots of fun!

The Summer of Solutions will be June 1 - Aug 1 in St. Paul, MN. If you’re interested in helping build innovative solutions to climate change, fill out the simple application by one of the priority deadlines: April 1, 15, or 29 - PLEASE apply ASAP! After you apply, we’ll help you figure out how to get paid through various programs/ fundraising that we’ll help you with. The application and much more info can be found at
http://grandaspirations.org/summerofsol/summerofsolutions.html.

Questions (AND Applications) can be sent to summerofsolutions@gmail.com. We hope you can join us!

If this won’t fit your schedule, but you’re looking for other amazing options, check out the Summer Opportunities Page.

[So I know Jamie beat me to the punch, and I owe Dana a tip of the hat for bringing the interview to my attention, but here's my rant on Hillary's apparent love for coal...]

In an interview on West Virginia Public Radio this morning, Hillary Clinton revealed some pretty profound ignorance about the true costs of coal and especially about the destruction mountain top coal mining is wrecking on both communities and ecosystems in Appalachia. Give it a listen:

Sure sounds like Hillary has drunk the (sour) kool-aid being peddled by coal-front group “Americans for Balanced Energy Choices” (or ABEC, which might as well stand for “American Blowhards Excited about Coal”). Lets compare what Hillary is stumping and what the coal industry’s PR machine has to say:

Continue reading ‘Hillary Clinton Loves Her Some Coal’

With the science of climate change pretty solidly unimpeachable at this point, the rag tag camp of climate change deniers, detractors, doomsayers and other flat-earthers have a new tactic these days: talk up the supposedly disastrous economic consequences of regulating carbon.

The Flat Earth camp pulled out all the stops at the Wall Street Journal’s ECO:nomics conference held last week in California.

Hosted by “climate change experts” from the WSJ’s notoriously ideological, knuckle-dragging, anti-climate editorial board, the WSJ assembled the full cast-of-characters of the Flat Earth Society of America: Fred Smith and Myron Ebell of CEI (makers of the hilariously funny “CO2: some call it pollution, we call it life” ad), Steve Milloy of JunkScience, and the WSJ’s own ideologues came into the conference to put America’s leading “green-minded” CEO’s to the test, show them they were simply tools for liberal, socialist hippies, and expose carbon regulation as the sure-fire end of the treasured American way of life.

“Instead, they ended up looking small, shrill, and utterly marginalized,” David Roberts, who covered the Eco:nomics conference for Grist.org writes. “Despite their claims to be pro-business, the business community disdains them.”
Continue reading ‘The Last Gasp of the Climate Deniers, Detractors and Doomsayers?’

Ed Markey and Henry Waxman are no Fossil Fools! The two Chairmen and Congressional Climate Champs released a new bill yesterday calling for a moratorium on any new coal plants that do not capture and sequester their greenhouse gas emissions.

The ban would stay in place until Congress adopts and implements comprehensive global warming regulation and is designed to addresses the largest new source of global warming pollution — new coal-fired power plants that are being built without any controls on their global warming emissions.

“Comprehensive economy-wide regulation to address global warming is coming soon. But new uncontrolled coal-fired power plants are being built today,” said Rep. Waxman (D-Cal.), chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and author of the most-aggressive Congressional proposal to regulate greenhouse gases. “My legislation says: “No new plants without emissions controls.” The alternative is senseless - locking in decades of additional global warming emissions and requiring greater emissions reductions across the U.S. economy to compensate.”

“If we lose control of coal, we will have lost control of the climate,” said Markey (D-Mass.), Chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. “This bill will make companies prepare for the future and prevent them from building low-tech coal-fired power plants before a global warming bill is passed that will necessitate the use of the newest, most climate-friendly technology. “
Continue reading ‘These Guys Are No Fossil Fools! Markey and Waxman Call for Ban on New Coal Plants’