Senator John Kerry mentions mountaintop removal, true costs of coal in letter to Washington Post

Answers to ‘Greenhouse Guessing’
Tuesday, November 21, 2006; Page A26
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/20/AR2006112001133.html

In “Greenhouse Guessing” [op-ed, Nov. 10], Robert J. Samuelson called for
candor about the costs and benefits of addressing global climate change.
Unfortunately, he fell victim to the fiction propagation of which he accused
others.

Mr. Samuelson argued that we can’t control emissions because our choices are
bad, costly and defy political consensus. But he ignored the cost of the
status quo: premature mortality due to fine-particulate inhalation, loss of
marine habitat due to ocean acidification, the national security costs of
our dependence on oil from the volatile Middle East, ecosystem damage from
mountaintop removal and public health damage due to toxic runoff. Today’s
“wholesale cost” of energy is not even close to the actual price paid by
Americans in our health, our security and our environment.

There is much we can do, and much more we can discuss. The Energy
Department’s “Five-Lab Study” and Clean Energy Futures report, which were
shelved by the Bush administration, provide real choices that we should have
been considering and implementing these past six years.
These were practical and cost-effective even before recent energy price
volatility. If Congress would fund the National Academy of Sciences study on
energy use mandated by a provision that Sen. Jim Jeffords (I-Vt.) and I
guided to passage last year, that, too, could help us grapple with the
economic, social and political dimensions of this issue.

If we don’t deal with global climate change within the next decade, our
children and grandchildren will deal with global catastrophe.
Both parties have ducked the difficult choices and postponed the reckoning
until the day after tomorrow. If you offend no one, you change nothing. Mr.
Samuelson is mistaken; the world is changing and now the reckoning is real.

JOHN KERRY

U.S. Senator (D-Mass.)

Washington

RFK Jr. brings environmental message to campus

BY MIKE UNGER
[UP_D07_211_058]
Photo by Jeff Watts

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. brought his message of environmental conservation and protection to AU Wednesday night, his visit marking a fitting highlight to the first ever environmental summit sponsored by the Kennedy Political Union, named in honor of his famous family.

An avid fisherman, hiker, and outdoorsman, Kennedy is president of the environmental group Waterkeeper Alliance, and vice chairman of Riverkeeper, whose mission is to protect the environmental, recreational, and commercial integrity of his beloved Hudson River and its tributaries.

RELATED LINK
> AU Kennedy Political Union

“We’re not protecting the environment for the sake of the fish and the birds, we’re doing it for ourselves, because we realize that nature is the infrastructure of our community,” he said during his address. “When we diminish nature, we diminish ourselves.”

Delivering a speech to a large crowd in Bender Arena that included his mother, Kennedy blasted the Bush administration and the consolidation of the mainstream media for the role each entity has played in the polluting of America.

“The principal role of the environmentalist is to inject [our] concerns into the political dialogue,” he said. “I’ve been doing this for 23 years, and I’ve been nonpartisan in my approach to the issues. But you can’t talk honestly about the environment in this context without talking about this president. They’ve put polluters in charge of virtually all the agencies that are supposed to be protecting the environment.”

Kennedy’s visit was just one of several environmental programs staged throughout campus last week by KPU and a host of cosponsors. Other events included a screening of the film An Inconvenient Truth, a symposium on the effects of mountaintop mining, and even a parody performance on climate change.

“This is the first time we’ve done something like this to my knowledge,” said junior Taylor Robinson, director of KPU. “The environment is really hot right now, no pun intended. It seems to me that AU has a lot of interest in it. The [AU] administration is working hard to make sure that the wind energy referendum that the students passed happens. Eco-Sense is incredibly active and has a huge membership.”

Perhaps no American is better suited to deliver a keynote address on the environment than Kennedy. He is the author of several books on the subject, including Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy.

“The agencies that are supposed to be protecting us from pollution are being run by corporate bottom feeders,” he said. “These individuals have not entered government to serve the public interest, but rather to subvert the law.”

Kennedy specifically pointed to the oil and coal industries as two of the worst offenders. He said they’ve contributed more than $100 million to the Bush campaign, donations he believes have led to the relaxing of enforcement of antipollution laws and regulations. The result, he said, has been worse air and water quality for all Americans.

How did this happen? According to Kennedy, the consolidation of the media, now owned by just a few multinational conglomerates beholden to Wall Street and their shareholders but not to the public good, has sparked an increase in sensational, tabloid-style news coverage while serious investigative pieces on issues like the environment have waned. Kennedy traces this shift to President Reagan’s abolition of the Fairness Doctrine in 1988.

“Less than 4 percent of the network news coverage is devoted to the environment,” he said. “Today Americans know more about Tom Cruise than they do about global warming. We’re the most entertained and least informed people on Earth.”

Kennedy cited the presence of mercury in fish as one of the most serious environmental problems now facing this country.

“My mercury levels from eating fish are two and a half times as high as are considered safe,” he said. “I was told that a woman with my levels of mercury would have children with brain damage. Not ‘might,’ ‘would.’”

Toward the end of his speech, Kennedy drew several interesting connections between religious history, spirituality, and the environment.

“I don’t want my kids to grow up where there are no fishermen on the Hudson, where there are no family farmers, where we’ve lost track of the seasons and the tides that connect us to the 10,000 generations that came before there were laptops. That connects us to God. We know the Creator by immersing ourselves in creation.

“If we don’t return to our children something that is roughly the equivalent of what we inherited, they’ll have the right to ask us some very difficult questions.”

Article sent to us by Sarah Olesiuk-mailto:sho4@cornell.edu of Appalachian Voices

Peterborough, New Hampshire [RenewableEnergyAccess.com]

As concern over energy security and global climate change grows, many musicians around the United States are greening their concerts using renewable energy.

In addition to many other conservation efforts, Reverb ensures that tour buses use biodiesel and all other energy usage at concerts is offset with green tags for wind energy.
“Musicians and fans are definitely becoming more aware of environmental issues and renewable energy,” said Lauren Sullivan, co-founder of Reverb, speaking on RenewableEnergyAccess.com’s Inside Renewable Energy podcast. Reverb is an organization that coordinates green touring. “We have worked with some great bands who are really trying to lessen the impact of their concerts,” she said.

In addition to many other conservation efforts, Reverb ensures that tour buses use biodiesel and all other energy usage at concerts is offset with green tags for wind energy. Reverb is currently working with Barenaked Ladies on their international tour. Sullivan described the band as “a very aware bunch of folks.”

Want to hear a conversation with Steven Page of Barenaked Ladies? Want to hear more about what Reverb does? Listen to the Inside Renewable Energy podcast linked below.

Listen to renewable energy podcast

Article courtesy of Renewable Energy Access.

Here’s a short video Rainforest Action Network put together.

The Massachusetts Woodlands Cooperative, LLC (MWC) is working to help members conduct sustainable forestry of the highest standards while increasing financial returns from harvest activities. MWC is a forest management, processing and marketing cooperative organized by and on behalf of forest landowners in western Massachusetts . An umbrella group certification protocol was developed to provide cost-effective forestland management certification. Members benefit from cooperative management of harvest operations, above market stumpage payments, and value-added processing and production including marketing traditionally low value and small diameter material. The added revenue from developing these new markets is used to fund timber, wildlife habitat, recreational and other sustainable forest management activities. The cooperative works in partnership with local wood processing businesses to spur community economic development.

MWC’s website

News notes are courtesy of Southern Forests Network News Notes
www.southernsustainableforests.org

Pennsylvania Township Becomes First in the Nation to Ban Corporate Mining, Becomes Third Municipality in Pennsylvania to Recognize the Rights Of Nature, and Seventh in the Nation to Strip Corporations of “Rights”

CONTACT: Thomas Linzey, Esq.
{encode=”tal@pa.net” title=”tal@pa.net”}
(717) 709-0457

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Chambersburg, Pennsylvania (October 17) – On October 16th , the Blaine Township, Washington County, Pennsylvania Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to adopt an Ordinance banning corporations from mining within the Township. Passed to confront concerns about corporate longwall coal mining in the Township, the Ordinance prohibits corporations from engaging in mining activities. With its passage, the Township becomes the first municipality in the United States to ban corporate mining.

In addition to prohibiting corporations from mining, the Supervisors unanimously adopted a second Ordinance that strips corporations of constitutional protections within the Township. With the passage of the Ordinance, the Township becomes the seventh municipality in the nation to refuse to recognize corporate constitutional “rights,” and to prohibit corporate “rights” from being used to override the rights of human and natural communities.

The Ordinances adopted by the Blaine Township Board of Supervisors also (1) recognize the rights of nature, including the rights of streams and rivers within the Township, and provide for the enforcement and defense of those rights, (2) prohibit corporate contributions to candidates for elected office within the Township, (3) prohibit mining corporations from purchasing mineral rights or land for mining, and (4) prohibit mining corporations from interfering with the civil rights of residents, including residents’ right to self-government.

The Ordinances were drafted by Blaine Township residents in conjunction with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, a Pennsylvania-based nonprofit law firm, and the Citizens Coal Council (CCC). Thomas Linzey, the Executive Director of the Legal Defense Fund, applauded the vote of the Board of Supervisors, declaring that “this is truly a monumental – but logical – step for a local government to take. A handful of large corporations control surface and longwall mining in Western Pennsylvania, and those corporations – and the few who run them – have routinely used State law to preempt municipalities wanting to stop the harms caused by mining in the region. This Ordinance is the first step towards restoring the governing authority of community majorities, and eliminating the governing authority of a corporate few.”

The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, located in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, has worked with communities resisting corporate assaults upon democratic self-governance since 1995. Among other programs, it has brought its unique Daniel Pennock Democracy Schools to communities in Pennsylvania and twenty-five other states where people seek to end destructive and rights-denying corporate acts routinely permitted by state and federal agencies. Over one hundred Pennsylvania municipalities have adopted ordinances authored by the Legal Defense Fund.

A copy of the Ordinance can be obtained by accessing the Legal Defense Fund’s website at http://www.celdf.org., or by e-mailing the Legal Defense Fund at info@celdf.org.

In an Associated Press article in the Nov. 5 Herald-Leader, Kentucky Coal Association President Bill Caylor commented on anti-surface mining organizations’ use of the Internet and Google Earth to display satellite images of mountaintop-removal mining sites.

“I clearly think it’s for shock value,” Caylor said. “They’re playing the emotional card on us.”

Well, I am shocked to see satellite photos of destroyed areas that dwarf the area inside Lexington’s New Circle Road hundreds of times. I am shocked to see vast areas of Appalachia unfit for human habitation.

I am shocked to see that mountaintop removal has occurred over nearly half of Perry, Knott and other counties — areas away from highways that we’d never know about were it not for these satellite images.

I am shocked to know that there are people who would destroy God’s creation. If you can’t get emotional about the destruction of the Earth, what can you get emotional about?

C.G. Hughes
Nicholasville

Churches call for changes in rural practices
Associated Press

BARDSTOWN, Ky. – Some rural practices – such as mountaintop removal coal mining – are damaging the environment and should be discontinued, the Kentucky Council of Churches said at the conclusion of a conference on Friday.

The council, which represents Roman Catholic dioceses and 10 other moderate to liberal Christian denominations in the state, also advocated preserving open space, opposing factory farms, reducing air pollution and eliminating raw sewage from being illegally piped into streams.

Of all those issues, mountaintop removal coal mining has been perhaps the hottest issue for environmentalists and religious leaders who say the practice takes such a heavy toll on nature that it should be banned. In the procedure, mountaintops are removed with explosives and heavy equipment to expose coal seams. The excess dirt and rock are dumped into hollows, creating additional flat land.

The process requires large-scale blasting and removal of trees, soil and rock, which destroys wildlife habitat and contaminates streams with sediment and harmful mine runoff.

The Council of Churches’ recommendations were approved as the organization wrapped up a two-day in Bardstown, the Courier-Journal of Louisville reported.

The council also called for improved conditions for migrant workers in Kentucky, raising the state cigarette tax to at least the national average, banning smoking in workplaces and providing more money for anti-smoking efforts.

The council said changes in rural areas affect not only smaller communities but urban ones as well, which become the destination of people displaced from traditional rural communities.

“Land ownership is being restructured, agricultural production is becoming more heavily industrialized and concentrated in fewer hands, and the earth is being subjected to harmful farming, mining and development practices,” the first resolution said.

Another resolution approved by member churches called for government programs that offer a path to permanent residency to migrant workers, and for churches to help “provide a comprehensive network of social services and advocacy for migrant families.”

It also calls for actions against global poverty to prevent people in other countries from “having to migrate in desperation in order to survive.”

Information from: The Courier-Journal, http://www.courier-journal.com

Article provided by Vivian Stockman of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition

Over the past year and a half, I’ve interned and volunteered at AV and it has been an awesome experience. I think the most meaningful thing I’ve done was last spring, when I did a research project for a class through AV. I made four trips up to West Virginia to see and feel first hand the burdens that MTR puts on communities and the people living in them. The most powerful experience there was in Rawl, where the water supply has been poisoned by coal sludge. People had to rely on state supplied water, which wasn’t plentiful, just so they could drink water without heavy metals. Worse, this problem had been going on for over 10 years, so lots of people were having serious health problems like liver cancer and brain tumors as a result. Before seeing what was going on at Rawl, I had always thought MTR was bad because it destroys mountains, but seeing the human side gave everything a deeper, more powerful meaning. You can read about this kind of thing in a book or online, but until you see it, it is really difficult to understand the breadth of the issue.

This post is intended to continue to bring to light the problems with current energy production and consumption, and show what one little corner of the world here in western North Carolina is doing to pitch in on a GLOBAL problem of fossil fuel production and consumption. Tip of the hat the many folks whose continuing work for a sustainable energy future is ever-educational and inspiring.

As America awakes to the effects that our energy production and consumption is having on the globe, people are shocked to find out that we do things like blow up 100s of 1000s of acres in our own mountains for a just little bit of coal. One of the most agreed upon tenets among those of us working for sustainable energy policy is that “there is no silver bullet” as far as alternative energy. Another words, it isn’t feasible to run everything in the United States off just solar, just wind, or just hydro power. I adhere to this belief. America will need to localize our energy solutions in order to create the sustainable, clean, stable, domestic energy policy that everyone wants and needs.

In Appalachia, we begin by trading nightmarish mountaintop removal coal-mining, for an afternoon breeze…
…

…

America currently gets more than half of her energy from coal. Appalachian coal features prominently in this production, though our role is decreasingly important…

Appalachian coal currently produces roughly 15% of America’s total energy needs. 10% of that coal comes from deep mining and 5% is from surface mining and mountaintop removal.

MTR coal mostly comes from West Virginia (95.6mst) and Kentucky (92.4mst) . However, other than West Virginia herself, North Carolina gets more of our energy from MTR coal than any other state – a whopping 12.2%!

Thing is…we’re ’bout out of coal.
The US Geological survey estimates…

“In the northern and central Appalachian Basin coal regions…Sufficient high-quality, thick, bituminous resources remain in these beds and coal zones to last for the next one or two decades at current production.”

Over 750,000 acres of Appalachia have already been destroyed, and the EPA estimates the practice of mountaintop removal will DOUBLE in the next decade. Here is what is permitted circa 2005.

Coal companies are increasingly relying on the mountaintop removal method, in which up to 1000 ft. of local relief is blasted away, and shoved into the adjacent river valley, in order to get at the coal seams beneath the ground.

Coal companies prefer this method because it employs less people.

Appalachia and its people are resourceful in every sense of the word. The most bio-diverse temperate hardwood forests in the world blanket our mountains, which have lost over 6 kilometers in height over millions of years of natural erosion and weathering. Roughneck settlers came here 100s of years ago, before there was ever interest in the black rock beneath their feet. Now, the mountains are being flattened, the trees and peaks are being shoved into the river valleys, habitats are being destroyed. In one man’s humble opinion – we are destroying the most beautiful place on earth for just a few measly years of coal. You can only burn coal one time. And then it’s gone!

Surely Appalachia can do better.
Surely America can do better.

The question isn’t whether or not we need to replace and rebuild Appalachia’s mountaintop removal/coal based economic sectors. It MUST happen and it needs to happen NOW. The question is can we realistically replace that 5% of America’s energy needs with something more sustainable? Can Appalachian wind power help create Appalachia and America’s new domestic energy economy?

Well, here’s how we hillbillies see it…
Some years back, here in western North Carolina, someone must have been pleasantly surprised to come upon these images…

Perhaps it was someone from my home county of Watauga…

With darker shades of blue showing a higher wind energy potential, it should be obvious to any 3 –year-old that Appalachia is a PRIME spot for a regional economy based on wind power.

A recent article in about wind power replacing MTR coal has people across Appalachia buzzing and showing a real interest in creating our own sustainable energy economy. Mike Roth recently published an article in the Appalachian Voice called “Could wind power replace MTR coal?.”:

A recent study carried out by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) estimates that mountainous regions (similar to southern WV) can likely support an average of at least one turbine every 26 acres.

Compare that to the current situation in Wise County Virginia, where roughly ¼ of all land area is permitted to be strip mined, and you understand that (an average of) 1 turbine/26 acres has much less impact on the land, the views, the habitats, and the people of the region.

Roth continues:

This implies that 1 million acres of land could support roughly 38,000 turbines that annually produce 3-4% of total US electric demand. The actual footprint of these turbines would be roughly 10,000 acres, leaving a surrounding 990,000 acres of untouched forested land.

That is 3-4% of America’s energy from sustainable sources WITHOUT destroying the very earth that we live upon. Once an area has been hit with mountaintop removal, it is also no longer an economically viable source for wind energy.

Roth concludes:

The most efficient use of Appalachian land likely merits the discontinuation of MTR coupled with the development of mountain based wind farms. If this occurs, over the next 10 years coal companies could continue to provide the energy required to meet at least 13-14% of US electric demand via wind turbines and deep mining. In addition, if coal companies chose this path as opposed to MTR, 10 years down the road they will be left with close to 1,000,000 acres of forested land suitable for economic development that also supplies 3-4% of US electric demand in perpetuity.

We have begun taking the issue into our own hands. In Watauga County North Carolina, the County Commission just became the first regulate wind power systems in the state of North Carolina. This is a very rural, typically conservative county, and it was a VERY popular move.

Some comrades and I just finished this short amateur tongue-in-cheek video about wind energy production in western North Carolina. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope it helps to initiates substantive conversation in this part of the country about how we are going to lead the way into a sustainable local economy, and a country with stable domestic energy production

I also hope that y’all are considering what is going on in your neck of the woods that is going to keep your economy strong and energy production sustainable and local.

Thanks!
Peace,
JW

For more information on wind power, I’d recommend:

Http://www.wind.appstate.edu

http://www.awea.org

http://www.appvoices.org

Special thanks to:
Ryan Brown
Alex Brucke
Christina Mosteller
Catherine Ross
Doug Stoll