Sustainable WNC

The North Carolina Division of Air Quality (DAQ) violated the public trust, again, when it refused to hold more than one public hearing on Duke Energy’s proposed expansion of its coal-burning facility at Cliffside. There is a long history of DAQ disregard for its stated goal of working with the citizens of the state to improve air quality. The DAQ Title V process is the last regulatory hurdle Duke Energy must overcome before beginning construction on the new plant, perhaps as early as January, 2008. The one official hearing held by the state agency was in Forest City, NC, on Tuesday, September 18, starting at six in the evening. Forest City is a tiny rural community in Rutherford County in the southwestern part of the state, far from major population centers that will be affected by the pollution, climate change and water-use issues associated with the operation of the new gargantuan 800 megawatt coal-burning power plant. Holding the hearing in such a remote location ensured that the major news media would not cover the issue in a comprehensive manner. Reporters for the few media outlets that did cover the story, like the Charlotte Observer, stayed only for the beginning and didn’t hear or report on the testimony of environmental spokespeople who made the effort to come the long distance, but were placed at the end of the speaker’s list, as Duke Energy and it’s paid entourage dominated the front end. And so, anyone not aware of the process and its abuse, seeing a news report on the hearing would have been led to believe that the new “clean coal technology” Cliffside Power Plant was welcomed by the local community, with virtually no opposition, case closed.

Fourteen of us caravanned down to Forest City from Asheville after work that night, arriving at about 5:30 pm. A group from Charlotte, about the same size arrived shortly after we did. But, Duke Energy had arranged a picnic for the local people and public officials who came much earlier to sign up to speak. Perhaps a hundred and fifty local people stood near the entrance of the school building wearing large yellow paper badges reading “Cliffside, YES!”

The hearing started with a short statement by Donald van der Vaart the former Progress Energy administrator who now runs the Title V permitting process for DAQ. He welcomed the audience, briefly explained the purpose of the hearing and how important public input was to the process. After speaking he retired to a seat in the front row and was not heard from again. The meeting was facilitated by a lone DAQ woman on stage. There was a time-keeper who notified each speaker when the three-minute limit had been reached. The speaker’s podium faced the stage as each person testifying addressed the lonely facilitator.

The first hour-and-a-half of testimony was dominated by local officials repeating misinformation about how clean the new coal plant would be with its “state of the art” emission control technology. They opined about all the economic benefits the Cliffside Expansion would bring to Rutherford and surrounding counties. Speaker after speaker repeated the same rehearsed message, with overly enthusiastic members of the audience encouraging them, shouting “AMEN!” I am not making this up. They shouted “AMEN!” This was what the press stayed to see and the sentiment that was reported the following day.

During that first block of time only one speaker, Richard Fireman of NC Interfaith Power & Light broke the monotony by defending the environment. Richard had come earlier than the rest of us and signed up early. The position Richard was in at that moment was not enviable. The atmosphere of intimidation was tangible in that auditorium. But, he spoke eloquently and momentarily interrupted the nonsense of the power company’s staged propaganda. The grumbling and rude sniggering was audible.

When the parade of Duke Energy loyalists ended, the auditorium was half empty and spokespeople for the environment finally had a chance to counter. The local crowd treated the first two or three environmental speakers with the same disrespect and intimidation that Richard had experienced, but soon the atmosphere began to change as information began to flow, apparently striking a chord with at least some in the Rutherford County community. They learned that the new plant’s “modern” emission controls were not all they had been led to believe. There would be a substantial increase in mercury emissions from the new unit. CO2 emissions would increase by millions of tons each year. Arsenic, lead and other toxic emissions would increase substantially. They learned that scarce water supplies would be strained further as the plant would evaporate two million gallons of additional water each day. The local citizens learned that only thirty permanent new jobs would result from the operation of Cliffside Unit 6. And they learned that many more jobs would be created if the plant was scrapped and, instead, people were trained in the fields of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies, like solar, wind and geothermal. By the time five or six environmental speakers had completed their statements the crowd sat in attentive silence. None of this was reported by the news media.

At nine o’clock the facilitator announced that speakers would now only be allowed two minutes for their statements. As it happened, I was the first one scheduled to speak after she made the announcement. But, I had prepared a three-minute statement, come a long way and waited too long to allow myself to be limited in this way. Ignoring the time-keeper’s signal, my statement was delivered in its entirety. No one attempted to interrupt and the crowd listened intently.

The Forest City hearing on Cliffside was a sham, a mockery of the process that is intended to allow a representative cross-section of the citizenry of our state have influence over the regulatory process in a fair and democratic manner. At least a dozen environmental organizations state-wide made written requests of the DAQ for multiple hearings on Cliffside for the obvious reason that the nitrogen-oxide, sulfur-dioxide, mercury, hydrocarbons, volatile organic compound, heavy metal, arsenic, and other toxic chemical pollution, along with the enormous water-usage and greenhouse-gas CO2 emissions, would affect everyone in the state, not just the citizens who are within a short drive of Forest City. The refusal by the DAQ was a slap in the face to every citizen.

In response, the Canary Coalition, Carolina’s Clean Air Coalition, NC Waste Awareness and Reduction Network (NC WARN), NC Interfaith Power & Light, Mountain Voices Alliance and many others organized three unauthorized citizen-initiated hearings on Cliffside in Charlotte, Asheville and Raleigh, in an effort to prevent the DAQ’s process from passing under the radar of public scrutiny. The proceedings of these three hearings were videotaped, with all written comments and a DVD copy of verbal testimony delivered to the DAQ as well as to several news media outlets. While the DAQ’s only public notice for the Forest City hearing appeared in the small Rutherfordton weekly newspaper, the subsequent citizen’s hearings were publicized through notices in the Asheville Citizen-Times, the Raleigh News and Observer and through a vast grassroots news network on the internet. Reports can be viewed for the Charlotte, Asheville and Raleigh hearings. Predictably, the major news media didn’t announce the citizen’s hearings or show up to report on the testimony. But, the grassroots effort proved strong with more than three hundred people coming to the hearings and close to a hundred testifying. Once again the internet is proving itself as an effective alternative news grapevine, helping to spread the word of the opposition to Cliffside and other proposed coal and nuclear plant construction.

So, despite efforts by state officials, Duke Energy and the corporate media to keep the public in the dark, a groundswell is building to defeat Cliffside. What’s the next step?

The Cliffside plant proposal by Duke Energy is directly linked to energy legislation passed by the General Assembly and signed into law by Governor Easley in the 2007 legislative session, under the heading of Senate Bill 3. One of the provisions of S3 reversed a 25 year old ban in North Carolina on the practice of allowing ratepayers to be charged for construction work in progress (CWIP) on new power plants. These CWIP provisions shift the risk of building new polluting plants from the power companies’ shareholders to electric ratepayers, thereby attracting investors and paving the way for Cliffside and subsequent new power plant proposals.

An important next step is to work for the reversal of S3 in the 2008 legislative session. This will be a huge grassroots undertaking that won’t be easy, but it can be and has to be done. S3 passed with close to unanimous votes in both the House and Senate. Its support was wide, but not very deep. From speaking with several legislators after the law passed, it’s obvious that many lacked understanding of that for which they voted. In 2007, legislators were sold a bill of goods and subjected to hard political pressure from industrial interests to pass S3. In 2008 there will have to be a systematic process created to educate our lawmakers on S3 and related issues. This process will have to be accompanied by a hurricane of public pressure to undo what has been done and to chart a new course for meeting future energy demand in North Carolina.

Along with a reversal of S3, it’s important that the General Assembly pass a law mandating a restructuring of utility rates to drive energy reductions, investment in efficiency and the development of renewable resources. Meaningful economic incentive is the only motivation that will result in massive change of behavior by electrical consumers. Conservation and efficiency must be rewarded; wasteful energy use, penalized.

There is also a message the environmental community needs to convey to traditionally progressive members of the General Assembly who abandoned principles and towed the industry line in the last session: The environmental community is not to be taken for granted. If you don’t have the commitment to stand strongly behind the environment on important issues like S3, you will be fairly criticized, publicly and with full disclosure. Short of dropping an atomic bomb on North Carolina, there is nothing that could be more devastating to the environment and to the health of every child, woman and man in the state, than operating another utility-scale coal-burning power plant in our state. If you won’t take a stand against CWIP and/or Cliffside, then for what great cause are you saving your political capital?

The list is long of legislators who should be ashamed of themselves for their sheep-like resolve in the last session, starting with the Speaker of the House, Joe Hackney and President Pro-Tem Marc Basnight, going down the ranks to the Chair of the House Energy and Efficiency Committee, Pricey Harrison, and staunch environmental advocates like Representatives Jennifer Weiss and Phil Haire and Senators Joe Sam Queen, Martin Nesbitt, John Snow and so many others who have been viewed as champions of the environment in the past, but were no heroes this time when push came to shove. Legislators were told there would be brownouts “like what happened in California” if new power plants were not built to prepare for the growing population and “our growing energy demand.” They were told it was their responsibility to ensure that when their constituents “turned on the switch, the lights would come on.” And so these well-educated and informed progressive legislators acted on their fears, rather than on their knowledge, ignoring climate change, mercury toxicity and water shortages. They ignored the fact that energy reductions could meet future energy demand without the devastating consequences, with much less expense and much more benefit to health, environment and the economy than burning more coal. One of the most painful moments I experienced while lobbying against S3 in Raleigh last summer was hearing Representative Jennifer Weiss chastise me for my unwillingness to “compromise” after I urged her to vote against the bill. Compromise what? My children’s lungs? My grandchildren’s future? Wake up Representative Weiss! There has been too much compromise. Ninety-five percent of our energy is currently and unnecessarily derived from nuclear energy and fossil fuels, yielding devastating results. Where is the balance? What is left to compromise? The construction of even one more coal-burning power plant will by far negate any greenhouse gas emission gains from the so-called REPS provisions in S3 and many other efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (Your computer needs PowerPoint to view this link). This was not a compromise. It was a sellout.

There were genuine heroes in the General Assembly last year. Senators Janet Cowell and Ellie Kinnaird, and eleven members of the House including Representatives Paul Luebke, Susan Fisher, Charles Thomas and others who had the backbone to stand up to oppose S3 in the face of tremendous political pressure. These are the people who deserve the full support and commitment of the environmental community. This is the core on which to build a movement.

The dynamics within the legislative process need to be reversed. It is the environmental community, backed by massive public support, that will have to apply the irresistible political pressure on members of the General Assembly to repeal S3 while passing a rate restructuring mandate and other meaningful measures that will shift the course of our energy future toward efficiency, conservation and renewable resource technologies. Don’t listen to anyone who says this can’t be done and the environmental community doesn’t have the clout to posture in this way. Nonsense. A large majority of the general population wants strong action to address climate change issues. Environmental lobbyists need to learn how to flex that muscle and rid themselves of the inferiority complex developed over years of living with the status of representing a small minority. They have to learn how to look legislators straight in the eye and say, “No. That provision or that compromise is unacceptable. If you want the backing of Citizens for a Survivable Future you’ll have to meet our standards,” and walk away if necessary.

To change government policies there will need to be activities outside of the legislative arena, as well. A genuine movement has to arise to create a new political atmosphere in North Carolina and beyond. Many more people will have to become active in organizing and in participating. Utility company executives and boards need to hear from ratepayers that they don’t want their money spent on new polluting power plants. People reading this can download return address-sized labels that read, “NO MORE COAL!” and attach them to utility bill payments, letters to legislators, editors and other appropriate documents and places. There is also a petition you can sign and circulate to stop Cliffside.

NC WARN is organizing a campaign to blitz Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers with mail and email to pressure him into abandoning the Cliffside expansion and to be consistent with his recent statements on the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Find out more about this campaign and send your message to Rogers.

It may be time for people and communities to exercise economic clout to make industrial and government leaders listen to reason. Boycotting has been a successful grassroots tool used throughout the history of social movements. The Canary Coalition and other groups are considering organizing for periodic “power boycotts” to flex the muscle of electrical consumers. This would be a way that everyone could participate in an effective action from the confines of one’s own home. Turn off the main breaker at a coordinated time and period and then turn it on again at a specified time, to protest plans to build Cliffside and other new power plants. This strategy has great potential for mass involvement. It has potential for economic impact against the power industry. It has potential for growth and expansion. And it has potential for unifying the environmental community with consumer groups, with civil rights organizations and other social action groups in a common activity that would be extremely powerful. Stay tuned for more on this.

For those who are skeptical that citizens have the power to stop Duke Energy and Cliffside, view the list of forty-two power plants that have been successfully stopped in twenty-two states in the last three years (PowerPoint necessary).

Rise and shine.

In a consensus report this year, written and reviewed by 2500 scientists appointed by 130 nations, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tells the world that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities must be rapidly reduced by 80% to avoid the most catastrophic consequences of global warming (www.ipcc.ch/).

Plans to build hundreds of new power plants across the nation, including Duke Energy’s plan to build and operate a new coal-burning power plant at its Cliffside facility in Rutherford County, North Carolina, ignore this reality and other good reasons for abandoning this strategy to meet future energy demand.

Coal-burning power plants are the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. There is no technology available to reduce or eliminate the massive amounts of carbon-dioxide released into the atmosphere from the combustion of hydro-carbons such as coal, oil or natural gas. Burning coal is also responsible for acid rain from sulfur-dioxide and nitrogen-oxide emissions, high ground-level ozone concentrations and mercury contamination of water ways and aquatic wildlife. Several existing coal-burning power plants had to shut down operations this summer because waterways used for cooling were too warm. Burning coal has become reliant on the environmental devastation wrought by mountaintop removal mining in which vast eco-systems are destroyed, entire towns are displaced, rivers are contaminated with toxic by-products from sludge-pond dam failures and floods.

Because of the passage of Senate Bill 3 in the 2007 session of the North Carolina General Assembly (that the Canary Coalition is working to reverse), electric ratepayers would be forced to invest about two billion dollars into the planning, siting, preparatory work and construction of Duke Energy’s Cliffside plant before it even comes on line, if it ever comes on line. This huge investment would squander limited capital that could be used instead to advance energy efficiency, conservation and renewable technologies that would provide a way of meeting future energy demand while reducing greenhouse gas emissions from current levels, in line with the direction advised by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Duke Energy’s application to build and operate the new Cliffside coal-burning power plant results from energy policies that are business-as-usual at a time when a change of direction is desperately needed, if we are serious about our responsibility toward future generations.

The only public hearing set by the NC Utilities Commission for the Cliffside Coal plant application will be held at the Chase High School , 1603 Chase High School Road , in Forest City , NC , on Tuesday, September 18, at 6 pm.

To review the permit application visit daq.state.nc.us/permits/psd/cliffside.shtml

The Canary Coalition is organizing a carpool to and from this hearing. Contact info@canarycoalition.org or call 828-631-3447 for more information.

On August 18, the fourth annual Relay for Clean Air will begin at 6:15 am as the first bicyclist leaves Newfound Gap at the border between Tennessee and North Carolina, in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park carrying the pennant-sized “Clean Air” banner. Through a continual chain of bicycle riders, runners and walkers, the banner will arrive in Asheville, North Carolina via the Blue Ridge Parkway, 100 miles and fourteen hours later. This is a march for the right to breathe clean air.

We are marching for clean air in the Great Smoky Mountains and on the Blue Ridge Parkway because these are the two most visited and most polluted national parks in America. Acid rain and high ozone levels are leaving a legacy of millions of dead and dying trees. Unique species of plants and animals in this region are threatened by air pollution and climate change. Average visibility is a small fraction of what it was half a century ago.

We are marching for clean air because one of every three children in this geographical region has suffered an asthma attack, because asthma is the number one cause of absenteeism in the public schools and because a direct link has been established between asthma in children and high ozone and particulate pollution levels in our air.

We are marching because hundreds of the most respected climatologists in the world on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have come to a consensus that human activities, particularly in power production and transportation, are causing rapid climate change that will likely have catastrophic consequences in approaching decades. These scientists are telling us there is perhaps a twenty year window of opportunity for humanity to take strong and deliberate actions to reduce our output of greenhouse gases by as much as 80% from today’s levels, if we are going to avoid the worst consequences of climate change.

We are marching because we have the means to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas and toxic emissions through energy-use reductions, through conversion from reliance on fossil fuels to safe and clean renewable energy technologies, through peak-power shifting, through comprehensive public transportation options and near zero-emission automobile technologies, but public policy has not reflected the urgency of the climate change crisis by offering appropriately scaled measures that will have significant impact using these and other methods.

We are marching because public energy and transportation policies on the state and federal levels have mostly ignored the air pollution and climate change crisis, promoting the continued use of greenhouse gas producing energy and transportation options. Applications have been filed to build hundreds of new coal and nuclear power plants in the southeast and throughout the nation with total abandon toward health and environmental consequences, as legislators and regulators ease the way by offering taxpayer and ratepayer subsidies and incentives to the utility industry for taking this course.

We are marching one hundred miles through this magnificent but difficult terrain, through the treacherous curves of the Blue Ridge Parkway, through the dense acidic fog, haze and invisible ozone, through the heat of the August sun, to the heights of Newfound Gap, Waterrock Knob and Richland Balsam, past the history of Cold Mountain and the Cradle of Forestry, past the majesty of Mount Pisgah and the serenity of Hominy Valley, to the streets of Asheville, to announce that people of conscience are working to reverse irresponsible government and industrial energy and transportation policies and we are determined to take responsibility and succeed in our efforts.

We are marching for our children and grandchildren and for future generations.
The Relay schedule and more information may be found at www.canarycoalition.org or by calling 828-631-3447.

Some in the environmental, civil rights and consumer rights activist community are disappointed and discouraged by the outcome of the 2007 legislative session in North Carolina, as Senate Bill 3 passed overwhelmingly, in both Houses of the General Assembly, with provisions to force ratepayers to assume the financial risk for the planning, preparation and construction of a new generation of dirty coal and nuclear power plants to meet “our growing energy demand.” I am angry. Anger is not an enviable mood, but sometimes it’s appropriate.

At a time when the world desperately needs to be taking a hard, fast turn toward energy efficiency, conservation and renewable energy resources, North Carolina has chosen, at least for now, to go in the opposite direction.

It’s not accurate to place all fault with the energy corporations who essentially bought this decision by exercising political influence gained from distributing 1.7 million dollars in campaign contributions in the last two elections to almost every member of the General Assembly. These corporate giants are doing as expected, lobbying for their own interests, to maximize profits for their shareholders. More power sold means more profit. Larger generating capacity means the ability to sell more energy. Their business projections will show expected increases in energy consumption annually, with no end in sight. Planning for and projecting growth is what businesses do.

Nor is it fair to point at legislators as the primary target for blame, although they deserve their share for allowing themselves to be influenced in this way, stampeded into an ill-considered decision that has such profound implications for the health, economy and environment of the state. Each senator and representative is confronted with hundreds of bills each session to sift through or have explained to them by assistants. It’s impossible to read and understand everything. Unless they feel the ground shaking under their feet about a particular issue, legislators rely on the limited information their offices receive from lobbyists, the leadership of their Chamber, committees or political parties. Many, perhaps most of our elected representatives in Raleigh weren’t aware of the details of the sordid deal for which they voted. They were told and they believed this bill would ensure when their constituents flicked the switch, the lights would continue to come on. The details were unimportant.

The environmental community needs to look inward in sorting out what went wrong as the process it began quickly broke in an unintended direction. There were the two organizations who went over the deep end as partners in the “concensus”, becoming so invested in the process there was no safe way out, defending S3 to the end on the basis of the token Renewable and Efficiency Portfolio Standard, despite the overwhelming consequences of the Construction Work In Progress provisions that would ease the way for more polluting power plant construction and render any advances toward renewables and efficiency meaningless. But, with a few notable exceptions, the entire environmental community was willing to go along with this scheme from the beginning and bears the responsibility for the predictable S3 debacle. The same failed strategies continue to repeat themselves, yielding similar results every time, year after year. Groups allow themselves to be co-opted, moving allegiance from their principles to the process, becoming a part of the system that is perpetuating the problem. Social peer pressure restricts the ability to speak openly and truthfully, in this case about the nature and scope of change that is needed to confront poor air quality and global warming. Legislative proposals coming out of the environmental community are timid and unnecessarily compromising, tailored to what is believed to be the prevailing political wisdom, what would be acceptable in the political and social circles in which one travels. There is no attempt to change the political atmosphere to conform with scientific reality. There is only compromise after compromise until the diluted product is meaningless, or in this case worse than nothing at all, because it strengthens the hand of the coal and nuclear industries. The prevailing sentiment within the environmental community seems to be one of resignation that we live in a serfdom, so lets only try to accomplish what a group of serfs can do. Those who believe they are powerless are powerless, because they never even attempt to exercise the power that is inherent in a human being who speaks the truth and stands strongly behind her/his words. This process invariably results in micro-steps forward intermingled with backward motion netting a global environment that continues to degrade steadily as the years pass by. We can do much better. We have to do much more, rapidly.

The first thing we can do is start speaking the truth. No climate change action plan is realistic if it doesn’t incorporate a way to achieve a dramatic decrease in current levels of energy consumption rapidly. Yet, throughout the process resulting in S3 becoming a law, the environmental community, with a few notable exceptions, allowed and even fed into the notion that increases in energy consumption are inevitable, because population growth is inevitable. It is socially and politically uncomfortable to make the assertion that increased energy consumption is not inevitable. The energy industry’s powerful publicity machine has brow-beaten legislators, the news media and even most members of the environmental community into accepting the inevitability of increased energy consumption. Anyone who says otherwise runs the risk of being ostracized as an extremist, a “loose-cannon” or a dreamer. To illustrate this, the Clean Energy Coalition’s “White Paper” leading to S3, before the utility industry got its hands on it, assumed a 2% annual increase in energy consumption based on utility corporate projections. With its recommended 20% Renewable and Efficiency Portfolio Standard by the year 2021 this plan would have resulted in a net increase of 8% in “baseload” coal or nuclear produced energy consumption!

If we accept the premise that global energy consumption increase is inevitable, there is no hope of avoiding the worst consequences of climate change, because energy production is the single largest source of greenhouse gases. The current climate change crisis is a product of present and lower levels of energy consumption. In fact, the dreamer is the person who believes we can increase energy consumption as we solve global warming. With the scientific community giving us, at the outside, a window of twenty years to turn things around, in that time-frame, non-greenhouse gas producing renewable resources can only replace coal and nuclear power as the primary energy producers if we dramatically reduce energy consumption from current levels simultaneously. So, this is the conundrum. We have to speak the truth, even if it seems politically inexpedient to do so at the moment. Avoiding the raw truth is to avoid real solutions from ever surfacing, being debated and ultimately being enacted. Truth is powerful and will prevail, if we maintain consistency in reminding the public, the news media and elected officials about the facts surrounding climate change and the scale of change that is needed to address it on a global level. If our legislative proposals don’t reflect the scale and urgency of the climate change crisis, we are not speaking the truth. We are tailoring our message for what we believe to be short-term political expediency and that is self-defeating.

The goal of the environmental community can be nothing less than achieving dramatic and rapid global energy consumption reductions from today’s level. This has to be the message we shout from the hilltops, write in our press releases and repeat in the halls of local, state and federal government buildings.

There needs to be an energy strategy geared toward sufficient energy reductions to significantly impact global greenhouse gas production. This can only be accomplished through economics. Economics is the only force capable of driving meaningful social change. A very small percentage of the population will change the engrained habits of their lives just because it’s the right thing to do. But, almost everyone responds to the economics of the marketplace. By reversing utility rate structures, raising the price per kilowatt increasingly at different thresholds of use, a powerful economic incentive will be created for conservative energy-use, investment in energy efficient equipment and independent renewable energy systems. This should be at the top of the environmental community’s legislative agenda.

Another strong economic incentive for energy-use reduction would be a substantial “pollution fee” imposed on the purchase of all non-Energy Star electrical equipment.

Evaluating true costs of all energy options will be another powerful economic and political driver toward clean renewables and energy-use reduction. When the costs of health and environmental impact, the costs of full-fuel cycles and the costs of decommissioning of power plants are factored into the equation, solar-produced electricity, although the most expensive renewable option, is cheaper than either coal or nuclear power. A state-sponsored research project commissioned specifically to evaluate true costs will establish the truth in this statement once and for all. No licenses or permits will be granted for the construction of any new power plant unless it meets the least-cost critieria as defined by the research project findings. As a result of this policy, renewables will rapidly gain a larger share of overall energy production, no new polluting sources will be built, energy prices will rise causing further energy-use reductions, medical bills associated with pulmonary disease will likely decline as will health insurance premiums in response to an over-all reduction in air pollution-related illness.

These types of measures approach the scale of change that has to occur within the next decade if we’re sincere about our responsibility toward future generations. These proposals reflect the scale and urgency of the climate change crisis. Activity toward a conversion in paradigm to energy-use reductions and renewable resources has to be at the level of a nation at war. Resistance within the political process will be strong at first, but the truth behind the message is so powerful that it will prevail if the environmental community has the courage and determination to persist in delivering it until it’s heard by enough of the decision-makers to enact it.

The decision-makers will come on board one-by-one through a process of public pressure, economic pressure and common sense. There will be great public pressure because members of the grassroots who understand the dynamics of this ambitious proposal will become excited and active, generating a deep groundswell that will indeed be felt shaking under the feet of legislators and all elected officials. There will at first be public resistance and debate, but that’s a good thing because it will heighten the profile of the issue and bring it into the forefront of the public agenda. Energy issues will be reported on a daily basis by major newspapers and TV news shows educating the public on the realities associated with the climate change crisis and its relationship to energy-use. This debate has to happen sooner or later, so let it be sooner. The truth will prevail as more information reaches the public domain. When the entire population is saturated with the truth, the political pressure on lawmakers to act decisively will be irresistible.

This entire process will be galvanized when the environmental community takes a united stand in offering a dynamic legislative proposal that incorporates the measures mentioned above along with other economic drivers. It is this initial act of proposal that will spark both the public debate and the excitement within the grassroots community. What on earth are we waiting for?

Some within the environmental community of North Carolina have already signed onto the NC Energy Future Resolution (EFR), a document that outlines some of the steps that should be taken toward addressing the scale and urgency of the climate change crisis. But, most of the larger groups, primarily in the Triangle area of the state, squandered their limited resources this year by pushing the weak and rather meaningless strategy embodied in Senate Bill 3, while ignoring the much more profound strategy embodied by the Energy Future Resolution. After two years of prodding, so far we’ve only managed to get a badly diluted version of the EFR introduced in the General Assembly, a version for which it was hardly worth campaigning. The story will be different when the entire environmental community unites strongly behind this proposal or a similar one that embodies the same principles and steps. The full-strength EFR principles, introduced as legislation and backed by the entire environmental community, will create waves that rock every boat, shake up the political landscape and begin the process that will put us on the road to meeting our responsibility toward future generations.

In changing the energy paradigm toward renewables, conservation and efficiency, the biggest obstacle to overcome is not the energy industry’s opposition or the mindlessness of elected officials who make decisions. The biggest obstacle is the resistance of the environmental community’s leadership that has lost touch with its roots, the grassroots, and has become lost in the delusion that meaningful change can be affected through weak proposals and compromise with the industries and power brokers that have a vested interest in greater energy consumption. The biggest obstacle is the doubt that prevents us from awakening to our own empowerment and prevents us from asserting the truth as we see it and as the scientific community has related it to us. The results of numerous polls tell us that a large majority of the population wants strong government action to address climate change and air pollution. The environmental community needs to start acting like it represents the majority.

The Canary Coalition organizes its 4th annual 100-mile civil rights march

On Saturday, August 18, from 6:15am thru 8:30pm bike riders, runners and walkers will take turns marching from Newfound Gap in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, along the Blue Ridge Parkway, to downtown Asheville, NC to proclaim “We all have the right to breathe clean air.” A pennant-sized “Clean Air” banner will be passed between participants as they complete each of the thirty-seven segments along the route.

“The Relay for Clean Air takes on new significance this year as communities throughout the Southeast are faced with an energy crossroads.” explains Avram Friedman of the Canary Coalition. “On one hand dramatic technological and economic strides are being realized in energy efficiency and renewable energy resources holding great promise to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. But, on the other hand, plans are being developed to build a new generation of polluting power plants, threatening to reverse all the progress achieved in recent years. We can’t and won’t let that happen. Future energy demand, even with an expanding population, can be met by using energy more wisely and without devastating our health and the environment. The community in western North Carolina is empowered after a groundswell of public involvement emerged to defeat the recent attempt to build an oil-burning power plant in Woodfin. Likewise the grassroots response has been powerful in opposing legislation introduced in the NC General Assembly this year that would ease the way for construction of new coal and nuclear plants by passing on the financial risk to ratepayers.

“We’re expecting the largest turnout ever this year for the Relay for Clean Air. This movement is growing.” adds Friedman.

There will be continuing updates and press advisories as the date comes closer.

To sign up as a participant or volunteer, to view the schedule, to download a poster, or for more information please visit www.canarycoalition.org or call 828-631-3447

The pending legislation meant to create a Renewable and Efficiency Portfolio Standard (REPS) for North Carolina electric utilities was deeply flawed from the beginning. The Canary Coalition and several other grassroots organizations have chosen not to support either H77 or S3 because either of theses bills serves to misguide those not paying close attention into believing something substantial is happening to address climate change and air pollution issues, when in fact it is not. A false impression of progress is dangerous because it can lead to public complacency and thwart efforts to accomplish the substantial changes in energy policy and laws needed to confront the climate change and air pollution crisis the world is confronting.

Until now, the basic irrelevancy of S3’s goals have made it worthy of ignoring. A combined 12.5% efficiency and “renewable” contribution by the year 2021, will all-but-certainly be far surpassed even with no legislation at all. There is a technological revolution in efficiency happening as we speak. Light bulbs that are 97% more efficient, dishwashers, washing machines, refrigerators, televisions, computers and many other commonly used household, office and industrial electrical appliances and equipment that are 40-60% more efficient are rolling off the assembly line or will be shortly. (www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/aug2004/nf20040823_9499_db_81.htm ).

Although the danger of S3 leading to public complacency is serious, now there’s another, far more compelling reason to oppose S3. The bill has been hijacked by utility interests in the state legislature who have amended it to include provisions for funding the construction of a new generation of coal and nuclear power plants. These “base-load” provisions include work-in-progress rate increases, meaning that ratepayers will be forced to pay for new polluting power plants even before they come online, eliminating risk for the industry. In the case of nuclear plants even the developmental phase of projects are subject to this funding, “including, without limitation, the costs of evaluation, design, engineering, environmental analysis and permitting, early site permitting, combined operating license permitting, initial site preparation costs, and allowance for funds used during construction associated with such costs.” Ratepayers will pay whether the power plants ever get built or not.

There’s more. North Carolina ratepayers will pre-pay for the development and construction of power plants to be operated outside the state if they are planned to contribute to the grid within our borders.

The “REPS” legislation also provides for the expansion of the natural gas pipeline network in North Carolina.

If funding for natural gas, coal and nuclear power seems misplaced in the context of a bill introduced by members of the environmental community to promote efficiency and renewable technologies, more exclamation points arise when examining practices being defined by the legislation as qualifying to make up the 12.5% “REPS.” The definition of “renewable resources” in this bill includes direct combustion of agricultural waste (such as chicken carcasses and hog waste) and waste wood from industries that practice unsustainable forestry. These are practices that were not permitted in the residential NC Greenpower program because they wouldn’t meet the standards of an independent non-profit organization administering such programs nationwide.

In S3, only two-tenths of one percent of total energy production is “mandated” for COMBINED solar thermal and electrical resources. Removing legal obstacles for wind development in North Carolina is not addressed. It’s difficult to imagine a future in which solar and wind energy don’t advance far more quickly than this mandate requires, especially a future in which the impact of human activity is not causing the worst consequences associated with climate change.

Unfortunately, there are members of the environmental community who have invested much time and valuable limited non-profit resources working to pass this legislation. But now that the utility industry’s legislative operatives have completely negated any environmental benefit from the bill, it’s time to cut losses and chalk it up as a lesson learned. The low renewable and efficiency goals of the original bill, as introduced, were meant to appease the utility industry in an effort to work with them toward a reduction in greenhouse gas and pollution production. It was thought these giant energy corporations could be persuaded to be part of the solution and they would willingly help to reduce energy consumption through a system of economic incentives. But, the power companies are in the business of selling energy. It is not in the interest of their shareholders to reduce demand for their product. Yet, this is the task at hand for the environmental community and our civilization at large. Real and meaningful progress toward reduced energy consumption is going to happen by overcoming the resistance and influence of the energy industry, unfortunately not by its cooperation. History and experience have clearly defined successful efficiency programs in this country as those administered independently of the energy industry (www.canarycoalition.org/factsheets/synapse.doc).

The process of energy efficiency improvement and renewable technology advancement is happening on its own. Wind and solar in particular have made great technological strides in recent years, wind becoming the fastest growing energy source in the world today. The most effective way to augment this process is to remove the legal, social and economic obstacles placed in its way and to provide economic incentive for electrical consumers and producers to invest in it. Neither S3 nor H77 address this challenge. But, there is a pending bill, H1825, that begins to come to grips with these issues.

S3 has to be defeated and replaced with a strategy that promises to yield better results. It may not (probably won’t at this point) happen in this legislative session, but we can begin to build the political momentum for the next session and/or the one after that, by supporting a proposal that reflects the true urgency of climate change and air quality issues, and will therefore resonate meaning that will attract massive public support. The Canary Coalition and many others have succeeded in putting H1825 on the table in the House. It’s currently in the committee on Public Utilities. This bill is not presently in the form it needs to be. For what they considered to be political expediency, the legislative sponsors of the bill removed much of the “teeth”, again, trying to appease the utility industry. H1825 was originally designed around the Energy Future Resolution (EFR), a proposal that proved its mass appeal by working its way up through Democratic Party precincts throughout the state in 2006 to be part of the party platform. The EFR proposal calls for an evaluation of least-cost methods of meeting future energy demand, including the costs of health and environmental impact, the costs of full fuel cycles and the cost of decommissioning power plants. No licenses for new power plants would be issued unless meeting the least-cost criteria under this definition. The EFR also calls for utility rate-restructuring to provide a steep economic incentive for electrical consumers to reduce energy consumption through investment in efficiency and conservation methods as well as independent renewable energy systems. Economics has always been the driving force behind social change and this is no different. When there is a significant economic reason for people, businesses, hospitals, schools and government institutions to use less energy they will find a way to use less energy. - in spite of the utility industry’s relentless desire to sell more energy. Unfortunately, when introducing H1825, the sponsors eliminated all but the study part of the proposal, allocating $95,000 and mandating the Utility Commission conduct the evaluation. No restriction on licensing of new power plants. No rate-restructuring. It’s a start, but nowhere good enough. In this form, H1825 will not excite the public and garner massive support. It has little chance of escaping committee in this session.

The environmental community is never going to win anything meaningful in the legislative process by compromising away all substance and shying away from speaking the whole truth about the extent of the changes that will have to occur to avert the worst consequences of climate change. A much more effective strategy is to make a strong proposal and stick to it, building support over months and years if necessary until the political momentum becomes unstoppable. Even if there’s a perception that speaking the truth will initially be unpopular and subject to ridicule by “practical” political pundits, and even if there may be seemingly insurmountable political obstacles, the true nature and extent of climate change solutions have to be publicly acknowledged before those solutions will be enacted in the politic realm. History clearly and emphatically proves it to be the case in great social causes of the past- the abolitionists, women’s rights movement, labor movement, civil rights movements, anti-war movements- all ridiculed in the beginning- all successful in the end.

If we can unite in demanding the substance be replaced in H1825, it’s worth supporting this bill, even if it doesn’t pass in this session. The EFR is a vehicle capable of gathering massive public support, in time, and creating the scale of political movement we need to implement meaningful, positive change in energy policy.

Please join the Canary Coalition in promoting an amended H1825 while adamantly opposing the disastrous S3.

On April 2, after a grueling five-hour public hearing, when the Woodfin Planning and Zoning Board voted 7-0 to reject a Conditional Use Permit for Progress Energy’s proposed oil-burning “peaking” power plant, a new era began in environmental activism. The political shock waves created by this decision are still extending.

As a result of this solid, undeniable grassroots victory, the Buncombe County Commissioners learned that public participation is more than an unpleasant formality required by law on the way to creating policy for the benefit of large corporations. They woke up to discover themselves as a few naked, exposed bodies surrounded by a sea of discontented and angry citizens, angry over the blatant disregard for due process, democratic principles and responsibility for guarding the interests of Buncombe County residents.

As a result of the victory at Woodfin the progressive members of the Asheville City Council were emboldened to press forward with an aggressive environmental agenda including setting a goal of reaching an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas production from city facilities, plans for a more comprehensive public transportation system, plans for better road accommodations for bicycles and pedestrians.

As a result of this resounding public rejection, Progress Energy, in shock, retreated, shrinking back from the public eye like a wounded animal, not sure which direction to turn or how to proceed. Their public relations personnel weren’t answering phone calls or emails. In desperation, suddenly realizing a massive public relations problem, Progress announced, in early June, the formation of an “Advisory Council” composed of people from the community felt (by Progress Energy) to be a representative cross-section. Progress wrote the charter for the group and appointed all the members, with no public input. But, the point is they felt compelled to at least appear as if they were involving the community in decisions about western North Carolina’s future energy plans.

Most importantly, as a result of the Woodfin rebellion an entire community was awakened to its own empowerment as citizens. The Woodfin Planning and Zoning Board decision did not happen spontaneously or by accident or in a vacuum. It happened as a result of hard work and organizing by grassroots groups and individuals like the Canary Coalition, the Clean Air Task Force of Mountain Voices Alliance, the Western North Carolina Alliance, Caring for Creation, Southern Environmental Law Center and others. There was a community education and information campaign. There was an investigation of the Buncombe County land-lease deal, with hundreds of pages to review. There were op-eds and letters to the editor to write. There were strategy sessions. There were rallies and meetings and more meetings and phone calls and emails and faxes and door-to-door canvassing and printing and posting flyers. Expert witnesses had to be contacted and persuaded to speak in Woodfin. There was organizing to secure a strong turnout at the hearing…

…and then, we won. Do people really have power in this bureaucratic, corrupt system of governing we live under? Yes, we do. If we choose to exercise it.

To be continued.

Hello and welcome to this socio-environmental-political and somewhat spiritual forum.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to the people of the Mountain Area Information Network who have provided this most valuable opportunity and especially to my good friends and fellow activists Wally Bowen and Richard Fireman who have manifested yet another vision on the way to involving more people in the process of making our world a better place. I feel deeply privileged to have been asked to participate in this experiment.

<>This will actually be the first Blog I’ve contributed to, although I’ve followed several since my participation in the Ohio recount following the Great Stolen Presidential Election of 2004. Although I think we have just begun to scratch the surface of the potential contained in this type of public venue, Blogs have already surfaced as a great democratizing factor in our nation and around the world. When the commercial mass media intentionally blacked-out news of the blatant election fraud in 2004, the intense blogging on the internet served as a liberating fresh wind of information that broke the silence and informed such a large segment of the population that the co-opted “mainstream” national newspapers, radio and television networks could no longer stay silent and maintain credibility. Blogs represent a revolution in the flow of information, a change in paradigm that takes the “news” out of the hands of the corporate few who control the mass media. This is the modern day Hyde Park or public square where the issues of the day are freely discussed without censorship, without control, without vested manipulation- and reach potentially millions of people. New ideas and free discussion have always been the greatest threat to the status quo and it is my intention to use this forum with that in mind, because this is not the time for business-as-usual.

Currently and since October of 2000, I’ve been the Executive Director of the Canary Coalition, a growing movement of Clean Air activists originating in western North Carolina, but now with members in 22 states focused in the Greater Appalachian Region from Maine to Alabama. While the stated mission of the Canary Coalition is simply to improve air quality resulting in a better quality of life and a healthier environment, the problems at the roots of poor air quality involve core issues of the political, economic, social and spiritual civilization within which we live. In its essence the clean air movement is not simply an environmental movement. It’s a profound extension of the civil rights movement confronting the inequities inherent in our system of living. We have a right to breathe clean air. Nobody has the right to pollute our air. The obstacles to overcome on the way to achieving Clean Air force us to confront unfair political and regulatory processes favoring powerful industrial interests and a controlled mass media owned in many cases by the same economic interests. There are social justice issues to confront as the more poor, politically and economically weak often suffer disproportionately from health and environmental degradation. And, just as the success of the racial civil rights movement will never be completely successful until the hearts and minds of all people are introspected and transformed, so will we never achieve pure air quality until every person realizes that it is our own living habits, wastefulness and consciouslessness of energy use that is poisoning our air and spoiling our world for future generations.

<>My intention in using this blog space will be to remind the reader again and again that the time for business-as-usual is past. Activists have to move beyond activity and into Movement. We can no longer set our sights at achieving only what we believe is politically possible, limiting our proposals to small incremental gains based on perceived political practicalities given the current political atmosphere in Washington or in state capitols. The scientific community is telling us in certain terms that we have at the outside a twenty year window of opportunity to reverse the human impact on climate change in order to avoid reaching a “tipping point” in which global warming will have progressed to the point of irreversible damage triggering a catastrophic series of environmental events threatening the lives of billions of people and most species on our planet.

<>The goal of this movement has to be nothing less than the creation of a new political atmosphere that will overwhelm the existing and prevailing “conventional wisdom” that so often limits the possibility of substantial progress. The new political atmosphere will have to accommodate changes on a scale that will have enough meaningful impact to substantially reduce human-made greenhouse gas production, toxic nitrogen-oxide, sulfur dioxide, hydrocarbon, mercury and other heavy metal emissions from power production, manufacturing, agricultural and transportation sources, in a breath-takingly short period of time. The new political atmosphere will have to overcome the resistance of the power companies, the petroleum lobby, the coal industry, agribusiness, the pharmaceutical industry, the corporate press and the semi-co-opted elements that have invaded parts of the established environmental community itself ignoring root purpose as nonsense is spouted promoting “clean coal” and labeling nuclear power as a viable answer to global warming. The new political atmosphere will have to be generated by a new consciousness growing within all people, emanating so strongly that it cannot be ignored, profoundly affecting the political system, overwhelming the influence of money and power brokers.

<>Massive investment in energy conservation, efficiency and education will need to be instituted to dramatically reduce per capita and total energy use by more than 50% in the next ten years, especially in America where so much is wasted. Fossil fuel and nuclear technology will have to be replaced with solar, wind, wave/tidal, biogas, geothermal and other renewable technologies- even if large corporations can’t immediately make a profit during the transformation. Impossible? It can’t be impossible if we truly intend to leave a liveable planet for our children. It is not impossible. We cannot allow ourselves to believe it is impossible. We have to build the movement to make it possible.

When the first abolitionists surfaced in early America and confronted institutionalized slavery the conventional wisdom surely labeled these visionaries as fanatics and gave them zero percent chance of success. Likewise the first women suffragettes, labor union organizers, child-labor opponents, 1950s-60s civil rights anti-Jim Crow organizers and other social movement initiators. Yet, each of these movements eventually succeeded despite the furious opposition of the most powerful corporate and political entities of their times. That’s the angle of American history we aren’t taught in the public school system. Popular movements work! The people have real power! The only time the people don’t have power is when we are brow-beaten enough to believe we don’t have power and therefore don’t act, organize and exercise our power.

The historic social movements in America succeeded despite the slow pace of communication and transportation in their times, despite the lack of access to the mass media, despite the lack of access to political institutions. Today we are fortunate enough to be way ahead of the game with far more resources to effect change than did movements of the past. In fact, most people in America already define themselves as environmentalists and possess a fair knowledge of environmental issues. Many political figures already share this consciousness. There is a healthy alternative news media and even some powerful friends within the mainstream news media. And there is the internet and the blogosphere providing a means for instant communication, networking, organizing. 

Ghandi, King, Saul Alinsky, Abbie Hoffman. Choose your guru or act on instinct. Activate, organize. Create the movement.

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