Mobilization for Climate Justice

Posts Tagged ‘EPA’

By Bond, Patrick
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Eight million people viewed Annie Leonard’s The Story of Stuff video since December 2007, and her new nine-minute Story of Cap and Trade (http://www.zcommunications.org/zvideo/3310) received 400,000 hits in the two weeks after its December 1 launch.

The film, produced by Free Range Studios, was developed in collaboration with the Durban Group for Climate Justice and Climate Justice Now! networks, which  joined Climate Justice Action and other networks to put tens of thousands of activists on the streets of Copenhagen, London and dozens of other cities in recent days, demanding large emissions cuts, the payment of ecological debt to climate victims, and the decommissioning of carbon markets.

But critics abound, so what trends can we discern from the sometimes venomous feedback to Story of Cap and Trade, and what do these tell us about US and global climate politics? Consider three categories:

• libertarian climate change denialists;
• Big Green groups and other carbon trading supporters; and
• self-interested green capitalists.

To start, rightwing extremists are easiest to dismiss because they deny that climate change is a product of human/economic activity – but there’s a schizophrenic double agenda. For although they’re pro-business, libertarians like Fox tv’s Glenn Beck oppose market-based cap-and-trade schemes.

The most dangerous, Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe, denies ‘that we’re going to pass a cap-and-trade or we’re going to do something on emissions reduction,’ as he told the rightwing NewsMax agency on Sunday.

Australian climate denialists now control the official opposition party, having overthrown its leader last month due to his cap-and-trade endorsement, in the process halting the state’s proposed emissions trading scheme (http://agmates.ning.com/forum/topics/canberra-protest-rally-live?commentId=3535428%3AComment%3A9579).

Those of us fighting carbon markets certainly *don’t* want alliances with cretins like Inhofe or intrepid videoblogger Lee Doran. After a clumsy rebuttal to The Story of Stuff, Doran offered another zany video-attack (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWjGZNDEH-A), in which he first agrees with the demolition of cap-and-trade, but then replies to Annie’s charge that rich-world overconsumption victimizes those least responsible for global warming:

Annie: ‘Did you know that in the next century, because of the changing climate, whole island nations could end up underwater?’

Lee: ‘Yes, and islands will emerge from the water too, it’s part of the natural cycle of the planet.’ (minute 6)

Enough said about flat-earth libertarian ideologues.

In the second group we find both pro-market ‘green’ ideologues Read the rest of this entry »

Mobilization for Climate Justice

For immediate release November 30, 2009

Global Day of Action on Climate Crisis on November 30

On November 30, major demonstrations, teach-ins and civil disobedience actions will take place in nine cities around the U.S.—in Chicago, New York, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, Burlington, VT and two cities in Maine, and Washington DC, as well as several other countries—one week before the UN climate negotiations in Copenhagen open, and on the 10th anniversary of the World Trade Organization (WTO) protest in Seattle in 1999. The Mobilization for Climate Justice, a broad and diverse coalition of organizations working for social, environmental, economic and racial justice is calling for urgent action on the global climate crisis, based on equitable, democratic and science-based solutions.

As world leaders gather in Copenhagen, the people hit hardest by this crisis and the least responsible for its cause—working class, Indigenous and people of color communities around the world—have been systematically excluded and are demanding a voice at the table. Meanwhile, the world’s major corporations have been dominating international and domestic climate policy – as they did in the international trade policy arena. Carbon-trading and carbon offset projects have already allowed these polluters to avoid cutting emissions and expand their markets into poor countries, accelerating corporate take-over of the world’s resources at the expense of local and Indigenous communities.
Read the rest of this entry »

Nasa’s James Hansen was the first to point out the perils of climate change
to the US Congress. Here, he begins a heated debate with experts from around
the world, from China to the threatened Maldives, and argues that our leaders
must be shaken out of their complacency. But will they show enough courage at next
week’s Copenhagen summit to take the first steps to saving the planet?

James Hansen
The Observer,
Sunday 29 November 2009

Absolutely. It is possible – if we give politicians a cold, hard slap in the face.
The fraudulence of the Copenhagen approach – “goals” for emission reductions, “offsets”
that render ironclad goals almost meaningless, the ineffectual “cap-and-trade”
mechanism – must be exposed. We must rebel against such politics as usual.
Read the rest of this entry »

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 11/21/09
Contact: Zoe Beavers 304-854-7372
Email: news@climategroundzero.org

PETTUS, W. Va. – Early this morning two concerned citizens, Dea Goblirsch and Nick Martin, locked down to a drill rig on Coal River Mountain’s Bee Tree mountaintop removal site, effectively stopping blasting. Two others, Grace Williams and Laura Von Dolen, joined them in direct support, holding a banner with the message “Save Coal River Mountain”.

These nonviolent protesters have taken this action to bring attention to the extreme danger facing residents of the Coal River Valley from blasting near the Brushy Fork Impoundment. They plan to stay locked down until law enforcement removes them.

Resident of Rock Creek, W Va., Delbert Gunnoe, stated his concerns with the blasting, “You know when they put a blast over there, and it shakes the windows over here, at what, ¾-a-mile distance, imagine what it does over there.” Gunnoe continued, “if [the impoundment] did bust…what would be the destruction? The town of Whitesville would no longer exist.”

The four are fearful of the blasting that Massey Energy began in late October. These blasts are 200 feet from the Brushy Fork Impoundment, permitted to hold nine billion gallons of toxic coal slurry. The impoundment sits atop miles of hollow, abounded underground mines, further endangering its integrity. By Massey’s own estimates, roughly 998 people will die should the dam break. The emergency evacuation plan states that a 40-foot wall of sludge, cresting at 72 feet, will flow through the valley, reaching 20-feet-high about 15 miles down the road. Apart from the initial flood, the impact of this potential spill would be felt along the Coal River’s 88 miles.

“The Brushy Fork Sludge Impoundment keeps residents of the Coal River Valley up at night, waiting for eight billion gallons of toxic coal slurry to come rushing towards them,” said Dea Goblirsch, one of the two locked down. “I don’t know how Massey executives sleep soundly at night.”

Hydrologist, Dr. Rick Eades spoke of concerns about the stability of the dam as blasting occurs. He questioned “blasting where underground mines existed in the Eagle coal seam, the possibilities for adversely affecting near-surface bedrock in a way that could possibly enhance pathways for slurry to be released via the subsurface and bypass the dam.”

The concern is that slurry will break into underground mine shafts and blow out through old mine openings on the side of the mountain. This potentiality for Coal River Mountain mirrors the cause of the world’s largest slurry spill which occurred in Martin County, Ky. In 2000, 250 million gallons of slurry broke forth from a 2.2-billion-gallon impoundment, killing nearly all life in the Big Sandy River. Its impact reached all the way to the Ohio River, about 100 miles away.

Earlier this week, EPA sent out a letter to Marfork Coal Co., a subsidiary of Massey Energy Co., airing concerns about the absence of a valley fill permit, and requesting an extensive amount of information concerning the mountaintop removal operation on the Bee Tree site.

In note of this, Nick Martin, currently locked down, said, “The EPA’s recent action proves that the communities’ concerns about this site are shared at the highest levels of government.”

Matt Louis-Rosenberg, a Climate Ground Zero activist, adds, “Coal River Wind attempted to get a meeting with the governor for a year and it took people sitting in his office to get him to sit down and meet with concerned community members, just like it takes our actions up on Coal River Mountain to get the federal government to step in.”

The concern showed by the EPA reflects what the residents of the Coal River Valley have known for a long time; the Brushy Fork Impoundment is putting lives in danger, and the blasting on Coal River Mountain only increases that danger. The protesters on the Bee Tree site are putting out a call to action to save Coal River Mountain and protect all those who would be impacted by a catastrophe there. This action fits into a larger fight against mountaintop removal in Appalachia.

On the whole, Gunnoe’s sentiment was, “Don’t like much about Obama, but he’ll have one heck of a supporter if he stops mountaintop mining.”

Note: More information available at http://climategroundzero.org.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 9, 2009
10:03 AM

CONTACT: PEER
Carol Goldberg (202) 265-7337
Email: info@peer.org

CONTACT: Center for Biological Diversity
Bill Snape, (202) 536-9351

TUCSON, Ariz. – November 6 – Capping a week in which the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee overwhelmingly passed a weak global warming bill with no Republican support, Center for Biological Diversity Executive Director Kierán Suckling issued the following statement:

“It is a sad day when the lead environmental committee in the Senate passes a bill (S. 1733) that contains pollution-reduction goals far less than scientists tell us are necessary to stem global warming and avert catastrophe. It is even more distressing that this bill contains Clean Air Act exemptions that will eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency’s longstanding duty to reduce greenhouse pollutants based on scientific standards. This is not a time to cheer. The fossil-fuel industry has received what it wants and will now seek more.

There are three fundamental problems with the Senate bill.
Read the rest of this entry »

Published October 30, 2009 By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) — Activists with Mountain Justice, Rainforest Action Network and other groups planned protests atEnvironmental Protection Agency headquarters and across the country Friday to demand the end of mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia.

An online map showed more than two dozen planned events from California to Maine, including demonstrations at a regional EPA office in Philadelphia and a New Jersey office of JPMorgan & Chase Co., a bank environmentalists say is the biggest financier of the destructive form of strip mining.

It was the third attempt at a national protest since June, and evidence the environmentalists believe the tide is turning in their favor under the Obama administration.

”The end of mountaintop removal is almost here,” declares the Rainforest Action Network on its Web site. ”Political and financial decision-makers in New York, Washington D.C. and across the country continue to hear our message.” Read the rest of this entry »

http://www.ilovemountains.org/

We confirmed reports that Massey Energy has begun blasting on Coal River Mountain in southern West Virginia. The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection has stated that the mining operation on the mountain is “actively moving coal.” Workers were seen throughout this past week moving heavy equipment up to the mining zones, and blasting and plumes of smoke were seen and heard near the Brushy Fork coal slurry impoundment on Friday.
The Brushy Fork impoundment is an enormous retention pond holding 8.2 billion gallons of toxic coal slurry waste. If the impoundment were to fail due to the blasting, hundreds of lives will be lost and thousands more will be in jeopardy from an enormous slurry flood.
A 2006 study confirmed that Coal River Mountain — which has the highest peaks ever slated for mining in the state — is an ideal location for developing utility-scale wind power. Local residents have rallied around this proposal as a symbol of hope, a promise of a new and cleaner energy future, but that hope may be destroyed unless quick and decisive action is taken right now.
Please call President Obama today at 202-456-1414 and implore him to use his agencies and influence with West Virginia politicians to stop the destruction of Coal River Mountain immediately.
Visit our Coal River Mountain action page for more details and talking points. We will also post status updates as we receive them.
Thanks for all you do for the mountains-and especially Coal River Mountain.
Matt Wasson
iLoveMountains.org

Grist article: Battle at Coal River Mountain explodes by Jeff Biggers

The good people from Mountain Justice need some help!

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You have pushed the EPA to take real steps against mountaintop removal. Friday, September 11, the EPA decided that of all 79 mountaintop removal permits they were reviewing, none of them should be approved in their current form!

This temporary stay of execution is a historic step: the biggest any agency has ever taken to end the devastating practice of mountaintop removal. We have achieved it thanks to the years of organizing and outcry from you and tens of thousands of allies across the country.

But now is a crucial time to make sure that this temporary reprieve becomes a permanent change. While the EPA regional offices review the permits in their area, the EPA has opened a 14-day comment period.

Please take a moment to thank the EPA for this important step and ask them to stop all permitting of valley fills?
You can submit official comments at ilovemountains.org.

Comments are needed by the end of this week!

You can find a sample letter below — feel free to borrow talking points, and to add your own personal comments for a greater impact.

(sample letter provided by Coal River Mountain Watch)