One week ago, Kingston, Tennessee, woke up to find that over one billion gallons of coal ash sludge had surged out of a poorly built and poorly maintained containment pond, one of three at the Kingston Coal Plant, after the dam holding back acres of inky black and toxic coal ash sludge failed. The Tennessee Valley Authority, the federal corporation that operates the Kingston Coal Plant, first reported that 360 millions gallons of coal ash sludge had flooded over 400 acres of local watersheds and river, then the estimate was revised to 540 million gallons, and now the best estimate puts the amount as over 1 billion gallons. This puts the amount spilled as more than 100 times larger than the Exxon Valdez disaster and, in fact, more than every drop of petroleum used in the United States that day. This coal sludge spill is simply unprecedented in size and scale and should become the stunning example of exactly how dirty coal really is.

Numbers aside, as it is impossible to really comprehend the scale of the disaster in words - this is a very dramatic example of how our consumption and reliance on coal is quite literally reshaping our world. Whether by flooding 400 acres of beautiful Tennessee valleys and rivers with six feet of coal ash, or blowing the tops off of literally hundreds of mountains in Appalachia, or changing the global climate itself through massive releases of carbon dioxide - the coal industry has perhaps the greatest impact of any industry in the world - yet we barely know it. Coal plants intake almost 20% of the United States’ freshwater, uses almost half of our freight railroad capacity, and leaves behind scarred landscapes, poor and exploited communities, kills vulnerable people - in fact, the Kingston Coal plant is estimated to cut short the lives of over 149 people a year - and coal is the leading source of global warming pollutants from the United States.

Coal power devours landscapes, poisons the land and water, and yet it remains virtually unregulated in critical areas of impact. Smokestack emissions of sulfur dioxide (SOX), nitrous oxide (NOX), and mercury are regulated - to a certain extent - with SOX regulated through a Cap & Trade system that has been adopted by most large environmental groups as the mechanism to tackle global warming. However, federally mandated scrubbers on coal plants have led to the concentration of pollutants in coal ash, everything from arsenic, lead, mercury, thorium, and uranium. Yet, coal ash is not regulated as toxic waste - although the EPA is ‘considering’ doing so’.

The Bush Administration has even worked at redefining the word ‘fill’ to allow the coal industry to be unregulated by the Clean Water Act and allow the destruction of mountains and pushing the rubble into streambeds and valleys. Carbon dioxide is still unregulated, despite efforts to pass a federal climate bill and the Supreme Court ruling that the Executive Branch is obligated to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. Unregulated, unaccountable, and corrupt is the way that many coal companies operate. Little surprise then that TVA announced as a safety measure that residents impacted by the coal ash spill should boil their water - thereby concentrating the heavy metal contaminants - instead of providing safe drinking water to residents.

In ‘How to the Save the Coal Industry‘, Devilstower at DailyKos, forecasts the future of the industry: “If the industry works hard — if it gets rid of [Mountaintop Removal Mining], if it supports deployment of electric cars, if it cooperates in the establishment of tougher regulations and works together with the union — the industry can hold off a serious public effort to crush it. But when you look out past the next decade, there’s no way coal mining can hold back the future.”  I think we may be overdue for a serious public effort to crush to the coal industry.

If the EPA is considering regulating coal ash, then they damn well better get on it. The TVA may be a public entity but these holding ponds for coal ash are scattered across the US landscape, a continual threat for every community and living thing downstream. Since the TVA is a federal corporation, it might be a good example of how the incoming congress and administration can prove that they are serious about tackling global warming and protecting communities. Greenpeace is calling for a criminal investigation and one might be good to have some accountability for this disaster, but we need an investigation of why we are allowing an industry that kills tens of thousands of people a year, pillages our communities, and despoils our landscape to exist in the first place - especially as we have figured out other ways to keep the lights on. Some groups have called for a moratorium on new coal plants, but perhaps we need to start thinking about phasing out these plants - hopefully before a major disaster, next time.

Posted in Coal, Dirty Energy, global warming, Government, Impacted Communities, News and Media, Politics, United States      

Post by Daniel Vockins from the UK Delegation

Walking through the halls at the UN Climate Negotiations in Poznan earlier this month, you’d be forgiven for thinking you were at the heart of the struggle to defeat dangerous climate change. Top-level ministers from every government in the world met to forge a global agreement, the contents of which will decide how the latter half of this century plays out. But in truth, the real decisions are not made at the UN.

Woven through the endless meetings, lobbying sessions, cocktail parties and plenaries was a palpable sense that we will pass the critical 2 degrees tipping point which puts us into ‘dangerous’ levels of warming. Negotiators repeated ad nauseam the party line about how CO2 concentrations of 450 parts per million will stave off the worst impacts of climate change, whilst being briefed behind closed doors about exactly how out of date this target is. Corner negotiators with questions like these and they will often admit as much. It’s exasperating to watch, because we know that the time left to act is running out.

Is there an end to this? Not within the conference halls. Negotiators appear to have little freedom to negotiate freely. One NGO put it to me that up to 90% of their platform is pre-determined before they even step on the plane. With special interests, short-termist electoral cycles and near instantaneous judgement by stock market edict, it is easy to see why governments act in this way. Operating within such rigid parameters, they are essentially players in a game. The small slice of autonomy granted to negotiators offers precious little potential for a breakthrough, and is certainly not enough to secure a deal which takes the latest scientific discoveries seriously.

So, what do we need now? Firstly, to recognise that we are a long way from where we need to be and second, to understand that our power lies in the ability to make a just agreement possible. Negotiators are not principally champions of humanity or social justice. They’re playing a game, according to the rules they’re given. Their capacity to act is limited by what is politically acceptable.

Nonetheless, politicians as individuals want to act on this - nobody who has seen the true scale of this problem couldn’t. But at the moment, taking meaningful action necessitates defying the negotiating position set by domestic governments, which means losing your job. By Copenhagen next year, where the final treaty will be agreed, the playing field must look substantially different. In essence, the ground rules must be that taking strong action on climate change is the only way a treaty can be signed because the public will accept nothing less.

To drive this point home, just a few weeks ago Climate Change and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband called for a “popular mobilisation” to make it possible for the process to move forward, whilst Al Gore has said publicly that he “can’t understand why there aren’t rings of young people blocking bulldozers and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power plants.” We should think seriously about this call to action - it comes from a place of real desperation and an awareness of the limitations of a politics not yet built to deal with a problem like climate change.

Having watched the negotiations for two weeks, I can tell you that if the situation continues as it is currently, we will fail to halt runaway climate change. Poznan achieved astonishingly little but few were surprised. In the 48 weeks remaining before Copenhagen we must substantially alter the context of the debate to make it impossible not to act. Many more campaigns like those that forced through the Climate Act in the UK will be needed and on a far bigger scale. We should not underestimate the scale of this challenge, but I take considerable comfort in that the fact that we, not the politicians in Poznan, are the ones with the power of change at this moment. The next year is the most important in human history.

It’s up to us to determine how it plays out.

Posted in Copenhagen 2009, Dirty Energy, Poznan 2008, United Nations, Visioning, Youth Leaders      

Here in Oregon, the Uncover Intel Secrets campaign is still pressuring our local branch of Intel Corporation to make good on its green rhetoric by lobbying for renewable energy and solutions to global warming. Thanks in part to those of you who responded to an earlier post on this site by inviting Intel Government Affairs manager Jonathan Williams to the clean energy party scheduled to start in Oregon in 2009, Williams responded to my phone calls on behalf of Uncover Intel Secrets.

The gist of what he said is that Intel is committed to working on clean energy issues, and looks forward to working with Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski to implement a bold agenda in 2009. Well, that sounds good; but it’s important to remember that Intel is also a member of Industrial Customers of Northwest Utilities—a lobbying group that has consistently opposed the most important global warming and clean energy laws in Oregon. If Intel is going to make up for this dubious connection to anti-environmental industry, they’re going to have to work pretty hard to prove their good intentions. Please ask them to join the Cascade Climate Network in lobbying for clean energy in Oregon in February, 2009.

If Intel really wants to stand among the leaders in renewable energy development in Oregon, there can be no better way to prove their intent than by allying with the youth of this region who are calling for massive investment in renewable energy, and for definitive limits on greenhouse emissions. In February of 2008, a group of students from the Cascade Climate Network lobbied our legislators in the capitol, pushing for passage of the only global warming bill up for discussion during Oregon’s 2008 “special session.” In Salem that day, I listened to three college students speak eloquently to a legislative committee, asking them to move forward on global warming for the sake of our generation. However the bill in question—House Bill 3610—sparked vigorous opposition from industry groups like Industrial Customers of Northwest Utilities (ICNU). HB 3610 died in committee during the three-week special session, and never passed into law.

Jonathan Williams of Intel claims his company had no opinion on HB 3610—that Intel neither stood in its way nor lobbied for its passage. As a member of ICNU, however, Intel lent a certain credibility to one of the groups opposing HB 3610. In 2009, the company needs to be better than neutral on the most important energy bills that will come up for passage that year. And there can be no better way to do this than by joining students in the Cascade Climate Network when we return to the capitol to push for clean energy in February. Ask Intel to join us here.

What if, instead of claiming “neutrality” on the only global warming bill up for passage last February, Intel representatives had gone to Salem with the Cascade Climate Network, to lobby in support of HB 3610? What if the largest private employer in Oregon stood up with the student activists of our state to demand a clean energy future for our region and solutions to global warming? Now that would look like a “commitment to working on clean energy issues.”

Ask Intel to Support Clean Energy with the Cascade Climate Network this February!

Posted in Corporate Responsibility, global warming, greenwashing, online organizing      

I thought I would write this up because this is the kind of scary thing that people living with coal worry about every day, while the industry (and some big greens) saythat coal will be “clean” if we find out how to sequester the carbon.

In February 1972, Buffalo Creek Sludge Impoundment, a mere 132 million gallons, killed 125 people, left 5,000 homeless and thousands more with post traumatice stress disorder.  In 2000, a 2.2 billion gallon coal waste dam failed in Martin County, Kentucky.  The largest dam in the hemisphere is the Brushy Fork Sludge Impoundment, which holds 9 billion gallons of toxic coal waste.

So, this is the history coalfield residents hold in our hearts when we open our emails and see “Slurry Pond Bursts.” Last night, 4 to 6 feet of ice cold toxic coal ash and ice cold slurry burst out of the pond and buried 12 homes, 400 acres, and wrecked a train.   This dam burst was relatively small but residents don’t yet know what is in it.  You can pretty much count on mercury, arsenic, and other toxic heavy metals like beryllium and cadmium.

Coal ash is what is leftover when you burn coal.  The “Clean Coal” tools talk about putting “scrubbers” to “clean” the air coming out of the stacks, but that just isolates the toxins in the coal ash, which is generally stored in unlined pits near the power plant.

Coal ash is an enormous problem throughout the US. It is more radioactive than nuclear waste, according to Scientific American and is under-regulated. It is made into concrete, drywall, and road de-icer.  People living near coal ash dumps have 900 times the national cancer rates.

I’m going to guess that cancer figure just increased even more in eastern Tennessee.

Posted in global warming      

On December 19 Utah resident Tim DeChristopher took creative and effective action to disrupt an auction that was selling off oil and gas leases on hundreds of thousands of acres of public lands in Utah. As around 100 concerned citizens rallied outside opposing the opening up of wilderness areas to the oil and gas industry, Tim entered the auction and started bidding. Time and again he outbid the speculators, and when he failed to outbid them he managed to drive the price way up. According to local news reports he “caused chaos” in the auction room, costing companies hundreds of thousands of dollars and  prevented 22,500 acres of land from being developed for fossil fuel extraction (at least for the time being). Tim’s actions were extremely effective at throwing a wrench in the works of the oil and gas industry and he is to be applauded.

Unfortunately federal agents were not as sympathetic and detained Tim for a couple of hours. He may be facing federal charges in which case he will need our support. You can follow the link below to donate to his legal defense.

Local media coverage with video

Interview on Democracy Now

Why I Disrupted A Fraudulent Auction.  Statement from Tim DeChristopher

I have been an environmentalist for most of my life. I have marched, held signs, written letters and spoken to my Congressman. I have built trails and removed invasive species in National Parks. I have educated friends on climate change and donated to a dozen different groups. Countless others have done all these same things for decades in defense of our wilderness and a livable future.

It hasn’t worked. Even with a new administration, we are not on track for a livable future. This has been made clear by James Hanson, Bill McKibben, Al Gore and many others. The legitimate pathways to power have not provided us with the ability to defend the survival of our civilization. Yesterday I decided that the crisis facing us requires more critical action than has been taken in the past. When faced with the opportunity to seriously disrupt the auction of some of our most beautiful lands in Utah to oil and gas developers, I could not ethically turn my back on that opportunity. By making bids for land that was supposed to be protected for the interests of all Americans, I tried to resist the Bush administration’s attempt to defraud the American people.

At this point it appears that I was successful in my attempts to disrupt this fraudulent auction. The federal officials who took me into custody said that I cost the oil companies in the room hundreds of thousands of dollars and prevented 22,500 acres of land from being sold for fossil fuel development. I had a very open conversation with the federal agents about my motivations and values. They were friendly, respectful, and somewhat sympathetic. (editors note. It is never a good idea to talk to federal agents or any police. Always ask to speak to a lawyer before answering questions from police)

What I did no doubt puts me at significant risk, including prison. But my future was already at significant risk. As we get closer and closer to the point of too late, we have less and less to lose from resisting. Accepting the true depth of the climate crisis is extremely scary, but the purpose of fear is to motivate us to action. Many of us have sat around countless times saying how much we needed someone to do something. If I am not willing to take a stand for my generation, then who will? This year I have come to terms with the idea that I might be my own best hope to defend my future. Hopefully all of us will realize that we are the ones we have been waiting for.

Posted in global warming