Extreme weather is happening all around us, from tornadoes ripping through Virginia to increased flash floods and severe storms.
Leave a comment below to share your extreme weather story.
And, if you haven’t already, see the video below about one Maryland woman’s heart-wrenching extreme weather story.
This post is by Tom Owens, Former CCAN Virginia Campus Organizer.
So take Virginia, the old Commonwealth, the birthplace of some of the most esteemed leaders of American history: Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and television’s the Waltons. Continue reading
It’s been five days since the US Supreme Court decided to upstage Wal-Mart in the art of deep discounting and slash Exxon’s punitive damages in the Valdez disaster case from 2.5 billion down to 507 million.
Two billion dollars Continue reading
Tradition!
The Washington Post is establishing a firm 21st Century tradition: when it comes to Global Warming, take guidance from Faux News, “Fair and Balanced”.
Multiple times in the pastweek, both in reporting and on the editorial page, The Washington Post continued a seemingly iron tradition of coloring Global Warming science by ensuring that skeptics and deniers have their say as well, without providing any indication to the Continue reading
This week I’m going to be in Wise County, where Dominion Power is planning to build a $1.8 billion coal-fired power plant. Members of the Sierra Club, Appalachian Voices, Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards and CCAN are putting on events around the meeting of the Air Board on Tuesday.
There’s been a lot of talk about the old ways here in Appalachia. Today is the first day of my trip to Wise County to see what we’re fighting for, to get to know the people who are fighting in this community to stop this plant and to attend tomorrow’s Air Board meeting, where they will decide whether or not to grant Dominion’s final permit.
We started the day by helping the Clinch Coalition build a trail in Jefferson National Forest. The forest is a glorious example of the Appalachian eco-diversity. Hickory, Red Oak and Beech gave way to rhododendron and hemlock. Hemlock is rare these days because of a small beetle, the woolly adelgid, which has infested large numbers of hemlock stands in Virginia. But these hemlock were free from infestation, as was the forest in general. There are few invasive species there, even though the roads and more populated trails have numerous examples of invasives like kudzu. The rhododendrons were still in bloom, and as we looked out over the vista of mountains and deep forest, the scars from mountain top removal mining were clearly in view.
A quarter of this county has been destroyed by mountain top removal mining. We visited black mountain with Larry Bush, whose family has been living there for generations, and we witnessed the intense scarring that mountain top removal mining cuts into this landscape. Miles of land, where a mountain once stood, was leveled, barren and destroyed. Continue reading
A new video about the states who are taking action to address climate change is out from Sea Studios Foundation titled “Ahead of the Curve: States Lead on Climate Change.” It features Maryland’s own Governor O’Malley and a variety of other governors and elected officials from across the country. (14 min)
Dominion Virginia Power is at it again. It ran a full-page page ad in the Washington Post yesterday, apparently forgetting all about a key ruling in March by the State Corporation Commission (SCC), the agency that oversees utilities.
Take a look at Dominion’s first bullet point describing how it plans to provide new electrical generation to Virginia:
[Among the important parts of this plan are:] A new clean-coal, carbon capture-compatible power station in Wise County where we’ll spend nearly $320 million to install the very latest in emissions-control systems. It’ll be one of the cleanest coal-powered stations in the U.S. and bring more than 1,200 jobs and $1.8 billion of new investment to Southwest Virginia.
Really? Carbon capture compatible? On July 13, 2007, Dominion Power applied to the State Corporation Commission for approval of a coal-fired power plant in Wise County it promised would be “carbon capture compatible.” On March 31st, the SCC approved construction of a “conventional coal” facility and did not give Dominion any bonus for carbon capture compatibility. Rather, the Commission was explicitly clear – of the $1.8 billion to build the plant, not one penny would go to address the plant’s global warming pollution, either now or at any time in the future.
Now let’s talk about “clean” coal. First, the term clean coal in general is a joke. Calling coal clean is like calling a cigarette healthy; the cigarette may have less tar and cancer-causing agents than other brands, but that does not mean it’s good for you. Same goes for coal: No matter what you do to it, it will never be clean. Continue reading
Dr. James Hansen’s speech last night brought out a cheering crowd and called on US citizens to join together and stop new coal and demand that our country rethink targets for cutting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. “If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, humans must reduce CO2 from its current 385 parts per million (ppm) to at most 350 ppm.”
Dr. Hansen joined the Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners and Amy Goodman of Democracy Now at our Earth Day rally last night. Both Ms Goodman and Rev. Wallis have recently released books addressing the issue of global warming.
One of my favorite quotes came from Jim Wallis:
“The neglect of our natural environment and its degradation is not just bad policy; it’s bad theology. When climate change and ecological pressures threaten the survival of civilization as we know it, I want to reassert an ethic of environmental stewardship that is rooted in our most basic moral and religious values.”
Share your favorite quotes from last night in the comments below! And post your photos in our flickr set!
Judy Pasternak at the LA Times wrote an important piece this week on the national effort to stop coal plants (the full article is below). This comes only a day after the Wall Street Journal wrote a piece focusing on the Virginia coal plant fight. And it comes less than a month before our big rally on May 8th in front of Dominion’s headquarters in Richmond.
Environmental lawyers make a concentrated effort to stop new ones from being built; a coalition claims 65 victories in the last year. But industry groups are fighting back.
WASHINGTON — Every time a new coal-fired power plant is proposed anywhere in the United States, a lawyer from the Sierra Club or an allied environmental group is assigned to stop it, by any bureaucratic or legal means necessary. Continue reading
The Coalition for Wise Energy launched the campaign to stop the boondoggle Wise County power plant hoping to present a mile-long petition to Dominion Power at its shareholders meeting in May. That was back in November. Now it’s April and we’re close to reaching out goal! Sign the petition below and then help the opposition to this coal plant grow by clicking on ‘adopt a yard!’