Great day for renewables in Virginia: Onward & upward!

On the heels of Secretary Salazar’s offshore wind energy announcement yesterday in Norfolk, both chambers of the Virginia General Assembly passed the Voluntary Solar Resource Fund Bill (HB 2191 and SB 975), which aims to set up a revolving loan fund for residential solar energy projects. The loan program will promote economic development and the production of clean, renewable energy at no cost to the state.

Solar Panels on a roof

This bill is a win-win-win for all major parties involved: the citizens of Virginia who will receive the loans, the commonwealth’s solar energy industry, and utilities with an interest in distributed solar power.

“Renewable energy has had two major boosts today: first the announcement that Virginia could begin leasing offshore wind sites by the end of this year, and also from the passing of the Voluntary Solar Resource Fund bill in the Virginia General Assembly,” said Chelsea Harnish, Virginia Policy Coordinator for the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. Continue reading

Great Day for Renewable Energy in Virginia: General Assembly Passes Solar Legislation, Offshore Wind Sites Announced

Measure will provide low-cost loans for residential solar energy projects

RICHMOND – On the heels of Secretary Salazar’s offshore wind energy announcement today in Norfolk, both chambers of the Virginia General Assembly have passed the Voluntary Solar Resource Fund Bill (HB 2191 and SB 975), which aims to set up a revolving loan fund for residential solar energy projects. The loan program will promote economic development and the production of clean, renewable energy at no cost to the state.

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Community Forum in Williamsport, MD this Thursday!

This past Monday, I took a road trip to Williamsport, MD where CCAN and our coalition partners are hosting a community forum about the R. Paul Smith coal-fired power plant located just blocks away from the center of town. I checked out the location for the forum, the cozy and welcoming public library, and after meeting with our hosts, I decided to check out the plant itself.

I drove just a few blocks from the main road and immediately saw an ungainly structure looming above the town cemetery. With the sun setting, it was an ominous sight.

This plant just got a water pollution permit approved by the Maryland Department of the Environment that does little to address the heavy metals in coal waste; even though it sits directly on the canal that residents and tourists enjoy rollerblading, fishing, biking, and walking near. This is why we’re hosting the forum. We want to provide the residents of Williamsport with information about the plant and the potential impacts it has on the surrounding environment.

Whether you live in Williamsport, downwind, upstream, are just plain interested, we hope you can make it out! And never fear; we’ll have light refreshments. RSVP here!

Snowzilla signals warming

In the face of what some meteorologists are calling the worst storm to EVER hit the U.S., some people might be tempted to question the reality of global warming. First in line: our friend Bill Reilly at FOX News.

Here’s what Al Gore had to say about the matter:

Last week on his show Bill O’Reilly asked, “Why has southern New York turned into the tundra?” and then said he had a call into me. I appreciate the question.

As it turns out, the scientific community has been addressing this particular question for some time now and they say that increased heavy snowfalls are completely consistent with what they have been predicting as a consequence of man-made global warming:

“In fact, scientists have been warning for at least two decades that global warming could make snowstorms more severe. Snow has two simple ingredients: cold and moisture. Warmer air collects moisture like a sponge until it hits a patch of cold air. When temperatures dip below freezing, a lot of moisture creates a lot of snow.”

“A rise in global temperature can create all sorts of havoc, ranging from hotter dry spells to colder winters, along with increasingly violent storms, flooding, forest fires and loss of endangered species.”

Sorry to disappoint you, Bill. Check the science. Snowzilla = Climate change.

It's Easy Being Green: Green on the Screen

This is a cross-post from the Center for American Progress.

The 2011 awards season is officially upon us. Environmental films aren’t traditionally thought of as number-one stunners when competing against movies such as “Inception” and “127 Hours,” but since last year’s Oscar for Best Documentary went to “The Cove,” a film exploring the annual slaughtering of dolphins in Taiji, Japan, a new trend may have started in which environmental films are more welcome in the spotlight.

Below is a list of four green films to keep your eyes on this season.

The Last Mountain

“The Last Mountain.” A standout among the too few environmental documentaries premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, documentary filmmaker Bill Haney’s “The Last Mountain” takes a look at coal mining in Coal River Valley, West Virginia, and the “battle over protecting our health and environment from the destructive power of Big Coal.” The film brings to light questions of Big Coal’s apparent stronghold over the democratic process and what that means for our future.

Massey Energy, the third-largest coal company in the United States and the single-most destructive coal mining company in history, has literally blown the Coal River Valley to pieces with the force of “explosive power the size of a Hiroshima bomb each week.” Haney’s film follows those people fighting “a fight for our future.” He captures their attempt to stop the destruction of the last-standing mountain in the region and their efforts to promote clean energy alternatives for powering the valley. Simply developing a wind farm on the mountain could provide power for the whole region, keep the mountain intact, and create jobs for the surrounding communities

255 brave souls… and me

Thank you, thank you, thank you to those of you who joined us this past Saturday at the 6th Annual “Keep Winter Cold” Polar Bear Plunge. It was truly an inspiring day for all of us here at CCAN. It means so much to us that 256 brave souls (our best participation EVER) signed up to brave 17 degree temperatures to jump into the Potomac River with us to help support our work. We had a great time on Saturday, and we hope you did too.

Please check out the video and photos from the day and share them on your favorite social network. If you have photos from the day, please upload them to Flickr and tag them “pbp11,” or share them on our Facebook wall. Also, check out this article in The Nation about the plunge.

At the Plunge, I was inspired by Congresswoman Donna Edwards of Maryland’s 4th District, who braved the temperatures on a frigid Saturday morning to display her unwavering commitment to fighting climate change. I was coordinating media at the event with Rep. Edwards’ staff, and I would chuckle every time I heard her say to a reporter: “Well, I have to say that this is definitely the COOLEST thing I have ever done for my job!” I was also moved by the presence of a group of Franciscan monks who entered the Potomac in their full robes, and San Francisco 49ers linebacker Navarro Bowman. This was a solid display of solidarity among a diverse coalition of folks committed to the same end: stopping global warming in its tracks.

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An Energetic Start for the Maryland Wind Bill

The last time the United Steelworkers and clean-energy activists descended on the Maryland State House on the same issue in 2008 they were going toe to toe, and the steelworkers managed to kill the global warming bill the clean energy activists were working on. But yesterday, when the old adversaries descended on the opening ceremonies of the 2011 Maryland General Assembly they stood arm in arm in support of Md. Governor Martin O’Malley’s forthcoming offshore wind energy bill.

The rationale for this unlikely but inspiring alliance is encapsulated in the slogan printed across the front of the bright-blue t-shirts we all sported at the statehouse yesterday: “Good Jobs, Clean Power”. The development of clean energy has long been touted as a dual solution to the economic and environmental woes facing the world today, and Maryland is a perfect case study of that promise with over 4000 jobs, and significant greenhouse-gas pollution reductions projected to accrue to the state if the Governor’s wind bill passes. For the steelworkers and clean-energy activists, the bill represents the quintessential win-win situation that makes for really successful political initiatives. Continue reading

Julia 'Judy' Bonds, 58, dies; outspoken foe of mountaintop strip mining

Judy Bonds, heroIt with great reverence and sadness that we share with you the loss of Judy Bonds, one of the great leaders of the mountaintop removal coal mining movement. Judy was a well-respected and much-loved member of our community, and she will be missed. Judy always said, “Fight harder!” and fight we will, in her memory.

Here is her obituary from Tuesday’s Washington Post. – Jamie

By Emma Brown
Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Julia “Judy” Bonds, the spitfire daughter of a West Virginia coal miner who worked as a Pizza Hut waitress before she became, in midlife, a leading voice of the grass-roots resistance to mountaintop strip mining, died Jan. 3 of cancer at a hospital in Charleston, W.Va. She was 58.

Ms. Bonds was one of the most visible and outspoken activists against what is sometimes called “mountaintop removal,” a mining practice peculiar to Appalachia in which peaks are sheared off with explosives to expose the coal seams below.

A coalfields native who scraped by working in restaurants and convenience stores, Ms. Bonds was equivocal about the risks of mining until the 1990s, when the A.T. Massey Coal Co. arrived in Marfork hollow, one of the narrow, green valleys that wind through the Appalachian Mountains in southern West Virginia.

Ms. Bonds lived most of her life in that hollow, as did generations of her family before her. In childhood, she had come to know its fishing spots and swimming holes; later, as a young single mother, she had raised her daughter in Marfork.

“There is nothing like being in the hollows,” she once told the Los Angeles Times. “You feel snuggled. You feel safe. It seems like God has his arms around you.”
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The Facts: Offshore Wind = Clean Power

Recently, a few individuals have published questions about offshore wind power. Some of their main concerns were:

1) Does it really reduce emissions?
2) Will it help us achieve a future zero-carbon grid?
3) Will it be affordable for ratepayers?

Thankfully, ample scientific evidence and real-world experience provide answers to these questions. Indeed, wind power can and will continue to reduce emissions by displacing fossil fuels, wind power can be part of a future zero-carbon grid, and other states have found long-term offshore wind power contracts to be affordable for their rate payers. Offshore wind power in particular is one of the greatest answers for Maryland and the world’s energy future.

The following post provides answers to these questions based on reliable data and studies. More information about offshore wind can be found on the Marylanders for Offshore Wind website.

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