Red, Green, and Blue

Environmental Protest or YouTube Stunt?

In New South Wales, Australia on 29th June, wood-chipping company, Eden says that an anti-logging protest was staged on its premises, for reasons that weren’t worthwhile.

Environmental protestors chained themselves to a conveyor belt, protesting that environmental legislation neglected the needs of local wildlife but a spokesman for the plant said ‘… It didn’t affect us in any way and we just left them there until they decided that they felt like going home and they did. These days it’s as much about the show as it is about the reasons, so I guess the show must go on and sometimes the reasons are worthwhile and sometimes they are not.’

If it was worth having, we wouldn’t be getting it, says Judge

In a mordant comment on where polluting substances end up, County Municipal Court Judge Julie Monnin expressed concerns about a plan to sequester carbon dioxide 3,000 feet under Greenville Ohio. She fears the likely decline in property values and pointed out that the plant could lead to people need, and failing to get, man-made earthquake insurance. In her own words, ‘Folks, if it were a good thing, Greenville wouldn’t be getting it.’

The carbon dioxide comes from a nearby ethanol plant and will be injected underground, but before this can happen, large trucks would need to travel local roads, creating seismic shockwaves to test the ground, but these tests have been postponed for fear they would damage local agricultural drainage systems.

Guilty of unlawful protest, campaigners believe they did nothing illegal

In the UK today, 22 environmental protestors have been found guilty of unlawful protest. In June 2008 they boarded a train carrying coal into Drax Coal-Fired Power Station in Yorkshire, after two of their number posed as railway staff to flag it down, allowing others to mount the train and prevent it moving for 16 hours.  During their protest they poured coal on the tracks to stop the train moving.  The campaigners claimed in court that they had not done anything illegal because they were trying to prevent climate change, but the judge—who has said they will not face a custodial sentence—decided that their actions, and the £30,000 clean up operation that followed the protest, were illegal.

Drax power station courtesy of leedsyorkshire at flickr under a creative commons licence

India’s Environment minister has made it clear that his government will not agree to any demands for mandatory emission reduction goals. The minister, in a statement, said what a recent World Bank report had noted, that India could jeopardize its fight against poverty if it agrees to emissions reductions and increase economic burden on its people.

This is not the first time that India has made such statements, India’s climate negotiator Shyam Saran has made similar statements in the past but none have been so direct and for the first time it has been that a statement from the Environment minister has been issued. This ‘aggression’ is due to the fast approaching Copenhagen round of talks for the next climate treaty where developed countries will certainly put pressure on advanced developing countries like India, China, Mexico and others to agree to some kind of emission reduction goals. Adding teeth to India’s argument is the World Bank report.

India has clearly stated its negotiating stance which, most certainly, would include call for developed nations to provide greater monetary help to the developing and poor countries to acquire clean energy technology. India, along with China and Mexico, recently unveiled plans for expanding renewable energy infrastructure, quite possibly to see off any demands for mandatory emission cuts. So if these countries cannot agree to emission reduction targets why not agree to or set voluntary renewable energy targets? Read the rest of this entry »

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Senator Harry Reid announce plans to fast-track commercial-scale solar power development on public lands.

In a plan announced on Tuesday, federal agencies will work with western leaders to designate tracts of U.S. public lands in the West as prime zones for utility-scale solar energy development; fund environmental studies; open new solar energy permitting offices, and; speed reviews of industry proposals.

Under the zoning portion of the initiative, 24 tracts of Bureau of Land Management land located in six western states, known as Solar Energy Study Areas, would be evaluated for their environmental and resource suitability for commercial-scale solar energy production. Those areas selected would be available for projects capable of producing 10 or more megawatts of electricity. The Solar Energy Study Areas (maps) located in Nevada, Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah encompass about 670,000 acres.

Speaking alongside Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Secretary Salazar vowed to have 13 “commercial-scale” solar projects under construction by the end of 2010. He set a goal of producing a total of 100,000 megawatts of solar electricity.
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‘Former Clinton adviser’ clings to his 15 minutes

Apparently Fox News tele-pundit and GOP cheerleader, Dick Morris, thinks the only way people will consider him relevant is if he tells everyone that he was once an adviser to President Bill Clinton. What Morris—or anyone introducing him at Fox News—fails to mention, is the reason his stint as a top Clinton adviser ended so abruptly; he was involved with a D.C. prostitute and even (allegedly) let her listen-in on private conversations he was having with President Clinton.

I am not denying that Morris at one time held a very important position and had a tremendous amount of influence. Rather, I am suggesting that Mr. Morris should stick to what he knows best; bashing Bill and Hillary Clinton. In stead, Morris has now transposed his hatred of the Clintons and his apparent need for retribution onto President Obama, whom he attacks in his new book, Catastrophe (a book that is being sold at Amazon for almost half-off its cover price just one week after being published). Read the rest of this entry »

On an historic day which proved America’s spirit during the Revolutionary War, the spirit of America was again proved. As news came that Nevada’s unemployment rate hit a record high of 11.3 percent, Senate majority leader Harry Reid addressed the people whose roles are instrumental in helping America survive: CEOs of renewable and clean energy businesses from around the country, several Fortune 500 company leaders, labor union representatives, environmental leaders, renewable energy trade association representatives, and community college presidents.

While the opposition may have changed from the battle at Bunker Hill, the spirit of revolution remains. America is looking forward. Tired of the oppressive reign which the world of oil has had, we are beginning, now more than ever, to fight back, to free ourselves.

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As developed nations juggle with the numbers attempting to dodge the issue of agreement on ambitious carbon emissions cuts, the Scottish government has unveiled plans to cut the country’s carbon emissions by a staggering 42 percent, more than the 40 percent recommendation given by IPCC.

This is the most ambitious emissions reduction goal adopted by any country thus far, Germany has plans to 40 its emissions by 40 percent while Britain formally adopted a 34 percent reduction goal this April. Scotland, with its strong renewable energy infrastructure and bold plans to expand the same, has raised the bar even further.

In the recent weeks the developed countries have been in the line of fire of the green groups as they proposed disappointing emission reduction goals. Completely ignoring the IPCC recommendations of 25-40 percent reductions by 2020, Japan and Russia proposed cutting their respective emissions by merely 8 and 10-15 percent. These are only just better than the Kyoto Protocol goals which bind them to cut their emissions by 5-6 percent by 2012 from 1990 levels.

The driving engine behind this highly ambitious goal is the strong renewable energy infrastructure of Scotland. The Scottish government has unveiled numerous clean energy projects in the recent years which has helped the nation make the transition from fossil fuels to clean fuels. Read the rest of this entry »

The League of Conservation Voters and the Sierra Club today launched a new television ad “amplifying President Obama’s call “for Congress to pass the American Clean Energy and Security Act. The ad employs video from the President’s Tuesday press conference, in which he made the case for clean energy and expressed support for the Waxman-Markey climate bill.

The ad, relying simply on the words of the President, stands in stark contrast to the fear-laden ad released on Monday by the Newt Gingrich-led and billionaire-sponsored American Solutions for Winning the Future.

“The President’s voice is the most powerful, but he is only one of the millions of Americans who want to move to a 21st Century sources of clean, American energy,” LCV President Gene Karpinski said in a release. “In 30 years in Washington, the coalition that has formed in support of this bill is one of the most powerful I’ve ever seen because the vote in question is the most critical we’ve ever faced.”

With Speaker Nancy Pelosi likely bringing climate change legislation to the House for a floor vote later this week, a newly-released report by the Congressional Budget Office found that the per-household cost of The American Clean Energy and Security Act was far lower than previously estimated costs.

According to the report, released late Friday afternoon, the annual cost of the Waxman-Markey climate change bill would be an estimated $175 per American household. In addition to the project low cost of Waxman-Markey, the CBO report also suggests the bill would achieve emissions reductions of approximately 17% below 1990 levels by 2020. Read the rest of this entry »

As Congress engages in the major debates surrounding climate and energy legislation, a broad coalition of consumer, economic and environmental advocacy groups has published a report on the substantial consumer savings that stronger energy efficiency and renewable energy standards would bring.

Published by the Consumer Federation of America, Environment America, Energy Future Coalition and the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, the report (pdf) indicates that studies of the technical potential for easily implemented efficiency improvements show efficiency could lower demand by as much as 30 percent in states from all regions of the U.S. at costs well below the current cost of electricity.

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San Jose, CA - Achieving a goal of 100 percent energy independence is a little closer for San Jose thanks to a momentous move by the City Council today. The City Council authorized the City Manager to negotiate and execute a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to develop potential lease terms and guidelines for developing an organics-to energy bio-gas facility.

The bio-gas facility, planned to be constructed and operated by Zanker Road Biogas, will be based on a 40-acre site near the San Jose/Santa Clara Water Pollution Control Plan. The proposed facility would also be bound on either side by two solid waste recovery and recycling facilities owned and operated by Zanker Road Resource Management, Ltd.

The MOU, which was authorized today, will set forth the guidelines and work-plan for the potential lease terms of the bio-gas project. Pending successful negotiations for the MOU, San Jose will issue a lease to Zero Waste Energy Development Company, Inc., a partnership between GreenWaste Recovery and their sister company, Zanker Road Resource Management.

This project would also see the cooperation of GreenWaste and Harvest Power, Inc., a company that provides leading technology and project development capabilities for harnessing the renewable energy in organic waste.

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