Clean Coal is getting laughed at today. Fred Pearce of the Guardian calls clean coal “oxymoronic.” It’s only remorseless commercial propagandizing by US coal and electricity companies that have kept it alive.
For the close-to-home take, check out the Green Miles‘ video below.
I think I’m not alone in being ready for this election season to be over. That doesn’t mean, however, that I’m about the completely disengage from the process at this most critical time.
Reporters and supporters were at a rally today to protest Maryland State police surveillance of Mike Tidwell and Josh Tulkin while working for CCAN in 2005-2006. Josh and Mike regularly met with church groups, politicians, 3rd graders–so do all these people need to be worried that their information is also in these databases?
We’re calling on the police to release this information immediately and explain their actions.
Virginians Unite!
And unite we did. At the Obama rally held at Ida Lee Park in Leesburg, Virginians sent a unified message about energy. When Obama mentioned investments to create 5 million green jobs and investing in renewables like wind and solar, the crowd in front of him responded with cheers and a public display of hundreds of green scarves to show their support. It was an amazing site to behold to see a message that was so loud and so clear that it didn’t even need words. Here in Northern Virginia, we know what real clean energy is and expect the next President of the United States of American to have a plan to put us on the path to Clean Energy Future.
No one wants to gamble our future on the fairytale of “clean coal.” When our economy is in such a fragile state, the time for telling bedtime stories to ease our fears is over. We need real solutions and when we hear them you better believe we get excited. That’s what happened yesterday in Leesburg and what will continue to happen as this 21st Century energy economy becomes a reality.
James Hansen recently sent this letter out to his email list regarding the Wise County protest:
Obstruction of Justice
“You’re Hannah, right?” Hannah Morgan, a 20-year old from Appalachia, Virginia, was one of 11 protesters in handcuffs early Monday morning September 15 at the construction site for a coal-fired power plant being built in Wise County Virginia by Dominion Power. The handcuffs were applied by the police, but the questioner, it turns out, was from Dominion Power.“Mumble, mumble, mumble”, the discussion between police and the Dominion man were too far away to be heard by the young people. But it almost seemed that the police were working for Dominion. Maybe that’s the way it works in a company town. Or should we say company state? Virginia has got one of the most green-washed coal-blackened governors in the nation (http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/
mailings/20080529_ DearGovernorGreenwash.pdf
).
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JOB DESCRIPTION
The Virginia Campus Organizer will be responsible for running the Campus Climate Challenge on campuses across Virginia. Continue reading
The Governor’s Commission on Climate Change is meeting tomorrow, October 23. The current plan falls shockingly short of what scientists say is necessary to avoid the worst consequences of global warming. Governor Kaine’s plan would return Virginia to 2000 emissions levels by 2025. Scientists, in comparison, say we must cut emissions 25% below 1990 levels by 2020! This means that by 2020 Virginia should reduce emissions 35% below the 2000 level. The Commission on Climate Change has the ability to increase those targets.
Virginia Environmental Organizations’ Core Recommendations to the Governor’s Commission on Climate Change
Secretary L. Preston Bryant, Chair and Members of the Governor’s Commission on Climate Change
Dear Mr. Secretary and Commission members,
We recognize that developing climate change policy recommendations is an extremely complex endeavor. The variety of sources of carbon emissions, combined with the even greater number of control measures, the uncertain economics, and the competing stakeholders make this a most difficult charge.
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Hello. My name is Captain Truelight.
I have come to rid the world of evil energy. Will you join me? I’m on Facebook.
UPDATE: Andrew Revkin weighs in: “Climate Campaigners Were on Terrorist List“
Pictures from the rally posted here>>
Letter from Mike:
Since 2001, I have devoted my life entirely to the peaceful promotion of windmills and solar panels to solve global warming. Apparently not everyone liked my work, however. Believe it or not, the Maryland State Police – your state police – put my name in their criminal intelligence database as a “suspected terrorist” as part of their larger program of collecting information about political activists in 2005-2006. I was on this outrageous “watch” list apparently because of a single act of peaceful civil disobedience I participated in outside a coal-fired power plant in 2004. CCAN’s former deputy director Josh Tulkin was also put in the database as was another former CCAN staffer who has chosen to remain anonymous. Neither of these people has ever been arrested for anything in their entire lives. (See background below) Continue reading
