Jim Hansen's letter supporting Wise County protests

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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Virginia Environmental Organizations' Core Recommendations to the Governor's Commission on Climate Change

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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Md police spied on Tidwell

UPDATE: Andrew Revkin weighs in: “Climate Campaigners Were on Terrorist List“
Pictures from the rally posted here>>

no spyingLetter 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

Can you spell c-o-a-l?

Essay by Mike Tidwell, published online at Grist

The dirty secret behind D.C.’s high-tech Virginia suburbs

There’s a chance the presidential election will come down to who wins the state of Virginia. And the key to winning Virginia comes down to who does well in the D.C. suburbs of northern Virginia. This area is an economic powerhouse where no fewer than one in three Virginia voters live. Just mention the words “northern Virginia” across the mid-Atlantic region and the hyphenated adjectives come back at you: Fast-growing, high-tech, well-educated, high-income.

No wonder the presidential candidates can’t seem to stay away from the area. Despite perennial traffic congestion, “NoVa” has that certain gleam of 21st century life, from the glitzy high-rises of Rosslyn to the corporate campuses around the Dulles airport to the performing arts stage at a place called Wolf Trap. Fairfax County alone, the heart of the region, has a higher percentage of high-tech workers than Silicon Valley.
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Dominion's $500,000 influence

dominion logoDominion released their lobbying disclosure report yesterday and I wonder what they got with their $500,000. Eric Cantor has received nearly $25,000 from Dominion in the last year and he voted against environmental education, to eliminate a Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard, and against public transportation giving him an “ugly” rating by LCV.

But $25,000 is just a drop in the bucket compared to what Dominion has actually spent. They’ve spent nearly $500,000 was spent on lobbying expenses in just the last few months. Even this is a huge increase, compared to the $20,000 the previous quarter. View Dominion’s $500,000 disclosure report here>>

Obviously, the fight against climate change is between the people and Big Oil and Big Coal money. We can’t outspend the energy corporations but we can outnumber them.

Earthbeat Radio: A New Green Economy

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Looking for a silver lining. Given the massive world-wide economic downturn thatis occurring, Earthbeat host Mike Tidwell speaks to Lester Brown, one of the world’s greatest environmental minds.

Brown is the head of the Earth Policy Institute and the author of the book Plan B 3.0 – Mobilizing to Save Civilization.

Then we listen to an encore of our conversation with the lead scientist for the National Snow and Ice Data Center – Ted Scambos. Arctic ice is hitting its second lowest level in the last 100 years, Scambos discusses how and why the North Pole is melting away. Joining the conversation to discuss the politics in Washington and how it can, or can’t, protect the arctic is Brian Moore of the National Audubon Society.

Download this edition of Earthbeat.

21st Century Life: THE ANSWER MY FRIEND…

coffee houseAs the clamor grows on the Right to “Drill Baby Drill”, clean energy wind farms are spreading across the land, and at sea. A major project, involving 78 windmills, is being built off the Delaware coast, near the Maryland border, by Bluewater Wind. The wind farm will provide electricity to 130,000 homes and, says Bluewater’s Jim Lanard, a second wind farm is under consideration for off-shore Maryland. Watch this edition of Mike Tidwell’s TV show, 21st Century Life.