Md. Event Among More than 30 Plunges Across the Country, Activists Demand Action on Global Warming as U.S. Congress Considers Energy Bill
Takoma Park, MD Continue reading
Last night in St. Paul, VA — ground zero for Dominion Virginia Power’s proposed Wise County coal plant — over 100 citizens raised their voices to question members of the Department of Environmental Quality. Residents raised a variety of concerns. The hearing was organized for DEQ to get input on their Continue reading
And it’s gonna be cold. And wet probably. But definitely worth it. This’ll be my third year in a row taking the plunge. I get nervous the night before each plunge. So far, though, I’ve managed to come out okay. Having other people plunging in with you really makes a difference. And this year, with over 200 people jumping and twice that much expected, I’ll have lots of company.
PJ Park from Mt. Rainer is going to be there. He and two others will be arriving by bike – 32 miles there and 32 miles back.
If you’re not up for riding your bike to Annapolis, but would like to cut down on your carbon footprint, why not consider carpooling. Check out our carpool message board here.
And finally, here are the details one more time:
WHO: Chesapeake Climate Action Network
WHAT: Third Annual Polar Bear Plunge
WHEN:December 8, 2007, 11 am
WHERE: Chesapeake Bay Foundation Merrill Center, 6 Herndon Rd., Annapolis, MD. Map.
LEARN MORE: www.keepwintercold.org
SPEAKERS:
Will Baker – President, Chesapeake Bay Foundation
Delegate Bill Bronrott – House of Delegates, Montgomery County
Mike Tidwell- Director, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, and more
What’s missing from this map?
MARYLAND!
Thanks to strong grassroots efforts across the state, the MD state government is recommending real global warming solutions! The draft report of the MD Commission on Climate Change was released on Tuesday, and thanks to grassroots efforts to make this a major issue
Consumers lost an estimated $8 billion because of unused gift cards in 2006. Best Buy alone received $43 million in unused gift cards
(co-written by Claire Schuch)
Thirty people from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota attended Power Shift. 1,770 Mac students did not. Not to mention faculty and staff. Thirty people from the Mac community came back energized, inspired, and well-connected. But what about everyone else? I bet it was the same story for your campus Continue reading
By now you’ve heard that Dominion Virginia Power is planning to build a new coal-fired power plant in Wise County, Va. The Richmond Times Dispatch projects that this plant will be “one of the biggest air polluters in Virginia.” It will cost $1.6 billion, and will emit more than 5 million tons of carbon dioxide annually (the equivalent of adding 200 million cars to the road!). And best of all, Virginia ratepayers will foot the entire bill.
It is absolutely critical that the State Corporation Commission (SCC) hears from you. Let them know that Virginians DO NOT WANT NEW COAL PLANTS!
Visit the CCAN website for all you need to know to submit your comments.
In order to build and operate a new coal-fired power plant in Wise County, Dominion must first receive approval from the SCC. This is your opportunity to let the Commission know that this coal plant is a bad deal for Virginia!
Again, the CCAN website has information on how to submit your comments.
The public comment period ends on December 14th. Take this moment to tell the SCC that we don’t want any new coal, and let’s stop this dirty plant.
Click here to learn more about the plant, and what a coalition of Va. groups are doing to fight it.
Washington recommends “clean coal” plant be rejected
LOS ANGELES, Nov 27 (Reuters) – A Washington state regulatory board on Tuesday advised the governor to reject plans for Energy Northwest’s proposed 680-megawatt integrated gasification combined-cycle (IGCC) power plant because plans do not specify how carbon dioxide emissions would be sequestered underground.
The Washington Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council (EFSEC) said in a ruling signed Tuesday that it would reconsider the plant if Energy Northwest submits a workable plan to pump greenhouse gases — primarily CO2 — underground.
An Energy Northwest spokesman said on Tuesday that the consortium of 20 member utilities and cities has yet to decide what to do next regarding the proposed Pacific Mountain Energy Center, which has a price tag of at least $1.5 billion.
That $1.5 billion sounds a lot like what Dominion is projecting their new plant will cost… Continue reading
Thank you, to everyone who participated in the Maryland Month of Action for Global Warming Solutions! Eight Town Hall Meetings were held all over the state of Maryland, with a total of over 650 attendees. In addition, there were step it up events, a nature hike (where we talked about climate change and invasive species), and several smaller community events, such as a forum on renewable energy in Mt. Airy.
The next thing that’s coming up? The commission report is due to come out on December 4th. On that day, we’ll be doing our final postcard drop for postcards to O’Malley (so if you have postcards that have been filled out, please mail them back to the CCAN office as soon as possible! The address is PO Box 11138, Takoma Park MD 20912).
Record Dry March, Record Flooding in June, Thunderstorms in January, Power Outages All the Time, Farmers Perplexed, and Everyone's Wondering: What's Up With Our Local Weather?
Welcome to Global Warming in Maryland, Virginia and D.C.
By Anne Havemann
Chesapeake Climate Action Network
www.chesapeakeclimate.org
In 34 years, my parents have never remembered their wedding anniversary. This year, however, as the rained pounded their roof and flooded their basement, they couldn't help but remember their honeymoon.
The 7.09 inches of rain recorded at D.C.'s National Airport during a 24-hour period ending Monday, June 26 is second only to when Hurricane Agnes passed through this region trapping my parents in their honeymoon suite 34 years ago.
Except this time it wasn't a hurricane. It was just severe rain. Unusually severe rain. Rain so severe it lasted nearly two weeks in the D.C./Baltimore region and left 300,000 people without power, killed five people, destroyed huge swaths of cropland, threatened dams, damaged roads and property, and left many long-time residents saying they'd never seen anything like it.
This, of course, followed the driest March on record in our region. Typically March is our wettest month of the year, when the Potomac swells and the aquifers recharge and farmers rejoice. But this year March was drier than the deserts of Arizona. No one can remember anything like this happening either. And this followed a mild winter that included freak thunderstorms in January and February. And all of this follows a pattern of very weird weather in this region dating back to the early 1990s but intensifying in recent years. Ask any farmer in Maryland or Virginia and they'll go on and on and on about the weird weather. Go ahead, next time you're at a farmers market, just ask one of the vendors. They'll tell you all about it.
So here's the question: At what point are we permitted to talk about the 600-pound gorilla in the room? Every week there's a new peer-reviewed study in yet another prestigious scientific journal linking a host of weather-related anomalies to global warming: hurricanes, forest fires, dying coral reefs, droughts and, of course, extreme rainfall. Here's what the U.S. EPA under George Bush has to say about future rainfall patterns in a warmer climate: "Evaporation will increase as the climate warms, which will increase average global precipitation. Soil moisture is likely to decline in many regions, and intense rainstorms are likely to become more frequent" (emphasis added).
And while it's impossible to link any single weather event directly and definitively to global warming, the pattern is unmistakable in our region and across the world. Why is everyone talking about the weather, from recent floods here to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans? It's because our climate has been radically destabilized by our use of fossil fuels. It's because global warming is happening now. It's happening here. It's all around us. We are fully immersed in the pattern of freaky, harmful, ongoing, anomalous weather right now.
The Washington Post headline on Tuesday, June 27, two days into the recent torrential downpours, announced: "Roads, Rails, Federal Offices Deluged: Floods Swamp Homes, Strand Drivers; Mud Closes Beltway." Two days later the headlines proclaimed: "No Rest for the Wet and Weary: Evacuation Ordered as Relentless Rain Fills Waterways; Some Federal Buildings Remain Closed." Then on Thursday, July 6, a full twelve days after the storms began, the headlines revealed: "Utilities Scramble to Keep Up: 'It's Been a Circus,' Pepco Says of Endless Series of Storms."
Lake Needwood Dam in north Rockville, Md. was deemed unsafe and drained. There were nearly 300,000 power outages in the twelve-day period from June 22 to July 6, completely overwhelming Pepco, the local utility. Even the White House did not escape the damage as a 100-year old American elm fell near the front door.
Perhaps most alarming is the foreshadowing of what global warming might do to our local food supply. Three days of fierce rains in Maryland's Dorchester County, an agricultural area along the Eastern Shore, killed as many as 80,000 chickens and caused as much as $8 million in damage.
The damage to agricultural operations across the Eastern Shore was so devastating, in fact, that the Maryland Emergency Management Agency is compiling estimates to determine whether the state qualifies for federal disaster assistance.
There is, of course, overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity — driving cars that burn gasoline, burning coal for electricity and heating our homes with natural gas — is driving global warming.This tells us two things: 1) that humans are capable of changing the Earth's climate, but 2) that we are also capable of stopping the change.
I, for one, am not ready to resign myself to bailing out my parent's basement every June and I am certainly not able to accept that tragedies wrought by Katrina-like hurricanes are inevitable.
We are surrounded by signs of a changing and unstable climate. Top climate scientists tell us that we have no more than 10 years to reduce greenhouse gases before global warming reaches a "tipping point" and becomes unstoppable.
Ten years is not a lot of time but it IS enough. We created global warming together, now it's going to take all of us working together to end it. What we need is a grassroots revolution demanding radically cleaner cars and a full use of wind farms and "bio-fuels" and a host of other steps. But none of this will happen if you don't get involved today.
To learn more about global warming impacts and solutions in the Chesapeake Region, visit www.chesapeakeclimate.org . Get educated and get involved today!!