CCAN’s own Tom Owens (Virginia Campus Organizer ) received a great feature story for his great work on the Campus Climate Challenge in the Altoona Mirror, his hometown Pennsylvania Paper. Congrats TOM!
Very rarely do climate activsts get features like this. Feeding the homeless, saving kitties from trees, planting trees – these are things that receive a “what a great guy” feature story. But the times they are a changin.
Environmental Groups March in Richmond to Protest Coal Development in Wise County
There is no doubt about it these days in Virginia: Dominion is the one and only name that matters in the electricity generation business and it’s not one to shy away from its power. The utility flexed its monopolistic might this legislative session and squashed any meaningful discussion of mandatory and widely-supported renewable energy requirements for the Commonwealth. The monopoly basically ensured that, for the near future at least, the ball will be in its court when it comes to making decisions about what sources of energy will be used to deal with Virginia’s rising energy demands.
And what is Dominion’s first choice for electricity? Coal, coal and more coal. Right now coal is the most plentiful and most cost-effective energy source out there. It is, however, the dirtiest of all options. The greenhouse gases and mercury pollution due to coal are well-documented, and Dominion feels no need to shift from the status quo because legally, they don’t have to.
Massey Energy, which is in the dirty business of coal extraction, is another another benefactor of Virginia’s continued reliance on coal. Massey Energy does a lot of business in the Appalachian Mountains and have been able to maintain and even increase their activities extracting coal due to the lack of legislation forcing renewable energy in the Commonwealth. Thus the devastating practice of mountaintop removal mining for coal does not look like it’s going away any time soon.
To protest this “cradle to the grave” stranglehold that Dominion and Massey have on our energy industry in Virginia, several environmental justice organizations including the Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN), Mountain Justice Summer, Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards, and the Sierra Club of Virginia participated in a march from Massey to Dominion Headquarters in Richmond on Monday June 25th. Through effective signage, handouts, skits, and classic music from the mountains, we were able to effectively send a message that the idea of a new coal plant in Wise County, VA should be put to rest. Changing the status quo in Virginia starts with “no new coal plants” and subsequently replacing the energy that would have been supplied by coal with clean, renewable energy. It is the only sustainable way forward now that global warming, ecosystem loss, energy demand increases have combined to create a crisis-like scenario for humans and the planet we inhabit.
Protesters play classic mountain music in front of Dominion’s headquarters in
Richmond, Va. demanding that the huge utility stop its plans to build more
polluting coal-fired power plants in Wise County, Va.
There are plans in the works for another march through Richmond in the fall and it promises to be even bigger and better than what we saw on Monday.
It’s official. Maryland can no longer be #2 for state climate leadership… we’re going to have to vie for #3.
Itsgettinghotinhere.org reported that “Yesterday, June 21st, Trenton voted to overwhelmingly pass the Global Warming Response Act, ground-breaking legislation that will set an economy-wide cap on greenhouse gas emissions to bring levels down to 1990 levels by 2020 and 80% below 2005 levels by 2050.”
Sounds familiar… except Maryland voted it down last year. The GOOD NEWS? It gives us all the more momentum to rock out this legislative session in Maryland. Read more…
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Mike Tidwell and Susanna Murley knew the show must go on despite the threat of severe thundestorms all over Takoma Park, and CCAN supporters and new members still flocked to the Tidwell house to learn how to get involved to promote a cleaner, safer future for our world.
Guests were greeted at the front door with drinks and ventured inside to a nice spread of fruits and vegetables to nibble on while meeting each other and members of the CCAN staff. Around 30 guests converged on the Tidwell house to meet fellow climate activists and listen to climate leaders, Mike Tidwell and Maryland State Senator Jamie Raskin, speak about climate issues that affect Maryland and abroad.
Senator Raskin focused on the recent victories of the Maryland Clean Cars Act and promised to help lead Maryland to the forefront of the climate movement. State level legislation has become the power tool for the climate movement because of the backward pace at the federal level. Senator Raskin hopes that Maryland will soon be in the ranks of California and New York in the coming years. He also announced his appointment to the Governors’ Commission on Climate Change which was created to design a comprehensive energy plan for the state of Maryland.
Mike Tidwell spoke of the need for support to keep up the good work of CCAN and of course, pledged his allegiance to the climate issue as the defining issue of our time. The new members at the party kindly reached for their pocketbooks and joined CCAN.
Not only were the party and membership drive a success, but the new members offered promising ideas and hope to the climate movement! Oh yeah, it never rained a drop!
Yesterday, Monday, June 18, 2007, clean energy advocates converged on Rockville, MD. to show support for proposals to increase the amount of electricity that comes from renewable energy. CCAN teamed up with Environment Maryland to call on Congress to pass a bill introduced by Representatives Udall (D-NM) and Platts (R-PA), H.R. 969, which would require 20 percent of America’s electricity to come from renewable energy sources like wind and solar by 2020. Last week, Rep. Van Hollen agreed to cosponsor of the legislation.
Children will be most affected by climate change. This child
shows his support of clean energy by waving a pinwheel.
The clean energy advocates listened as Congressman Van Hollen spoke about the urgency that Congress needs to tackle Global Warming. Relating his support for the cleanest forms of alternative energy, Van Hollen stated, “I hope the new political breeze on Capitol Hill will produce a new energy policy that focuses on renewable energy sources like wind and solar. After listening to the Senate debate the future of coal to liquid, this was music to our ears.
CCAN’s director, Mike Tidwell, made it clear that climate change is the issue of our time and Congress must step up to task with alternative energy sources such as wind and solar. Other speakers at the event included local and state representatives that are firm advocates for clean energy in Maryland. The other speakers for the event included:
Christine Real de Azua, spokesperson for the American Wind Energy Association;
Rob Garagiola, Maryland State Senator;
Brad Heavner, Environment Maryland State Director.
The state of Maryland is shaping up to be a national leader in the clean energy revolution. CCAN’s Maryland and DC organizer, Claire Douglass, planned this press conference to show that state and federal leadership in Maryland support clean energy alternatives to combat global warming. Maryland citizens and their leaders should be proud that they are paving the path to clean energy. The citizens in the crowd demonstrated the use of wind turbines by holding up pinwheels that flickered as they spun around in the breeze.
If every member of Congress is as tuned in to the climate and alternative energy as Congressman Chris Van Hollen, we’ll be in much better shape. However, the truth is that every citizen still needs to demand results from their leaders in order to stop global climate change!
Last Wednesday, Paul Burman, CCAN’s Northern Virginia Coordinator, led a successful town hall meeting at George Mason University in Fairfax Virginia. Over 150 energetic
Fellow CCANers and I had an exciting morning last Thursday, as we planned to dump one ton of coal at the United States Capitol in the Lower Senate Park to protest the legislation on the Senate floor that would allow for 10 billion dollars in direct federal loans for coal to liquid development. FYI: Most of the Senators that support the bill hail from coal industry states.
Soon after the set-up began, the Capitol Police tried to disband the press conference by claiming the flammable qualities of coal could severely put the members of Congress in harms way
CCAN is proud to announce that we have our new blog up and running! This blog will be a way to share our thoughts with our members without sending out email after email. With guest bloggers, it will also be a way for our members to interact with each other.
So come back and visit our blog often to see what we’re up to and contact us if you want to submit your own blog entries.
The Washington Post
By Mike Tidwell
How’s this for poetic justice? In future years, the White House and all those federal agencies accused of acting too slowly after Hurricane Katrina smashed New Orleans last August will probably find their own D.C. offices threatened by catastrophic flooding from monster storms. They may be hunkering behind massive levees and fantastic floodgates, harried by the annual threat of Katrina-scale hurricanes.
As warming seas continue to stoke more intense hurricanes, Tidwell predicts the flooding of parts of Baltimore, the destruction of Assateague Island, waters pouring into the Washington suburbs, the Eastern Shore being almost cut in half by the swollen Nanticoke River and the destruction of the Blackwater National Widlife Refuge. Continue reading