As the nation is transfixed on Congressional machinations over Healthcare and Clean Energy, a smaller, yet significant, piece of legislation has been passed. This week, the California state Congress passed a final water bill after months of deal-making, compromises and veto threats from Governor Schwarzenegger. The California state Congress became infamous for the amount of partisanship that surfaced during state budget debates that attempted to close the state’s multi-billion dollar deficit. The resulted cuts to services, paychecks, education and tax increases (including a 1% sales tax increase in Los Angeles County) made the Republican governor less than popular amongst California voters. 

 

There is a shocking article in today's Miami Herald about a town in the Dominican Republic being plagued by terrible birth defects. The residents claim all the birth issues are being caused by coal ash that was dumped nearby by a U.S. company. The company denies it.

From the article:

A civil lawsuit filed Wednesday in Delaware charges that toxic levels of waste dumped at the Arroyo Barril port has made people nearby sick. After years of repeated miscarriages, women whose blood levels show abnormal levels of arsenic are giving birth to babies with cranial deformities, with organs outside their bodies or missing limbs.

The case highlights the debate over coal ash, an unregulated byproduct of coal energy, which when processed and recycled is used in everything from cement to the foundation for golf courses. Popular Mechanics magazine this month calls a concrete made from coal ash one of the "10 Most Brilliant Products of 2009."

It's a sad and eye-opening article, be sure to read it.

I attended Climate One’s lecture series on Tuesday at the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco, which featured Stanford climatologist Stephen Schneider, who is an expert contributor to IPCC's assessment reports. He has studied climate for thirty-plus years. He is also the author of a new book Science as a Contact Sport: Inside the Battle to Save Earth's Climate.

Schneider spoke at a fast pace, which made for a very informative 50 minutes. His prevailing theme: climate-change solutions are a form of risk management. He likened these solutions to surgery – either you do something to prevent catastrophe because that’s what the odds tell you to do, or you don’t and see what happens.

"Climate is the study of a system, like the human body," he said. "What we are looking at is an array of multiple outcomes." And while scientists have varying opinions of these outcomes, the likelihood of catastrophe is too high to ignore, he said.

 

This week’s post was co-written by Mary Anne Hitt, deputy director of the Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign

We’re celebrating great news out of Minnesota and South Dakota this week: “After almost five years of planning and permitting efforts, the participating utilities in the proposed Big Stone II Project announced…Monday that they will end their quest to build the project’s large coal-fired power plant and associated transmission facilities.”

We echo our own Cesia Kearns, a Sierra Club staffer from Minnesota, in what the halting of Big Stone II means for the region. “The failure of this enormous proposed coal plant expansion unravels the myth that the Midwest is starving for more electricity, and that coal is the only way to adequately meet that perceived need,” Kearns said.

“This victory demonstrates that even when we may lose the battles - consistent pressure, engaged citizens, and strong partnerships can win the war.  It's a strong example of how even though the regulators may be on the side of a developer, the public is not.”

We salute our tough band of local residents in South Dakota and Minnesota (the plant was proposed for northeastern South Dakota, near the border with Minnesota), who spent the last five years fighting this dirty coal plant. The Sierra Club also partnered with grassroots, state, and regional organizations during this long and difficult campaign. They knew how bad the air pollution and global warming contributions this plant would spew forth would be, they wanted clean energy for their region, and even when the going got tough, they never gave up.

Stopping the Big Stone II project prevented about 4.7 million tons of CO2, or the equivalent of the pollution from roughly 670,000 cars (substantially more than all the cars in South Dakota) from entering the atmosphere every year.

The residents so entrenched in this fight against Big Stone II helped lead a long fight against the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission for its issuance of an air pollution permit for the plant and, equally importantly, an enforcement action targeting the existing coal-fired unit at the Big Stone facility for past violations of the Clean Air Act.  We also challenged the state of South Dakota's Clean Air Act plan for failure to comply with federal law.

Kearns added that one noteworthy example of the grassroots push for clean energy was the mention of Sierra Club's "footprint petition" in the Administrative Law Judge's written recommendation to the MN Public Utilities Commission to deny the certificate of need for Big Stone II’s transmission lines.

“The footprint petition was a long swath of fabric with the signatures and outlines of the footprints of over 2,000 Minnesotans who wanted to see global warming solutions in Minnesota,” explained Kearns. “It was presented to the Administrative Law Judge during a public hearing in Ortonville, Minnesota - the town closest to the location of the proposed plant.”

This plant’s demise is also a sign of impending climate legislation. Otter Tail Power had pulled out of this plant back in September, citing, among other reasons,  “a high level of uncertainty associated with proposed federal climate legislation and existing federal environmental regulation.”

No other utilities stepped in to take over the Big Stone II expansion themselves – because the companies all know that this legislation is coming.

Coal power is not the future of U.S. energy. The public is speaking up for more clean energy. And from coast to coast, that voice is getting louder every day.

In case you haven't checked it out in a while, the farmers' market photo map is worth a visit. More than 80 markets are up, representing the nearly 300 pictures that are in the farmers' market group's photo gallery. Go to the map, click on baskets, and take a look at these beautiful photos! Don't see your market? Grab your camera and pay a visit before it gets too cold out there. As long as you keep posting pictures of your local markets to the gallery, we'll keep updating the map. 

    

A quick review of this past week's happenings in the blog world

Here's today's lesson: Never underestimate the ability of politicians to disappoint. It's likely that the climate bill is going "to suck," says Washington Post super-blogger Ezra Klein.

Cap and trade would be well suited to a nationally elected legislature in a cosmopolitan country that's attuned to the benefits of wise forms of taxation and accustomed to thinking on a long time frame. That does not describe our Congress.

Second, climate change is uncommonly resistant to the incrementalism favored by our -- and most -- political systems. Health-care reform is a good counter-example. Dramatic as the policy is, it's an incremental improvement from the current situation. That's okay: Do a bit now, and you can do a bit more later. If you don't do enough, you can still reform the system at the point of fiscal crisis. That's not ideal, but it's doable.

Not so for climate change. If you don't do enough, the problem spins out of control, with glaciers melting and carbon sinks opening and permafrost thawing. Worse, the viscerally detectable consequences come long after the point when reform could still avert their damage. It's not like health care, where we can fix the problem after international bondholders decide to stop buying treasuries. By the time the earth's temperature has risen three degrees Celsius, the game is pretty much up, and our only options are endless geo-engineering [...]

In related news, Senators John Kerry, Lindsay Graham, and Joe Lieberman are "working on a parallel track with the blessing of Boxer and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid," according to Time's Swampland blog.

What else is happening in the blog-iverse?

-- The Daily Ocean blogger, whose mission is picking up trash at Santa Monica Beach for a year, has now collected 336 pounds of garbage in 72 days.

-- I stumbled upon this blog a few days ago: Sew Green. It's pretty great. I like this post about "(sub)urban chicken keeping."

-- Does slowing deforestation really affect atmospheric CO2's increase?

-- Economists aren't stupid. That's why a whopping 84 percent of them agree with this statement: "The environmental effects of greenhouse gas emissions, as described by leading scientific experts, create significant risks to important sectors of the United States and global economy."

-- And last but not least -- here's a photo essay of the final days of Gourmet magazine.

 

Watch Colbert argue with Colbert. At about the third minute, Al Gore and Al Gore join the fray:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Formidable Opponent - Global Warming With Al Gore
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor U.S. Speedskating

 

Climate change is only beginning to hit home. For more on this, visit weatherandclimate.net. (Via Link TV.)

There's been a lot of news out about various aspects of the coal industry lately, so I wanted to share the links to get it out there. These are in no particular order, but all are interesting.

First up, last Friday the newspaper Business Lexington in Kentucky published side-by-side editorials on mountaintop removal coal mining, one from our Sierra Club folks there and one from a coal industry rep.

Also last week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) notified officials in West Virginia and Ohio about the integrity of coal ash storage site (impoundment) at an AEP facility in West Virginia. EPA officials say the impoundment is suffering from issues similar to those that caused the coal ash dam failure in Tennessee last December:

As part of that effort, EPA contractors identified factors at the AEP Philip Sporn facility that are similar to the Kingston facility – specifically, both facilities piled coal ash and bottom ash around the impoundment to raise the impoundment’s walls.

In similar news, residents in Trimble, Ohio, are worried about a planned coal ash impoundment expansion near the Ohio River.

More in coal ash news, did you see EPA's coal ash report? The agency released it last week, and we've taken a look at it:

The report shows that coal power plants are discharging huge amounts of toxic pollution including arsenic, mercury, and selenium into rivers, streams, and groundwater across the country, contaminating wells, killing wildlife, and risking lives.  EPA’s report concludes that an “increasing amount of evidence indicates that the characteristics of coal combustion wastewater have the potential to impact human health and the environment.”  The report documents decades of damage, ranging from a single spill which wiped out 200,000 fish to reports of well water laced with selenium, which can cause infertility.

The Tennessean had a good article on the report and what it means.

In "that shouldn't be funny but it is" news, the Faces of Coal folks tweeted a disturbing note recently: "Coal helped us get a healthcare industry, which we did not have" In response, a friend of ours quipped, "Yeah, helped us get a healthcare industry by creating a market for it with ailments like black lung." To that we'd add the thousands of health and respiratory issues caused by pollution from burning coal.

Moving on to other coal environmental health issues, the Sierra Club has worked on coal dust issues before, and we're at it again - this time in Alaska. Our Alaska chapter teamed up with the Alaska Center for the Environment and Alaska Community Action on Toxics:

Local conservation groups put Alaska Railroad Corporation and Aurora Energy Services on notice that the companies need to control the coal at the Seward coal loading facility. A lack of adequate pollution controls at the facility has resulted in ongoing dumping of coal debris into Resurrection Bay and uncontrolled blowing coal dust, damaging water quality in the Bay and threatening the tourism industry it supports.

You can read the full press release here (PDF).

And finally, as if that wasn't enough news about the risks of using coal, here's another link to back that up. Pediatrician Dr. Keith Sebert wrote an editorial in Georgia's Bryan County News about mercury in waterways being a risk to children. Where does the mercury come from? You guessed it: Coal-fired power plants.

Saw this video today over on the "It's Getting Hot in Here" blog and had to share. Students at Washington University in St. Louis got tired of seeing the influence coal execs were having on their campus and decided to hold a flash mob protest at an energy summit on campus.

What an inspiration, and what a bold action. Read the whole blog post to learn more.

Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) committee hearings held on the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act last week have built upon the Kerry/Graham op-ed in the New York Times to provide renewed momentum on domestic legislation - even if the party of no continues to childishly obstruct the process by boycotting committee mark up. Unfortunately, movement in the Senate is being overshadowed by a deterioration of negotiations at the global level stemming from concerted attacks by a handful of countries seeking to kill the Kyoto Protocol and replace it with a "pledge and review" system.

Pledge and review in its most general form repeals any notion of a legally binding deal, allowing countries to instead pledge the level of ambition they deem fit – rather than that determined by climate science. As if this "race to the bottom" in terms of emissions targets were not enough of a threat, it also breaches the Bali "firewall" – the differentiation between industrialized and developing countries that exempts the developing world from binding emissions reductions targets. Differentiation was agreed to under the Bali Action Plan - the outline for the Copenhagen negotiations – under the tenet of common but differentiated responsibility and is central to the international negotiations.

I try to only talk about the future of EVs here, but this story from the past got my attention.

From All Cars Electric entitled, "GM Insider Admits Company Knew Consumers Demanded Efficient Vehicles Decades Ago." This is a pretty astounding admission.

As McManus said, "The survey would estimate that people would estimate fuel economy fairly highly. Being a good economist, I said, 'No, they don't,' and I changed the results. [...] Our job was not to seek the truth, but to justify decisions that had already been made."

So, as we go forward toward this new electric future, keep in mind that when big dollars are involved, you can expect that not everything the car makers, the utilities, and even the regulators tell us is going to be true.

  

Yes, these incredible photos are appearing everywhere on the Internet: Photos Show the Shocking Effect of Plastic on Albatross Chicks.

Sierra magazine recently printed a feature story on the tragedy that is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

There's a new garbage patch group here on Crossroads. And join the Sierra magazine's group while you're at it.

Hey look! I started a topic in the discussion forums on Thanksgiving food tips. Please share!

Here are some green tips from No Impact Man himself. And below is a short clip from a No Impact participant. Right on!

Flooding can have devastating effects, destroying infrastructure, inundating natural habitats, and killing and displacing large populations. Developing countries experience some of the worst backlash from flooding, as impoverished people often live in unstable and ramshackle housing in areas prone to disaster.  

According to the School for Environmental Research at Charles Darwin University in Australia, between 1990 and 2000, 100,000 people were killed and 320 million displaced by floods, causing a total of $151 billion in damage. The report connected the loss of forest lands to an increase in severity and occurrence of floods. Deforestation, taking place at 6 million hectares/year, not only destroys pristine habitats, but also puts large populations at risk. According to the same report, more people are moving into vulnerable areas, like floodplains, marshes and forested areas, prompting the removal of these natural buffers, and putting these populations at risk.

As if the endangered Leatherback Turtle didn't already have a tough enough life - now it's going to get worse for it in Puerto Rico.

Last Friday, Puerto Rico Governor Luis Fortuño announced he will cancel the "nature reserve" designation held since 2008 by the island's Northeast Ecological Corridor. This will unfortunately  allow for large-scale, unsustainable development in the area, including more than 4,500 residential and tourist units and four golf courses.

All that development's not a good idea for such a delicate natural area, home to Leatherback Turtles (like the one in the photo) and other native endangered species.

Of course we'll be challenging this decision from Fortuño. Learn more in our press release.

 

 A nice (snowy) day for a ride.

If you ever considered biking to work but were kept away by worries about logistics, rain, or what your co-workers might think, you'll find a series of tips here on the Crossroads blog to get you to work on your bike at least once a week. Today's post is about weather. We already discussed picking out a bike  and your first day.

Okay, so you’re a bike commuter now -- at least some of the time. And you totally get it. Commuting is fun, you show up to work feeling great, and maybe you’ve even lost a few pounds. But as the days get cooler and cold weather starts to loom, maybe you’re wondering if you can keep it up. You can.

It’s not all or nothing. Don’t think just because you can’t bike every day or every week you should give up on bike commuting altogether during the winter. When a snow storm hits, or you have extra responsibilities at home or work, taking off a few days is fine. No one’s judging you. Just remind yourself how much you love biking to work when things clear up, and then get back in the saddle. Remember, people bike in Minneapolis (in what locals like to call MinneSNOWta) all year round!

It’s raining!  You wake up and it’s raining. Should you leave the bike at home? Not necessarily. Rain is not a major problem for bikers, as anyone who's ever lived or visited Portland, Oregon knows. Just wear appropriate clothing (rain coat, rain pants, gloves) and give yourself a little extra time. Bike slower than normal since the roads are slick and your stopping power is reduced, and take the turns with caution. Paint on roads is slicker than the blacktop when wet, so stay away from paint when possible.

But it’s cold! The key to cold-weather riding is limiting the amount of exposed skin to the wind. Since you’re pedaling enough to generate heat, your core will stay warm. But your hands, knees, and head might get chilly. Wearing gloves, tights, and a wool hat under your helmet will keep you comfy. And wear a few core layers, so you can adjust warmth easily as the ride goes on. There are cycling-specific clothing options available, but you can also use your hiking wool and synthetics.

Today’s forecast: snow. A little snow won’t stop you from biking to work (but again, it’s not all or nothing -- if you are not comfortable in snow, that’s cool, take the day off). Snow can be slick and is best met with thick knobby mountain-bike tires. It can also hide black ice, so be careful – especially when riding over bridges, where ice forms first. Use a “beater” bike if you have one, and make sure to clean the muck off your bike to keep it functioning well.

Have a backup plan. It’s best not to be forced to bike if the weather turns in the middle of the day. Before winter hits, know alternate options like which bus or coworker can take you home. Leave your bike at work for the night if you need to. If you park it outside, make sure it’s secure and not sitting in a pool of rust-inducing water.

Have questions about commuting or finding the right bike? Ask them in the comments below.

  

Learn about a proposed coal plant in Chuitna, AK.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Watch Al Gore on CBS. Couric at one point calls him the "Godfather of Green."

It's sad, but it's also not a surprise: Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee are boycotting the mark-up of the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act. We released our thoughts on what we think the Republicans are doing instead of taking part in the push to bring a clean energy future to the U.S.:

The Sierra Club is distressed that these Senators are unwilling to sit down and work on this important plan for less pollution, more jobs and greater security.

The Sierra Club openly wondered what these Senators might be doing that is more important than finishing work on this historic bill and so suggested these Top Ten Possible Excuses for not showing up for work on the Clean Energy Jobs bill:

10. They are hiding in the attic with balloon boy.
9. They are allergic to wind.
8. They had to prep for a conference denying climate science.
7. They got lost hiking the Appalachian Trail.
6. They were swimming, Scrooge McDuck-style, through swimming pools filled with Big Oil and Coal money.
5. They had choir practice for the Chorus of No’s.
4. Rush told them not to go.
3. They had to hold up some more judicial nominees.
2. They actually oppose a Clean Energy Jobs bill that would put America back in charge of its economic and energy future.
1. They had a pre-existing condition.

We even created a place where you can list their possible excuses as well - let us know what you think the Republicans are doing!

And if you want to do more work than the Republicans are doing, you can watch the mark-up in the committee via CSPAN online.

It's really quite amazing. The main response at last Tuesday's opening hearing of the Senate Environment Committee on the Clean Energy Act was that its 2020 goal -- a 20 percent reduction in U.S. emissions of greenhouse pollution -- was over-the-top ambitious. Senators, both Republican and Democratic, expressed grave concerns that such a goal would somehow tank the economy. In fact, it's somewhat alarmingly unaggressive -- and won't do as much as it should to jump-start the clean-energy revolution we need for economic recovery.

It appears that those who complain that 20 percent is too ambitious haven't been tracking our progress for the past three years. Every year the Energy Information Agency (EIA) forecasts how much carbon dioxide the U.S. economy will emit over time. At the end of 2005, EIA projected that the U.S. would emit 7,500 million metric tons (mmt) of CO2 in 2020 -- up from about 6,000 mmt in 2005. That's a big increase.

But in the three years following that forecast, 100 coal-fired power plants were canceled, 24 states adopted renewable-energy standards (which collectively added up to about 10 percent of national electrical generation), and Congress passed a 35-mpg fuel-efficiency standard. So at the end of 2008, EIA issued a new estimate, which was that America's CO2 emissions wouldn't grow at all between 2008 and 2020 -- and that by 2020, we would be emitting only 6,000 mmt.

Then this year, as a result of the Obama administration's stimulus package, its adoption of even more aggressive vehicle fuel-economy and emission standards for 2016, the cancellation of more coal-fired power plants  , and the economic downturn, EIA projected that by 2020 emissions would actually decline to 5,900 mmt.

So, in four years we have reduced our 2020 emissions trajectory by 1,600 mmt.

Is it now too ambitious to take another ten years to reduce those 2020 numbers by a further 1,200 mmt, which is all that the Senate Clean Energy bill would require? Is it possible that we've already taken all the easy, cheap steps we can to reduce carbon waste in our economy?

No way. Not even close.

To illustrate, I prepared a little chart. It shows the progress we made from 2005 to 2009. Then, out at 2020, it shows the impact on our CO2 emissions of a few simple, affordable improvements we could make in our energy sector -- things that would create jobs, enhance our national security, and clean up pollution while speeding the economic recovery.

Yesterday the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming (EIGW) held their (previously postponed) hearing on fraudulent letters sent to Congressmen by supposed “grassroots” organizations opposing the Waxman-Markey House climate bill (H.R.2454 American Clean Energy and Security Act). The fraudulent letters were supposedly from grassroots organizations representing the elderly, veterans and ethnic minorities, some of which included the NAACP and the American Association of University Women (AAUW). The letters were exposed as fraudulent by the Charlottesville Daily Progress out of Charlottesville, VA. The source of the letters was Bonner and Associates, a grassroots firm that was hired by the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE).

The hearing was called by Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA), who is the chair of the House committee. The original hearing was scheduled for October 15th, but ranking member Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) asked for postponement in order to review the witnesses’ testimonies, as they had not submitted them in time.

The hearing on Thursday included a recounting of the events leading up the discovery of the fraudulent letters, and a verbal excoriation by Markey and Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) of witnesses from Bonner and ACCCE. The witnesses on the panel included Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA), Jack Bonner of Bonner and Associates, Steve Miller of ACCCE, Lisa Maatz of AAUW and Hillary Shelton of the NAACP. While Rep. Sensenbrenner and Rep. Candice Miller (R-MI) spoke during introductions, the panel was dominated by Markey and Inslee, who were the only representatives present when it came down to questioning the witnesses.

We learned with sadness this week that blasting has begun on Coal River Mountain in West Virginia, site of a long battle between Massey Energy and local residents who want the mountain to be a site for 200 wind turbines instead of mountaintop removal coal mining.

Massey has ignored these pleas, despite research showing that a wind farm would bring more jobs and economic stability to the area – and certainly less environmental destruction.

And while we frequently talk about the impact of mountaintop removal coal mining, a Sierra Club Beyond Coal activity from our northwest region last week brings to the forefront the reality of coal mining in the western U.S. as well. The northwest “Dirty Little Secret” regional tour showed residents in Washington and Oregon the tour’s namesake: that the region is hooked on coal power, and its use and mining devastate many communities.

Part of the tour included speeches from Wyoming rancher LJ Turner and Northern Cheyenne Tribe members Otto and Barbara Braided Hair from southeast Montana. All three have seen the impacts of coal mining in the Powder River Basin up close, and they shared their experiences with the crowds along the tour’s stops.

America gets 40% of its coal from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana. In order to meet America's massive energy needs, each day over 80 coal trains leave the Powder River Basin bound for power plants across the nation.

For LJ Turner in Wyoming, coal mining is slowly taking away the vast acreage of his ranch.

“They’ve taken away our land, they’re taking away our water, they’re destroying our air – this is affecting us,” said Turner. “We’ve been ranching on government leases since the 1930s, and (mining) has taken 6,000 acres from us so far.”

Campbell County, Wyoming, where Turner resides, produces a whopping 35% of the nation’s coal from a series of mining complexes that lay waste to miles of pristine prairie. Turner said thankfully his family has 10,000 deeded acres that they cannot take away, but that land is still affected because the Powder River Basin mining operations are affecting the water.

“They’re depleting the surface aquifers very heavily,” he explained. “And the coal bed methane is depleting the deeper aquifers, so we’re losing well water and creek water.”

The Powder River Basin includes the nation's largest surface mine, the Black Thunder Mine. Aquifers and rivers that once irrigated crops and watered cattle are now being used for power plants and dust suppression. Across the prairies and mountains of the Basin, communities have been divided. The region, once home to numerous Native tribes and then family ranches, is now a patchwork of coal mines, power lines, rail lines, and oil and gas wells.

For Otto Braided Hair, it was very important to share the realities of mining to folks who may not think about where their electricity comes from.

“Within minutes of where we live, in almost any direction, there is on-going destruction from coal mining,” he said of his home in southeast Montana. “The blues skies are streaked with a brown haze of pollution, and the sacred waters are being threatened and damaged due to coal bed methane development, among other indications of disregard to the environment.”

Otto said he wants to encourage people everywhere to think about more than just themselves.

“The destruction and damage to homelands or environment anywhere on this earth must be discouraged. People and those in authority must become more caring for life and the environment, and have a deeper, more serious concern for our home, the environment, and the earth.”

He added that his Northern Cheyenne heritage implores him to speak out on this issue.

“The Cheyenne have a deep regard and respectful connection to the elements in the environment - the water, plants, animals, and air,” he explained. “Our highest, most important ceremonies are renewal of life and environment, or protection of life and environment.”

For those who hear about these damaging coal mining practices in the western U.S. or in Appalachia, LJ and Otto have advice on taking action.

“We need to conserve energy as much as anything,” said LJ. “That’s the only way you’re going to get through to these people - if we don’t need fossil fuel energy.”

Otto stressed the importance of thinking about more than the present.

“We must continue to challenge our people in authority to think way ahead in the future. When we’re long gone, there will be people living here. What is it going to be like three, four, five generations from now? That’s where the challenge has to be.

Stay tuned to this blog for updates (subscribe to our RSS feed here) on how you can take action to help save Coal River Mountain.

 

We enjoy Sierra Club Radio and this weekend's show is sure to be a good one.

Doug Wildman from Friends of the Urban Forest will talk about urban trees; Allison Forbes will offer advice on weatherizing homes to save energy this winter; there will be political commentary from Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope; and Tim Dee will discuss his book, A Year on the Wing:

Four Seasons in a Life with Birds.

 

 

 

 

     

A quick review of this past week's happenings in the blog world

All week The Green Life had tips on greening your Halloween! So did the Crunchy Domestic Goddess. And Grist provided culinary tips for your pumpkin.

Beyond Halloween, the blogosphere had lots to offer. I recommend reading this article via Dot Earth: 

There are only two days left to sign up to host a Coal Country House Party and receive a sneak peek at the acclaimed "Coal Country" documentary.

That's right, Sunday, Nov. 1st, is the last day to sign up to host a party. Sierra Club has over 750 "Coal Country" House Parties planned nationwide to watch the movie and help end mountaintop removal coal mining. You're invited! You can join this national movement by hosting or attending a viewing party in your area. (You can sign up any time to attend a party near you.)

Sign up at our site: www.sierraclub.org/coalcountry

Can't host a party? Visit the site and click on "attend an event" to find a party in your region!

You can learn more about the film in this column from Sierra Club beyond Coal Campaign Director Bruce Nilles, on the "Coal Country" website, and on the Climate Crossroads page.

This post is from Justin Guay, Apprentice with the Sierra Club's Global Warming and Energy Team

The Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) committee wrapped up its three days of hearings on the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act today with one last full day of testimony from multiple panels. Despite genuine pleas for bi-partisanship throughout the past few days, a number of senators have demonstrated that their only interest is obstruction. Senator Alexander refuses to discuss the issues at hand, taking any chance he can to push his fanatically pro-nuclear policies. Sadly, he is really a side show to the scare mongering on job losses and consumer costs led by Senator Voinovich and backed up by Senators Inhofe, Barrasso, and Bond.

Miss the hearings? You can read our archived liveblog here.

Luckily, Senator Boxer stood firm throughout the three days of hearings, genuinely listening to opposition concerns and pledging to work together in a spirit of bi-partisanship. She had strong support from Senators Whitehouse, Tom Udall, Merkley, Klobuchar, Gillibrand, Sanders, Cardin, and Lautenberg, who are clearly committed to the issue of climate leadership (any of these your Senators? You can send them a thank you below!). The message coming from these climate heroes was clear: Our children will ask us where were we when the world was burning.

From John Kerry’s impassioned 26 minute speech, to Vice Admiral Mcginn’s convincing testimony concerning the need for American leadership, the EPW hearings demonstrated that legislative action on climate is needed and the time to act is now.

Let your Senator know that you were watching, and thank them for supporting a clean energy future:

Sen. Specter (D-PA):

Sen. Gillibrand (D-NY)

Sen. Sanders (D-VT) 

Sen. Klobuchar (D-MN)

Sen. Kerry (D-MA)

Sen. Whitehouse (D-RI)

From Ohio?  Tell Senator Voinovich not to stand in the way of progress

It's day 3 of the Senate Environment and Public Works committee hearings on the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act. Witness list here. Follow along by clicking here.

Today is also the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming hearing investigating the forged letters from coal lobbying firm Bonner & Associates, who were hired by the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. Follow @NoNewCoal and #nocoal for tweets from that hearing!