Allen Hershkowitz's Blog: Solving Global Warming

On Oil Spill Disasters and the White House Correspondents’ Dinner

2010-05-02T01:02:27Z

Tonight is the White House Correspondents’ Association annual dinner. NRDC coordinated the greening of that dinner. But today it is impossible not to first think about the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, and how it relates to everything we do, including fancy dinners.

I recall being at my NRDC office one day back in 1989 while the Exxon Valdez disaster was unfolding. I was chatting with our organization’s founder John Adams. He said: “They should send every member of the military up there with tissues to clean than mess up if that’s what it takes. Everything needs to be done.”

“Everything needs to be done.”

That phrase seems so applicable today as we watch the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico unfold, a disaster likely to exceed the Exxon Valdez debacle in consequence and cost.

Questions are being raised: Who is to blame? Did BP react too slowly? Did the federal government mobilize fast enough? Yes, BP reacted too slowly. But we as consumers too must accelerate our shift away from filthy oil and coal, the antiquated fossil products still hawked by firms like BP and Massey, acquired from ecologically irreplaceable regions, turning our atmosphere and oceans alike into sewers, demeaning and killing life of all kinds, from pelicans to people.

There is no one single cause of the ecological crisis we confront today. It is not caused only by China, or only by the USA or only by General Motors. No, the ninety million tons of global warming pollution emitted into the atmosphere each and every day, the tens of millions of acres of forest destroyed each year, are the result of billions of ecologically unsound decisions made by billions of consumers and millions of firms. All of us are culpable.

If we want to stop destroying our planet, if we want to stop destroying the organism that gives us air to breathe and water to drink, billions of ecologically smarter decisions are going to have to be made. No law can stop us from undermining the functional integrity of the biosphere. More must be done. We must save ourselves. And no effort is too small.

Which leads me to the greening of the White House Correspondents’ Association annual dinner.

How do I justify focusing on small efforts like greening a dinner, however famous it might be, when giant catastrophes characterize our ecological era? My view is that no effort is too small to carry out given the problems we face. After all, minor progress is all that most of us can achieve. So, for this WHCA annual dinner we did what every event planner should do. Among my favorite initiatives is this: For the first time, we offset the carbon emissions caused by the Presidential motorcade. I hope it won’t be the last time this is done. The Presidential motorcade includes:

2 limousines (Estimated 15 MPG - the true MPG of the Presidential limo is not pubic)
4 SUVs (Average 17.6 MPG)
3 medium vans (Average 23.5 MPG)
2 police cars (Average 25.6 MPG)
1 ambulance (Estimated 15 MPG)
20 police motorcycles (Average 50 MPG)

The carbon emissions of Jay Leno’s Lear Jet was also offset (LA to DC = 23.78 metric tons of CO2.)

Why would NRDC get involved in this? It is not merely to offset 50 tons of carbon from the presidential motorcade and Leno’s jet. It’s because offsetting the presidential motorcade holds the poential to send a message to executives throughout our nation that their daily travel also needs to be environmentally conscious. Surely, if we can offset the emissions of the 32 vehicles traveling with the President, more ordinary businesses can arrange to offset the carbon emissions associated with their own limousine use. I hope that all executives follow the WHCA's lead and offset their own limousine travel.

Acquiring local food for the WHCA dinner was given preference, and the programs, the tickets, and the bathroom tissue are made from recycled sources, uneaten food will be donated to charity, and no plastic water bottles will be distributed.

All in all, these smart efforts might result in some minor ecological progress, and minor progress is all that most of us can achieve on a daily basis. But with enough minor progress, day after day, month after month, year after year, larger shifts will occur. After all, given the state of our atmosphere, our oceans and our forests, Everything needs to be done.

Major League Baseball’s Important Announcement

2010-04-13T20:04:29Z

Major League Baseball today announced what is arguably the most important environmental initiative in the history of professional sports, worldwide.

I know that is a big statement, but it is true.

As part of Major League Baseball’s ongoing commitment to environmental stewardship, MLB today announced its development of a comprehensive software system designed to collect and analyze environmental data related to stadium operations across the 30 Clubs. Moreover, this software tool will keep track of and distribute best practices related to environmental stewardship across MLB’s 30 Clubs as well. The full roll out of this path breaking program to all the Clubs will happen during this 2010 season.

This is the first time a professional sports League anywhere in the world has taken the step of implementing a software program to collect data for the purpose of documenting environmental practices and for sharing information about environmental best practices at stadiums. I am proud to say that this data gathering tool for environmental impacts was developed in collaboration with NRDC.

Initially, four categories of environmental data will be collected and calculated. Data will collected on: 1. Energy use, including total energy used, sources of energy, and use of renewable energy; 2. Waste generation, including total waste generated, materials diverted for recycling and composting, and cost of disposal; 3. Water use, including amount of water used, water conserved, and cost of water use, and; 4. Paper procurement, including the amount of recycled paper used in Club offices, in stadium restrooms and for yearbooks, game-day programs and media guides.

No League anywhere currently keeps track of environmental data related to stadium or arena operations. Major League Baseball is the first professional sports League in the world to do so.

And this might only be the beginning. Once this system is up and running, League and Club officials are considering the capture of additional data related to transportation, and food and beverage consumption.

In announcing this path breaking initiative today, MLB Commissioner Allan H. (Bud) Selig said:

“Major League Baseball has responsibilities to our fans and society at large that go beyond the playing field. Our Clubs have made a commitment to sustainability and are leaders in their communities, raising awareness and educating fans not just on Earth Day, but everyday about environmental stewardship.”

This is indeed much more than an Earth Day initiative. This initiative is going to change the way stadiums are managed throughout our nation into the foreseeable future, and hopefully this will spread to NBA and NHL arenas, as well as NFL and Major League Soccer stadiums too.

This MLB initiative is meaningful for a number of reasons. First of all, in almost thirty years of working on environmental research and advocacy, I have never encountered a situation where good measurement of environmental impacts has not led to efficiency enhancements. By documenting their energy use, their waste and recycling practices, their water use and paper use, stadium operators will learn how to make their operations more efficient, and at what cost.

Indeed, this has already been going on. NRDC has been working with MLB for many years on its greening program, and already benefits have been achieved in terms of energy efficiency enhancements, solar panels installed, recycling programs developed, water conservation and the use of recycled paper. Literally hundreds of thousands of dollars have been saved, and tons of carbon reduced or offset, simply due to the League’s and Clubs’ measurement of it impacts.

And millions of fans have been educated to the fact that MLB cares about environmental stewardship, a messaging accomplishment that is impossible to quantify.

Another reason this initiative is important relates to the effect it is already having on baseball’s supply chain. All industries meet on a professional baseball field. The chemicals industry helps keep fields well tended, the food and beverage industries feed millions of fans each year, the auto and energy industries are major sponsors of League and Club events. With MLB now saying that not only is it going to encourage teams to reduce their environmental footprint, but it is going to work with Clubs to help them keep track of that footprint, the clear message is being sent to all supply chain industries that environmental criteria need to be a meaningful part of their own business. MLB is promoting the use of non-toxic chemicals on its fields, organic food in its restaurants, high efficiency vehicles and solar panels are being promoted by sponsors, and the use of recycled paper is being publicized.

There is a reason why some of the largest industries on Earth pay millions of dollars to affiliate with professional sports. They do so because they know that is the way to influence the marketplace. Now MLB is saying that their operations, and the marketplace more generally, must keep track of environmental impacts, that global warming is not good for baseball. Indeed, most sports are played outdoors and pollution and global warming, water scarcity and damaged forests are not good for sports of any kind, anywhere.

Baseball is of course our great National Pastime. Hundreds of millions of people watch it and play it each year. And if there is one thing that can be said about baseball, it is that it is non-partisan. So when MLB says that environmentalism in general and addressing climate change in particular matters to its Clubs, we know that our cause has gone mainstream. Indeed, the greening of MLB, and the greening of professional sports more generally, marks a watershed in the history of our movement. No other sporting institution has influenced American culture as much as baseball and MLB is once again putting that influence to very good use. Baseball is a game of statistics and the League’s commitment to systematically document and measure environmental practices of all Clubs at all stadiums underscores the leadership and commitment of MLB to make environmental progress. All professional Leagues should follow this important example.

Indeed, that is another reason why this announcement is bound to be so meaningful. The fact is that the NBA, the NFL, the NHL and Major League Soccer, all have an interest in advancing good environmental practices at their own stadiums and arenas. I am proud to say that NRDC is working with all these Leagues, and I know that they are watching MLB’s data tracking initiative very carefully, with an interest in adopting a similar approach to measuring their own stadium’s and arena’s impacts.

Consequently, as a result of this announcement, we are very likely to see all professional sports Leagues and Clubs in the next few years begin to measure their environmental impacts. As a result, the supply chain and the hundreds of millions of fans of all professional sports will get the message that our Earth, the organism that provides us with air to breathe and water to drink, is in need of better stewardship.

The ecological crises we face are not the result of one single bad actor. The ninety million tons of global warming pollution emitted each and every day results not from one bad actor, but from millions of purchasing and personal decisions made each day by literally billions of people and millions of companies. There is no one single remedy for global warming, nor is their one sinle remedy to address water scarcity or biodiversity loss. All actors in our society must step up to the plate and do…something. No helpful act is too small.

People all over the world love sports. Americans love sports. President Obama has said that at night he doesn’t watch CNN, he watches ESPN Sports Center. And athletes all over the world are influential role models to our children, perhaps second only in influence to parents and other family members. And yet, until recently, environmental advocates have not factored this fact into our strategies for promoting environmental awareness.

Forty years after the first Earth Day brought Americans of all persuasions into the streets to celebrate Mother Earth, the environmental community’s relationship with professional sports has matured. Fifty years ago professional baseball changed America by hiring Jackie Robinson to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers. That opened the door to a cultural shift in assumptions about race relations that reverberates to this day.

Today, Major League Baseball is again breaking a barrier: It is initiating a program to monitor its effect on the planet. Hopefully, this too will shift cultural assumptions about how we work and play, and how we treat the organism that gives us nothing less than air to breathe and water to drink.

Bravo to Major League Baseball. Personally, I’ve always loved baseball, and I’ve played the game throughout my life. But today I feel a special admiration for that great League, and I urge all professional Leagues and teams, indeed all companies and all Americans to follow the lead established by our National Pastime, and take stock of your impacts on the Earth.

(To learn what you might do, go to www.greensports.org/mlb and click on your favorite team. There, you’ll find the award winning MLB/NRDC Team Greening Advisor, and a toolbar on top can guide you as you seek to lighten your ecological footprint.)

We Mourn the Miners

2010-04-07T04:12:04Z

All of us at the Natural Resources Defense Council join our nation in mourning the miners tragically killed this week in the Upper Big Branch-South mine disaster in West Virginia.

Day-in and day-out they did the anonymous, high risk, difficult and dirty work needed to supply the coal that keeps our homes, schools, and hospitals warm, well lighted and working. They did that work for us until the very last moments of their lives.

Over the past few years those of us working on Appalachian issues have met many underground miners. We’ve met the wives of miners, the children of miners, the brothers and sisters of miners, the parents of miners, and the friends of miners. They are beautiful Americans rightfully proud of the hard work they do to support their families and power our nation.

Their loss is our loss.

There is much to say about the thousands of health and safety violations that the coal company Massey perpetrated at the Upper Big Branch-South mine, and there is much to say as well about this company’s almost singular destruction of so much of Appalachia.

But today and for many days to come our focus is elsewhere: Today we stop to pray and acknowledge those who died in the Upper Big Branch-South mine. We pray for the purity of their souls, and that their families will somehow be comforted in their grief. We pray for their families’ strength and well-being in the days, months and years to come.

May God intervene in their behalf, now and forever.

Protecting Tennessee From Mountaintop Coal Mining

2010-03-10T13:30:44Z

As we study the universe, sending telescopes into other solar systems and far off galaxies, one thing has become abundantly clear: perhaps the rarest phenomenon in the universe is organic life.

To date, despite all our intergalactic travel and research, we have established that living organisms exist only in the biosphere surrounding just one planet, our Earth. The biosphere, the very narrow band that contains all the known life in the universe, is tiny, stretching from about three miles up, to the top of the Earth’s atmosphere, to about two miles down, to the depths of the oceans. Yup, that’s it: the biosphere, three miles up, two miles down. That is the only location we know of in the universe where life exists. If we were to find a life form, even one as tiny as bacteria or a virus, on another planet or moon, it would be front page news. Life is indeed a rare thing.

Our daunting task in the 21st century is the preservation of the functional integrity of the biosphere, on which all life depends. And yet, to date, humanity’s chief interest in the biosphere has been to maximize the plunder of its great store of natural resources. Humanity has instigated unprecedented rates of ecological damage at a global scale. And although humanity adds up to a small share of the Earth’s total living matter, we have been responsible for all the damaging changes to all forms of life within the biosphere.

Yesterday, that fact, the extraordinary rarity of life, the urgency to protect every remaining creature that lives within our biosphere, kept running through my chattering mind over and over while I attended two hearings in the Tennessee state legislature.

Both hearings, one in the Tennessee Senate and one in the House, addressed bills designed to limit mountaintop removal coal mining (MTR) in the state, and both hearings brought into sharp relief how hard it is to tackle this ecological and cultural calamity.

The legislation being considered by the Tennessee legislature is simple and modest in scope: Each bill would merely prohibit surface mining on mountain ridgelines in Tennessee above 2,000 feet high. Not all of the mountains in Tennessee at risk of being blown apart for mountaintop removal coal mining (or a linguistic variation of it known as “cross ridge mining”) are higher than 2,000 feet, so the legislation would not entirely end the threat of MTR in Tennessee. But the bills would provide meaningful ecological and public health value, limiting MTR to lower elevations, fewer steep slopes and heights less subject to landslides.

And the bills would protect the Cumberland Plateau from MTR. The Cumberland Plateau is one of the world’s great biological treasures and an NRDC BioGem.

Some of the most important and rare forms of life found in Tennessee’s biologically diverse forests enjoy the higher elevations of the Plateau. For example, the Cerulean Warbler likes those higher elevations on the Northern Plateau. (It munches on insects found on the underside of hardwood leaves, keeping trees healthy.) So does Swainson’s Warbler, the Louisiana Waterthrush, the Worm-Eating Warbler, the Wood Thrush, the Acadian Flycatcher and the Kentucky Warbler.

According the greatest authority on Cerulean Warblers, Melinda Welton, that bird is perhaps the single most threatened songbird in North America. Its population throughout the United States has dropped by 82 percent in the last forty years, 88 percent in Tennessee during that same period. Habitat degradation from deforestation and fragmentation are the principle causes of its decline. Still, the Northern Cumberland Plateau region in Tennessee continues to host the single largest concentration of Cerulean Warblers reported from anywhere within its range. (see http://www.welovebirds.org/)

Unfortunately for the Cerulean Warbler, the region it most depends on for survival is the region in Tennessee most coveted by coal mining companies for mountaintop removal coal mining. The Tennessee Valley Authority alone owns 55,000 acres in the Northern Cumberland Plateau area, on which it could mine coal. MTR coal mining is a prime cause of deforestation and forest fragmentation in Appalachia, precisely the type of threats that are wiping out the Cerulean Warbler and other forms of life in the southeast United States. But perhaps there is room for hope: Some of the Northern Cumberland Plateau area is above 2,000 feet in elevation, and there are two bills in the Tennessee legislature that would prohibit MTR coal mining at those elevations.

Perhaps my thoughts about the uniqueness of life kept wafting through my mind because of a meeting I had earlier yesterday with the Reverend Ryan Bennett. Rev. Bennett, an elder in the United Methodist Church and pastor of the Bethlehem United Methodist Church in Franklin, Tennessee, was also attending the hearings because he belongs to a coalition of religious groups that support the bills to limit MTR in order to do what they can to protect God’s creation.

The Southern Baptist Church, the Catholic Church, the United Methodist Church, the Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian Church have all taken official positions against mountaintop removal coal mining, the most destructive form of coal mining on Earth. Rev. Bennett was at the hearings yesterday with numerous other members of the Lindquist Environmental Appalachian Fellowship, (LEAF) a religious coalition committed to protecting “The Earth…and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it.” (Psalm 24:1) LEAF is the prime backer of the legislation to stop MTR in Tennessee. LEAF’s Legislative Director, a charming church lady named Dawn Coppock, is the person most responsible for the progress of the MTR-limiting legislation in Tennessee.

The work of LEAF resonates strongly in me because my religion teaches that Nature reveals God. According to the Talmud, creation is not merely an act in the past. The processes of Nature represent the unceasing and ongoing creative power of the Divine. “Every hour He makes provision for all who come into the world according to their need. In His Grace He satisfies all creatures.” Every hour. Provision for all creatures. (Everyman’s Talmud, at P. 3.)

And the work of LEAF resonates in me as well because it is rational as well as spiritual, based on scientific fact as well as ethics.

Science is not just another opinion, and science tells us that there is no way to undertake MTR coal mining without causing irreparable harm and even death to many life forms, homo sapiens included.

So, along with church ladies and Reverends, also in attendance at the MTR hearings in Tennessee yesterday were scientists. Dr. Dennis Lemly, one of the world’s great authorities on selenium, testified powerfully about the effects that MTR has in causing selenium pollution: “Selenium from mountaintop removal mining poisons fish. Selenium threatens wildlife as well as fish. It bioaccumulates and threatens the entire food chain. The impacts are pervasive and irreversible.”

Selenium is a naturally occurring element in coal. It leaches from coal, from mining spoils and from valley fills. It leaches through waste rock. According to Dr. Lemly, “There is no way you can do MTR without selenium contamination. Selenium pollution will increase if MTR increases. Tennessee is facing a very serious situation with regard to water pollution and dead fish due to selenium poisoning.”

Last year, Tennessee enacted a law that would keep mines 100 feet from water bodies. According to Dr. Lemly, that was a “token effort” not likely to offer meaningful protection. “Fish are being poisoned from MTR sites as far as 13 miles away from the mine site. MTR sites in Tennessee are ticking time bombs and four have been allowed to explode.”

I remember my first visit to the Zeb Mountain MTR site in northern Tennessee. It was many years ago, when the mine had just begun. First I flew over it, and then visited it by car. Within ten minutes of my arrival at the gate to the mine, where I thought I was alone with my local guide, a local sheriff arrived who made it clear that he didn’t appreciate my effort to view the site. The waters running off the mine were acidic, nothing seemed alive in them. The rocks in the streams were orange and red, with ferrous and other elements leaching out due to the acidic quality of the water. According to Dr. Lemly, “A time bomb has exploded on Zeb Mountain. Selenium pollution has started and it will not stop. Things are in bad shape on Zeb Mountain. There are extremely high levels of selenium pollution that will lead to reproductive failure in fish populations, the situation is grim. Groundwater is also at risk and will affect human health.”

Photo of Zeb Mountain, United Mountain Defense

Other pollutants besides selenium that are released because of MTR coal mining include mercury, lead, arsenic, nickel, copper, and zinc.

The good news for Tennessee is that information from mining in other states provides a useful toxicological data base that can be used to protect against repeating the same mistakes in Tennessee. Says Dr. Lemly, “The information about mining in other areas is there. Look at West Virginia, at Kentucky. Don’t ignore that. The poisoning from MTR is inevitable and inescapable. Water quality will be gone and it will not come back. Out west selenium is still discharging from closed mines that were started 100 years ago. It doesn’t stop. I don’t know how we can ignore the science.”

According to Dr. Lemly, the selenium levels at Zeb Mountain are 40 times higher than the tolerable toxicity threshold in fish. “And I don’t mean fish no one cares about, I’m talking about the major fish species, largemouth bass, blue gills, the kind you and I like to fish for.” Selenium pollution of water resources near Zeb Mountain are 20 times higher than the level at which we expect to see reproductive failure, and 8 times higher than the toxicity level at which we would expect to see the collapse of the entire fish population. According to Dr. Lemly: “I think there is a high probability that the homes around Zeb Mountain have water quality problems.”

Another professor, Dr. Orie Louks, testified at the hearings about the effects of MTR on forest productivity. According to Dr. Louks, “Forest productivity collapses post-MTR. It is very difficult to reestablish trees post MTR. Trying to do so, to restore the land, would put coal operators out of business.” Scientists estimate that post MTR forests will not recover for 10,000 years.

Sometimes, enacting environmental regulations can challenge an industry. But in this case putting MTR coal operators out of business would be a good thing for the economy. According to Dr. Louks: “MTR takes away forest-based jobs and takes away underground mining jobs.” In Tennessee, there are less than 400 jobs in the surface mining industry. By contrast, tourism produces $14 billion worth of economic activity in the state and tens of thousands of jobs.

As I sat in the Tennessee Legislature’s hearing room, I thought of the diverse interests aligned that day against MTR: evangelical and other religious groups, scientists, and those interested in protecting the much more lucrative—and clean--tourism industry from the ravages of MTR coal mining. Religious groups, scientists, business interests, all aligned against MTR.

And yet, as I met after the hearings with a senior Tennessee government official, I was told there was probably no way that the bills under consideration to limit MTR coal mining in Tennessee would pass. “The coal companies own them. They finance their campaigns.” was what I was told, in reference to the Tennessee state legislators unmoved by the compelling ethics, the peer-reviewed science and the community economics aligned against MTR coal mining.

One might reasonably think that a pro-business coalition of religious groups and scientists might prevail in limiting MTR in Tennessee to “only” those mountains lower than 2,000 feet. And yet, I’m told the odds are slim for passage. We’ll see. The story isn’t over, not yet. After all, only God should move mountains, and sometimes, He does.

It Ends At Coal River Mountain

2009-12-08T18:16:28Z

Yesterday, on the day that the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change opened in Copenhagen, I attended an anti-mountaintop removal mining rally in Charleston, West Virginia, along with more than 300 concerned citizens from West Virginia and other parts of Appalachia. Joined by my colleague Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a parade of eloquent, impassioned speakers rose to testify against the abuses of the coal companies who practice mountaintop removal mining (MTR), the most destructive form of coal mining on Earth.

MTR is destroying West Virginia’s ecology, economy, and cultural heritage. It is doing the same in Kentucky and other Appalachian regions. Most of the companies perpetrating this ecological and culture-destroying crime in West Virginia are based out of state, often supported by New York banks.

Yesterday’s event was the most inspiring protest rally I have ever attended in my life, starting with ecological and anti-war protest rallies I attended back in the late 1960s. Without exception, no protest event has ever lifted my soul like the Save Coal River Mountain rally that I attended yesterday in Charleston.

The debate surrounding how the United States will control the emissions that contribute to climate change will be shaped in large part by how we come to terms with our nation’s dependence on coal. This puts West Virginia, Kentucky and other regions in Appalachia at the epicenter of that debate. And within West Virginia, the future of Coal River Mountain is ground zero in the current battle over how coal should be mined. Will this scenic, forested gem of a mountain, part of a regional watershed, be blown into rubble, and its adjacent waterways contaminated with coal mining waste, or will it become the symbol of a revitalized Appalachia, an Appalachia that is looking towards a future filled with diverse economic options (including ecologically safer forms of coal mining), a future based on protecting water supplies, forest resources and communities?

Everything is pregnant with its contrary, and at the rally the presence of pro-MTR coal miners and operatives, their non-stop efforts to try and drown out the event with incessant, blaring truck horns, their efforts to drown out with curses and shouts of “coal, coal, coal” even the benedictions given by ministers who came to show support for protecting Coal River Mountain, all of that hostility provided our gathering with the opportunity to display human gracefulness and spiritual compassion at its finest. We were separated from the pro-MTR crowd, many of whom were paid to show up with professionally manufactured signs, by steel gates, fifty feet, and countless state troopers. But the inclusive words from the podium, the spirit-based outreach, our authentic desire to build a more sustainable, empathic community, made the barrier between us irrelevant.

The rally was a revelation. It began with the singing of Amazing Grace. Allen Johnson, from Christians for the Mountains, gave a benediction. The effort by the pro-MTR operatives to drown him out with blaring truck horns and yelling was truly obscene. During the benediction we stood in silent remembrance of the American lives lost at Pearl Harbor sixty-six years before, and Allen reminded us that the explosive force that shattered so many lives at Pearl Harbor is bombarding the mountains of Appalachia every hour of every working day.

On the eighth day of his anti-MTR fast and speaking to the miners over their shouts and truck horns, Roland Micklem was next to the podium and said “We must treat our opponents with the recognition that there is something of God in every one of us.” He made me think of the spirit-driven writers of Dead Sea Scrolls, the Sons of Light, who wrote almost the exact same phrase. He was prophetic: “We must set an example of how to treat people.”

One after another the spiritual outreach focused on building an ecologically sane community kept coming. From Judy Bonds, the feisty Goldman Environmental Award winner: “Preach with your life.” From Eric Blevins of Mountain Justice: “The mountains are a reflection of Devine creation. They deserve our respect.” From Zoe Beavers of SEAC: “The Earth is the Lord and pollution is a sin.” From the Reverend Jim Lewis: “Jesus tells us that one cannot serve both God and mammon.”

What a contrast to the ugly aggression displayed across the barriers. The truck horns kept blaring, trying to no avail to drown out the pleas for sanity coming from the podium. But in a brilliant ju-jitsu move that energized the crowd, Judy Bonds, who has dealt with threats from thugs before, held up a sign that read “Honk If You Love Mountains.” And that turned every blaring truck horn into a celebration among the anti-MTR crowd, and since the truck horns were more or less non-stop, so was our celebratory joy. Each speaker, including RFK Jr., yelled “Honk If You Love Mountains” when the coal truckers tried in vain to drown out every voice of reason among us with their horns.

In the past ten years there have been 10,000 violations of the Clean Water Act in West Virginia that have not been prosecuted. Massy coal company alone has violated the Clean Water Act 2,000 times. Lead, arsenic, cadmium, selenium, mercury, acids, respirable particles, soot, debris, are all raining down on West Virginia from its coal industry.

Although the blasting that has begun on Coal River Mountain has been temporarily stopped by regulators, we are left to wonder: Will the prohibition hold?

“I’ve been traveling for 25 years across this country, trying to find resistance, and today I think I’ve finally found it.” said Larry Gibson, one of Appalachia’s true heroes who has been working for decades to educate politicians, regulators, the media and anyone who might listen about the ravages perpetrated by coal companies engaging in mountaintop removal mining. Larry’s home sits astride the Kayford mountain MTR site, a prime example of egregious corporate greed, ecological ignorance and disregard for community interests if there ever was one.

Maria Gunoe spoke as well. Maria, from the Ohio [W. Va] Valley Environmental Coalition, is another Goldman Environmental Award winner. She has lost property owned by her family for generations and lost her clean drinking water because of nearby MTR operations. Like so many in West Virginia, her son will be leaving shortly for his military assignment. “It don’t take a scientist to know that blowing up mountains is wrong.” she said. “People willing to blow up mountains are intruders, they can’t be from here and do that. People who think that jobs are more important than water haven’t had to live without water like I have.”

Maria’s military son continues a long tradition in West Virginia: The state has the highest number of Medal of Honor winners, the highest percentage of military enlistees, the highest number of injured veterans in the United States. And what do those heroes come back to after they fight for our liberty? This state, with the most abundant base of natural resources, is among our nation’s poorest. The wealth is extracted and taken by out of state coal companies, leaving behind a legacy of deadly pollution and irreparable damage that will never heal.

Bobby Kennedy is a great speaker. But if anyone brought the house down at the rally yesterday it was Lorelie Scarbro from Coal River Mountain Watch. I have had the privilege of spending time with Lorelie on numerous occasions and she is one of the kindest people you might ever meet. “I’m the widow of a miner. I’m the mother of a miner. I’m the granddaughter of a miner. I’m the sister of a miner. I’m the sister-in-law of a miner.” At this, even the pro-MTR operatives were silenced, though not their horn blaring trucks driving up and down the road. Addressing the pro-MTR crowd she said “If there is an honorable man out there you would be fighting to keep our water clean. Go get your 80 hour card, and mine the mountains properly, not by blowing them up.” No one could tell her to go back home. No one could tell her to go get a job. No one chanted “coal, coal, coal” at her. The pro-coal miners fell silent. They knew Lorelie was right. They knew she had paid her dues, she had the moral authority to silence them and she did. “I’m fighting now for my grandchild. I want him to have a better life than the other men in my family.”

Of course, when Bobby Kennedy got to the podium, the rally was invigorated. Bobby’s presence, his authenticity as a great environmentalist and his representation of an iconic American family with longstanding ties to Appalachia, validated the efforts of everyone in attendance. Bobby’s presence confirmed for many that they were indeed on the side of moral American justice. Before ascending the podium, Bobby had gone over to speak with the pro-coal operatives. He waded in among them, among professionally made anti-Kennedy banners, listening to what they had to say. Before that, he met with the Secretary of the State’s DEP, confronting the agency head about lax enforcement, his agency’s willful ignorance of more than 10,000 water quality violations during the preceding ten years. The pro-coal operatives gave Bobby an American flag, which he used to very good effect during his speech at the anti-MTR podium.

“If a foreign entity put a poison in all American waterways that made all of our fish unsafe to eat, what would you call those who did that?” he asked. “If a foreign entity put a poison in our air and food that damaged the ability of our children to think and compete intellectually for the rest of their lives, what would you call those who did that?” We all knew the answer.

The horns continued to blare loudly, but Bobby had a reply: “Honk if you love the mountains!” Bobby told a story of when his father, the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy, was taking on union boss Jimmy Hoffa. “When I was a boy and my dad was going after the thugs who were corrupting unions, those same kinds of trucks would pass by our home day and night, blaring their horns. They want to stifle democracy. They are afraid of dialogue, they are afraid of the truth. We were not intimidated then and I am telling you that we will not be intimidated now.” The rally went wild. Bobby spoke for forty minutes, and he did a great job reminding us all that MTR is immoral, it is a crime. Echoing Judy Bonds who spoke before him, Bobby told the crowd that our children will thank us for this work, that this is a fight larger than MTR, that our battle is about taking back American democracy, it is a spiritual fight, it is historic.

Environmentalism, inspiration from nature, and spirituality have been joined for millennia. Moses and the ancient Jews, Buddha, and Jesus all had religious epiphanies in the wilderness. Personally, my own religiosity routinely guides my ecological worldview, and vice versa. In the course of my work at NRDC, I have worked with Evangelicals, Unitarians, Christians, Methodists and Jews. But nothing that I’ve done in the past compares with the spiritual inspiration I felt yesterday in Charleston.

Last month I was in Jerusalem, and I cried as I prayed and placed my hands upon the Western Wall of the Second Temple, the holiest place in Judaism, a location just astride the parcel of land from which God took the soil to create Adam. Later that same day I walked the Stations of the Cross, and visited the location where Jesus was crucified. And I visited the Dome of the Rock, from whence Muhammed rose to meet with God. I was moved to tears in those places, Yesterday’s protest rally, mobilized to save Coal River Mountain, inspired me in the same way. It was so immediate, so relevant, and so uplifting.

The environmental crisis is fundamentally a spiritual crisis. It is caused by an absence of spiritual empathy. The fight against blowing up Coal River Mountain is an effort to repair that, it is about more than saving a mountain, it is about changing the cultural assumption that it is OK to destroy Appalachia, it is about changing the cultural assumption that it is OK to destroy our neighbor’s water supplies, it forces us to ask ourselves: How should we treat the organism that gives us air to breathe and water to drink? The fight over Coal River Mountain is bigger than Appalachia, it is a fight for our souls, and our democracy.

Administration Sends Mixed Signals on Mountain Top Removal Mining

2009-06-11T21:37:25Z

Obama Administration officials announced today that they are taking "unprecedented steps to reduce the environmental impacts of mountaintop coal mining" in the six Appalachian states of Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. The announcement focuses on plans to coordinate reviews of mountaintop removal permits among the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of the Interior, and Army Corps of Engineers.

Unfortunately, the administration's announcement fails to address the destructive impact of mountaintop removal mining. So far, the administration's approach to mountaintop removal coal mining has been a mix of strong words, but weak action. Today's announcement is more of the same: unspecified references to strengthening permit reviews provides no assurance that the administration will end this abhorrent practice soon. Mountaintop removal is the among the worst forms of energy acquisition and its destructive impacts are well known.

The science is clear -- this practice devastates ecosystems, obliterates streams, and pollutes water supplies. Searching for environmentally acceptable mountaintop removal, which the administration has not ruled out, is futile. This administration promised a science-based environmental policy, which is impossible to square with mountaintop removal.

Sadly, today's announcement will not bring about what is needed: an end to mountaintop removal. America needs to move to clean energy solutions and mountaintop removal does not fit in that picture. Mountaintop removal is a highly mechanized process that uses explosives to blow the top off of mountains, filling valleys and streams with coal waste.

Even after today's announcement, mountaintop mining will continue to devastate Appalachia, until loopholes in the law are closed. The administration must expeditiously undo the so-called "fill" rule adopted by the Bush administration in 2002 that gives the Army Corps of Engineers the authority to permit the huge stream fills associated with mountaintop removal. There are bi-partisan bills in Congress right now -- the Clean Water Protection Act in the House and the Appalachia Restoration Act in the Senate -- that would also help end mountaintop removal, and we look to the administration to push for legislation that ends mountaintop removal.

Clearly, White House officials trying to address this issue face numerous bureaucratic barriers in the way of their desire to stop MTR.

Moreover, I am sure that White House officials are correct when they said, during a conference call today with some of us from environmental groups, that the MOU announced today among EPA, the Department of Interior and the Army Corps of Engineers represents a big departure from where the agencies have been under President George Bush, and that getting these agencies on the same page on MTR has taken a lot of work.

And given how little has been done in the past to regulate MTR, I am also sure that whatever comes out of this process will indeed result in the most stringent enviro review of MTR to date.

But at the end of the day, we remain without any specifics about what science and regulatory interpretations will guide their claim of more stringent reviews of permits, their claim of stronger mitigation requirements, the use better waste treatment methods. None of this yet exists. So what was the announcement about?

Nor do we know what White House officials mean when they announce their intention to ramp up oversight over state permitting of MTR.

They have told us that they intend vacate the pro-MTR Bush Steam Buffer Zone rule, but that has not yet been done either and it is up to the Army Corps to do it, not typically our friend.

So where does that leave us?

It leaves us with an obligation to acknowledge their good intentions, but an obligation as well to point out that today's strong words by the White House have not changed anything. No rule was changed, no permit was rejected, no legislation was proffered.

Consequently, I think that NRDC's position on the White House's MTR announcement today--that they talk a good talk but have not yet delivered any meaningful change--is the right one to take.

Washington State Leads the Way on Ecological Paper Procurement

2009-05-11T19:31:18Z

Bravo to Washington State legislators and Governor Chris Gregoire for enacting on May 6th what is arguably the most ecologically progressive paper use and procurement law in the world. It is mind boggling to imagine the enormous ecological and economic benefits that would result if state and national governments around the world were to follow Washington's example.

According to the state's new law, all state agencies and colleges are required to purchase paper containing 100 percent post-consumer recycled content by the end of 2009. Moreover, any building with 25 or more employees must recycle 100 percent of the copy and printing paper produced at the building. To reduce paper waste, those offices must cut printing and copying use by 30 percent by July 2010.

Why is this so extraordinarily important? Why would it transform our planet if governments all over the world followed suit?

The paper industry has a huge ecological footprint: Perhaps no industry has forced more species into extinction, destroyed more habitats, polluted as many streams, rivers, and lakes, and caused as many taxpayer dollars to be spent on ecologically dangerous landfills and incinerators.

The pulp and paper industry is the third greatest industrial emitter of global warming pollution in industrialized countries, after the chemical and steel industries, and an estimate published in 2000 projected that the industry's CO2 emissions will increase by roughly 100 percent by 2020.
The pulp and paper industry is the single largest consumer of freshwater used in the countries that comprise the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). About eleven percent of all water used in the 30 most advanced industrial countries goes just to make paper products--many of which, like toilet paper, are disposable products used only for a few seconds.
Of all the wood harvested globally for "industrial uses" (everything but fuel-wood), more than 40 percent goes to paper production, a proportion that is expected to grow by 50 percent unless consumption patterns change. Deforestation causes more global warming pollution than all cars, buses, planes, ships and trucks in the world, combined.
Wood-based pulp-and-paper mills are classified under U.S. federal law as "major" generators of hazardous air pollutants, including dioxins and other highly toxic pollutants considered to be carcinogenic.

Buying paper made from post-consumer recycled fibers, as Washington State now requires, reduces all of those awful impacts. Making paper from paper instead of making paper from wood reduces the amount of greenhouse gases emitted per ton of paper produced, conserves water and mineral ores, saves energy, reduces the need for landfills and incinerators, and helps protect and expand manufacturing jobs.

Double-siding copies of documents, using printer-copiers that can fax and make PDFs without printing, reducing the amount of emails and other documents that are printed, widening margins and using a very slightly smaller font can all help save an organization hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. The Warner Music Group has saved hundreds of thousands of dollars by reducing its paper use and switching to paper made from recycled fibers.

Other countries use less paper than do citizens in the United States: U.S. citizens consume twice as much paper per capita as do citizens in other industrialized countries, and seven times more paper per capita than the world average. The average U.S. citizen consumes 100 times more paper than average citizens in India. Other nations recycle more of their waste and have adopted recycling policy measures much stronger than anything in place in the United States--this despite the fact that the United States is far and away the largest generator of wastes among all nations on Earth. The United States also maintains the highest per capita use of water and energy, two impacts that would be reduced if we recycled more.

Recycling can help reduce all of these large and adverse ecological impacts, which make U.S. industries less globally competitive and cost U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars annually. And recycling can help us address the other great ecological crisis of our time, biodiversity loss.

Washington State has set a gold standard. It has enacted what is arguably the most ecologically intelligent paper procurement law in the world. The White House--indeed, the rest of the world,--should take note. Paper is something that virtually everyone buys in some form, and changing the ecologically ignorant way it is made, shifting towards ecologically intelligent paper production, can go a long way towards solving many environmental problems.

To learn more about how to improve your paper use and buying practices, go to www.nrdc.org/paper.

Save Money, Make Your Restrooms Less Infectious, and Conserve Water

2009-03-09T22:16:59Z

Last week I wrote about the ecological stupidity of manufacturing toilet paper from forests.

Well, if that chat about toilet paper wasn't enough for you, today I'm writing to you about urinals.

Why on Earth should we be flushing drinking water down urinals? There is a healthier, cheaper and ecologically preferable way to go: waterless urinals.

Water scarcity will undoubtedly rival sea level rise as one of the consequences of global climate change. In fact, it might prove to be a far more serious risk.

In the U.S. the driest states have become some of our fastest growing, including Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and southern California. The flow of the Colorado River is at its lowest levels since measurements began at Lee's Ferry, Arizona 85 years ago. Thirty million people in seven states and parts of Mexico depend on the Colorado River for water. Lake Mead, which supplies virtually all the water used by Las Vegas, is half empty and according to statistical models, it will never be full again. Freshwater shortages are already a global concern in Africa, India and China and in the southwest USA they are inevitable.

The battles of yesterday were fought over land, today they are fought over oil, and soon they will be fought over water as well.

As the world population continues to increase, more people will require more water for the cultivation of food, fiber and industrial crops and for livestock and fish. Not to mention recreation and other industrial uses. Each of the billions of tiny micro-chips in our computers takes anywhere from three to eight gallons of water to make. It takes 26 liters of water to make a one liter water bottle. About 1.2 billion people, or almost one-fifth of the world's population, live in areas of water scarcity, and 500 million more people are approaching that situation. Another 1.6 billion people, or almost one quarter of the world's population, face economic water shortage, lacking the necessary infrastructure to take water from rivers and aquifers. Lack of safe drinking water and sanitation is the single largest cause of illness in the world, contributing to the death of 5 million people a year and about 5,000 children every day. By 2025 one-third of the planet, about 2 billion people, will live in areas experiencing absolute water scarcity, and another 2 billion will be experiencing water stress.

We have a very short period of time to get people educated on what this means. According to the UK Meteorological Office, with no mitigation of climate change the severe droughts that now occur only once every 50 years will occur every other year by 2100. In southern Spain, farmers and developers are so desperate for water that they are buying and selling water on the black market, mostly water obtained from illegal wells. Southern Spain has become a dessert, similar hydrologically to the desserts of northern Africa just to the south.

So why are government and commercial buildings, theaters, stadiums and arenas throughout the world flushing scarce drinking water down urinals when healthier, cost competitive alternatives exist in the form of waterless urinals?

Waterless urinals are healthier: According to research performed by the University of Arizona, "Flush type urinals are far more likely to be colonized by bacteria because of the greater presence of moisture [serving] as reservoirs of disease causing microorganisms, and to cause the widespread dissemination of microorganisms in a restroom because of the generation of aerosols during flushing."

Waterless urinals conserve water and saves money: Prior to switching to waterless urinals, each of the 176 urinals at the STAPLES Center in Los Angeles was consuming 44,000 gallons of water each year. The Center pays about $2.95 per hundred cubic feet (HCF) of water it uses (1 HCF = 748 gallons). According to Bill Pottorff, Vice President for Engineering at STAPLES, "We have estimated that we are saving approximately $2,350 per month at STAPLES Center in direct water costs, not factoring sewer charges and any other municipal taxes. Each urinal saves roughly 4.5 HCF per month. We save just over 7,000,000 gallons per year."

What is also great about the ecologically intelligent shift made by the STAPLES Center is that the entire urinal replacement program was paid for by grants supplied by the Los Angeles Department of Power and Water, as part of its water conservation program.

So here is NRDC's challenge to all stadium and building managers, theater and arena operators in the world: We challenge you to save money. We challenge you to make your restrooms less infectious. We challenge you to conserve water. We challenge you to replace your water wasting urinals with waterless urinals.

Will recycled fiber toilet paper become the next compact fluorescent light bulb?

2009-02-27T15:24:20Z

Yesterday the New York Times published an article highlighting the ecological stupidity of making toilet paper from natural forests. Although toilet paper is a product that we use for less than three seconds, there are more types of forests at risk from makers of toilet paper than you can imagine: ancient forests, old growth forests, virgin forests, second growth forests, natural forests, high conservation value forests, temperate forests, tropical and sub-tropical forests, boreal forests, are all at risk from manufacturers of toilet paper (and other disposable paper products).

As I said in yesterday's Times, the bottom line is this: No forest of any kind should be used to make toilet paper. Toilet paper made from trees should be phased out in the same way we're phasing out the use of incandescent light bulbs. The Natural Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace are campaigning globally in behalf of that cause and the world should take note.

Given the enormous ecological impacts associated with the pulp and tissue industry, (global warming impacts, forestry impacts, water impacts, biodiversity impacts, hazardous waste production impacts, hazardous air emissions), "suffering" through two or three seconds of using less soft toilet paper is worth the ecological benefits, especially when we are talking about reducing the industry's global warming impacts and preserving ancient or tropical forests, which are both impacted by toilet paper manufacture.

Among all the causes of terrestrial biodiversity loss the destruction of forests is the most consequential. Moreover, deforestation causes more global warming pollution than all the combined emissions of cars, trucks, buses, airplanes and ships in the entire world. Deforestation causes more global warming pollution that that emitted from all sources in the entire USA. Can we really defend the use of forests for making toilet paper? Absolutely not. This excess has to end.

Toilet paper should be made from recovered, second generation fibers. There certainly are paper products that still have to be made from trees in order to achieve the quality needed. Toilet paper is NOT one of those products.

The Atlantic coastal forests of Brazil, a tropical forest that I just recently returned from and which is the second most biologically diverse region in Brazil, has been decimated-- literally millions of acres destroyed--by cutting and conversion for the manufacture of pulp made into toilet paper and other tissue products by Kimberly Clark and Proctor & Gamble. One of the giant pulp mills there--the second largest in the world--Veracel--exports all of its product to makers of tissue products, including Kimberly Clark & P&G.

The incredibly diverse Atlantic coastal forests, which used to host literally thousands of woody species per hectare, has during the past few decades been substantially converted to genetically modified and non-native Eucalyptus tree plantations, which are not forests, but industrial tree farms, not having the ecological structure or functions of forests. All to make toilet paper and other tissue products. Hence, pulp and paper industry claims of "reforestation", when they involve tree farms, are false. Tree farms host 95% fewer species than do natural forests. They process only about 40% the amount of water as does a natural forest.

Adding financial insult to this ecological injury is the fact that so much of the destruction caused by virgin timber manufacture of toilet paper is heavily subsidized by taxpayers around the world. Most toilet paper is manufactured from timber. Besides timber, the industry also relies on energy and minerals. Subsidy programs from the U.S. federal government alone that has supported the cutting of virgin timber, mineral extraction and energy industries, all of which substantially benefits the U.S. pulp and paper industry, including the toilet paper making industry, have averaged billions of dollars annually since the early 1990s. Tax breaks to promote timber harvesting; below cost timber sales from federal lands; Department of Agriculture research donated to the paper industry; write-offs for timber management and other subsidies have helped propped up this ecologically devastating industry for a century. (In fact, environmentally harmful subsidies to all industries worldwide total over $1 trillion annually, a staggering 4% of the world's total gross domestic product.)

Among the most ecologically damaging government subsidies is the road infrastructure our government has built and maintains in our National Forests. These roads allow timber companies that supply paper mills to economically acquire virgin trees from ecologically irreplaceable forested areas. Fragmenting national forest habitat has done irreparable biological harm. In fact, there are approximately 370,000 miles of roads in the U.S. National Forest System that have been cut and maintained by the U.S. government for the benefit of timber companies that have historically helped to feed paper mills. By contrast, there is less than 200,000 miles of interstate highways in the entire United States.

With funds collected from taxpayers the government performs much of the paper industry's research. The U.S. Forest Products Laboratory is essentially a government financed appendage of the forest products industry that helps subsidize the pulp and paper industry, allowing it to spend less than 1 percent of its revenues on research while other industries on average spend between 4 and 5 percent.

Subsidies to the pulp and paper industry have also historically included exemptions from environmental laws. Throughout the 20th century the U.S. paper industry was exempted from having to fully comply with virtually every air-, water-, and waste pollution law that most other industries had to comply with. Nor are these subsidies limited to the U.S: One large mill in northern Alberta, that produces pulp for toilet paper and other tissue products, gets ninety-nine percent of its wood for free, an ecologically damaging give-away of endangered boreal forestland, justified by the provincial government as a jobs program. Many of Canada's most ecologically damaging paper mills are subsidized as if they were public works projects.

Collectively, these subsidies have helped finance an ecologically destructive paper manufacturing sector. The pulp and paper industry is the third greatest industrial emitter of global warming pollution in industrialized countries, and its CO2 emissions are projected to increase by roughly 100 percent by 2020. The industry is the single largest consumer of freshwater and paper production is the greatest industrial cause of deforestation globally.

There are various categories and characterizations of forests, defined (less technically) by their age, their biological value and their location. More technically, forests are distinguished by "structure", "ecological function" and "species composition" including genetic diversity.

All of these types of forests in all regions throughout the world are affected at least in part by the pulp and paper industry, with some of that pulp winding up in toilet paper. That has to stop.

Ed. note: For information on NRDC's work reforming the paper industry, visit http://www.nrdc.org/paper