How 76 State Representatives Crushed an ALEC-Funded Attack on Renewables
Good news from America’s heartland: A bipartisan coalition in the Kansas House stood with Kansans this week in support of clean and renewable energy, turning back yet another attempt to repeal the state Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) aimed at fostering homegrown resources like wind and solar power.
Specifically, 76 members of the Kansas House of Representatives defeated a “Senate companion bill” aimed at repealing the state RPS that the state Senate passed 15-25 after using a rare legislative maneuver on Monday.
The vote, which kills the repeal effort for now, marks another major defeat for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the other front groups backed by fossil fuel interests trying to stymie the growth of clean energy in America.
Kansas has a great chance to continue fostering the development of wind farms like this one near Dodge City, now that the state House of Representatives shot down a Senate companion bill to repeal the renewable energy standard in the state. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock
ALEC tried to repeal Renewable Portfolio Standards—targets requiring that a certain percentage of electricity be generated from clean energy—in Kansas and 12 other states last year, but failed each time.
It’s extraordinary to witness the lengths that the ALEC-sponsored Senate bill sponsors went this year in order to move their RPS repeal efforts in defiance of strong popular support expressed by nine out of ten Kansans who say they want more clean energy including energy efficiency and renewable energy like wind and solar. They know that the Kansas RPS has spurred over $7 billion in investment in the state and created over 13,000 jobs in an otherwise sluggish economy.
The Kansas Senate bill’s sponsors had pulled a rarely-used legislative procedural trick known as “gut and go”—essentially gutting the contents of an existing bill in committee and getting the new language to “go” to a full floor vote, lickety split. But the Kansas House reminded their Senate counterparts of the consequences of using such tactics by defeating the companion measure in their chamber.
Perhaps taking cues from their fossil fuel industry backers, these Senators thought they could just drill beneath the daylight of transparent lawmaking procedures and public support for clean energy. Once they were deep underground they realized it’s not easy to see what’s in front or beside them. Their counterparts in the House came to the rescue, which is fortunate for Kansans.
Unfortunately, however, attempts to repeal the Kansas RPS are becoming an annual rite in the wind and solar-rich heartland state. My Midwest NRDC colleague David Weiskopf noted last week:
“Here in the Midwest we are seeing the perennial first signs of Spring: a few early buds are appearing on the magnolia trees, rivers and lakes are starting to thaw, and of course, ALEC and the Koch brothers are pushing yet another pointless and harmful attack on Kansas’s wildly successful Renewable Energy Standard.
This year’s bill, SB 433, is sponsored by the Kansas Senate’s Committee on Ways and Means, which is chaired by Ty Masterson, a known ALEC member and supporter of last year’s failed attack on renewable energy policy in Kansas.”
This week’s action in the Kansas House doesn't defeat the issue for this year. However, the vote sends a very strong signal to the opposition that Kansans care deeply about sustaining prosperity in their state and they know that policies such as the state RPS align strongly with this core value, bringing thousands of new jobs and billions in business opportunities back to the heartland.
This post originally appeared on NRDC's Switchboard blog.
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ALEC-Affiliated Legislator Leads Charge to Repeal Renewable Energy Standard
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President Donald Trump hands coal miners the pen he used to sign a bill eliminating environmental regulations on the mining industry at the White House in Washington, D.C., on February 16, 2017. Nicholas Kamm / AFP / Getty Images
By Oliver Milman
Art Sullivan is considered something of a political heretic by other coal miners in south-western Pennsylvania, where a wave of support for Donald Trump based upon his flamboyant promises of a resurgence in coal helped propel the Republican to the U.S. presidency.
"Many of my coal miner friends voted for him," said Sullivan, who has spent 54 years as a coal miner and, more latterly, consultant to a struggling industry. "They were deceived. Trump had no plan, no concept of how to resurrect the coal industry. My friends were lied to."
<p>Sullivan's friends may disagree with this assessment but the coal comeback promised by Trump in the 2016 election campaign has failed to materialize, with his first term studded with bankruptcies and closures of mines and coal-fired power plants.</p><p>There are now about 5,000 fewer miners than when Trump strode into the White House. The coronavirus pandemic has turbo-charged the decline – so far this year U.S. coal production has <a href="https://www.eia.gov/coal/production/weekly/?src=email" target="_blank">collapsed</a> by more than 25% compared with the same period in 2019.</p><p>It has been a bruising few years rather than the glorious new dawn promised when Trump donned a miner's helmet, mimed digging coal and excoriated Barack Obama's "war on coal" on the campaign trail four years ago. One of Trump's <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-signing-executive-order-create-energy-independence/" target="_blank">first executive orders</a> removed a ban on coal mining on federal land and dumped Obama's plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. "Come on, fellas," said Trump at the order's signing, where he was surrounded by beaming miners. "Basically, you know what this is? You know what it says, right? You're going back to work."</p><p>Such assurances were eagerly accepted by coal mining communities in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/west-virginia" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">West Virginia</a>, Pennsylvania and Kentucky who backed Trump and prepared for salvation. "When he came into office, it was like someone pulled their finger out of the dyke," said Thomas McLoughlin, a former mine inspector who trains new miners. "I was flooded with new mining students. It was overwhelming." McLoughlin said he would vote for the president again because Trump was the only candidate prepared to stand up for coal workers. "My business won't go under if he's re-elected," he added.</p>
<p>The Trump administration has set about weakening or scrapping a slew of environmental rules that bound the industry, such as requirements that new coal-fired power plants capture their carbon emissions and that coal firms do not release <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/31/trump-toxic-water-pollution-wastewater" target="_blank">wastewater laced with dangerous pollutants</a>, such as lead, selenium and arsenic, into rivers and streams.</p><p>Bob Murray, a major Trump donor and founder of the largest private coal company in the U.S., has <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/a-coal-executives-action-plan-for-trump-is-made-public/" target="_blank">boasted</a> of an "action plan" he gave the administration to undo what he called "eight years of pure hell" under Obama. Much of Murray's three-and-a-half-page wishlist has been ticked off, including the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement. A particular prize was <a href="https://e360.yale.edu/digest/trump-administration-to-weaken-limits-on-mercury-and-other-toxic-pollutants" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a weakening of Obama-era standards</a> to reduce mercury pollution from coal plants, a rollback undertaken after Andrew Wheeler, a former lobbyist for Murray Energy, became administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.</p><p>"We are still feeling the effects of the damage from the Obama administration," said Jason Bostic, vice-president of the West Virginia Coal Association. "The social devastation in mining communities has been breathtaking. The support for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/donaldtrump" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Donald Trump</a> is as strong if not stronger than in 2016. West Virginia is a Democratic state that has been dyed deep red because of the last administration."</p><p>But while Appalachia will largely stick with Trump in 2020, more coal capacity <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1063430425" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">has been retired</a> under Trump than during Obama's second term. "Coal's not back," as Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of America, glumly conceded last year. "Nobody saved the coal industry."</p>
<p>Coal production fell so sharply last year that renewable energy such as solar and wind <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/03/renewables-surpass-coal-us-energy-generation-130-years" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">overtook it in electricity generation for the first time since at least 1885</a>, the year Mark Twain published The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, America's first skyscraper was erected in Chicago and people were burning more wood than coal. Last year also saw Murray Energy <a href="https://www.waterwaysjournal.net/2019/11/08/murray-energy-files-for-chapter-11-protection/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">file for bankruptcy</a>, one of half a dozen coal companies to do so that year.</p><p>Cheap, abundant gas, retrieved via fracking, and the advance of renewables have been greater causes of coal's demise than any green regulation, <a href="https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/proceedingsreports/Whither-the-Regulatory-War-on-Coal.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">experts say</a>, rendering Trump's rollbacks simply environmentally destructive.</p><p>"The fall of coal is first and foremost a market story," said Daniel Kaffine, a University of Colorado economist who has <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20150321" target="_blank">researched the issue</a>. "The days of coal supplying the majority of U.S. electricity production are not coming back." While metallurgical coal – needed for the making of steel – will hang on, the practice of burning thermal coal for energy is in "a death spiral," Kaffine said.</p><p><span></span>There are about 45,000 coal miners <a href="https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES1021210001" target="_blank">left in the U.S</a>., half the number employed during Obama's first term. Plenty of political rhetoric surrounds a workforce that is actually quite small – there are double the number of flight attendants in the U.S. than coal miners, for example, and roughly the same number of chiropractors.</p>
<p>Whole communities sprang up around mining, however, meaning several dependent jobs are lost for each miner put out of work. The long decline of well-paying mining jobs, through machinery automation and now creeping obsolescence, has left deep scars in Appalachian towns now blighted by unemployment and opioid addiction.</p><p>"People drank Trump's Kool-Aid and he hasn't done it for them," said Blair Zimmerman, a former coal miner who is now commissioner of Greene county, Pennsylvania. "I'm very worried about the future because without mining, our tax base would go and we couldn't survive. People are leaving the area, it's tough. We should have looked at other options a long time ago."</p><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/joebiden" target="_blank">Joe Biden</a>, the Democratic presidential nominee, has outlined a $2tn plan to generate millions of jobs in renewable energy, potentially providing a new path for threatened coal workers. But coal mining has deep roots in communities that many are unwilling to relinquish. "It's a damned joke," said Bostic, of the West Virginia Coal Association. "It's an affront to a coal miner to say: 'We will take your job away for one that pays less well, and by the way, you have to pack your family up and move.'"</p><p>According to Sullivan, coal miners feel they have little choice. "The coal miner had no friends and was desperate," he said. "No one was speaking for us and then Trump was, so people backed him. Miners see him as their guy."</p>
<p>The externalities of coal reach far beyond mining communities, however. As the most carbon-intensive of fuels, coal is a key driver of the climate crisis, indirectly spurring the sorts of huge wildfires that have ravaged the U.S. west coast this year, as well as the continuing deterioration of the polar ice sheets that imperil coastal cities through sea level rise and storms.</p><p>Direct air pollution from the soot and chemicals given off by burned coal is also a major health burden. Not far from Sullivan and his friends, the Cheswick power plant, close to the banks of the Allegheny River, is close enough to people's homes that nearby residents have to <a href="https://earthjustice.org/features/photos-life-under-the-stacks" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">wipe the coal soot from their houses</a>. Five miles downstream towards Pittsburgh, in the suburb of Verona, Laura Jacko suspects emissions from the power plant could be behind her husband's asthma and the breathing problems suffered by her son, who was born prematurely.</p><p>"There is nothing more horrifying than holding down your small baby to shove a breathing machine into them," Jacko said. "It affects me personally and I get pretty angry about it."</p><p>Environmental groups have long pushed for the closure of Cheswick, which has previously <a href="https://gasp-pgh.org/2020/08/17/cheswick-generating-station-assessed-32k-civil-penalty-for-emissions-issues/" target="_blank">been handed a civil penalty</a> for breaching pollution limits. In Jacko's view, the era of coal needs to come to a managed but swift end. "My uncle was a coal worker and had black lung," a disease that develops from inhaling coal dust, she said. "I don't want their jobs to kill them. I want them to transition. These jobs are going away, it's just a matter of when. Pushing ahead with coal does everyone a disservice."</p>
<p><em>This story originally appeared in</em> <em><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/" target="_blank">The Guardian</a></em> <em>and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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'Regenerative Agriculture and the Soil Carbon Solution': New Paper Outlines Vision for Climate Action
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A new white paper explains how to transform current widespread agricultural practices to regenerative agriculture. PickPik
By Andrea Germanos
A white paper out Friday declares that "there is hope right beneath our feet" to address the climate crisis as it touts regenerative agriculture as a "win-win-win" solution to tackling runaway carbon emissions.
<p>"Humans broke the planet with grave agricultural malpractice," Tom Newmark, chairman of <a href="https://thecarbonunderground.org/" target="_blank">The Carbon Underground</a> and a contributor to the research, said in a <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2020/09/25/new-white-paper-shows-shift-regenerative-ag-could-sequester-100-percent-annual" target="_blank">statement</a>. "With this white paper, Rodale Institute shows us how regenerative agriculture has the potential to repair that damage and actually reverse some of the threatening impacts of our climate crisis."</p><p>"This is a compelling call to action!" he added.</p><p>Released by the Rodale Institute and entitled <em><a href="https://rodaleinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/Rodale-Soil-Carbon-White-Paper_v8.pdf" target="_blank">Regenerative Agriculture and the Soil Carbon Solution</a></em>, the white paper discusses how a transformation of current widespread agricultural practices—which now contribute indirectly and directly to the climate crisis—"can be rolled out tomorrow providing multiple benefits beyond climate stabilization."</p><p>The findings are based on Rodale's own trials, research data, and interviews with experts, and build upon the institute's 2014 <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/10/09/solution-soil-how-organic-farming-can-feed-world-and-save-planet" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">paper</a> <em>Regenerative Organic Agriculture and Climate Change: A Down-to-Earth Solution to Global Warming</em>.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDQ0MzM2NS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNzczMDk0M30.g3bMMcdsxChGxcYN8onbvkGVHEJUwfLJZTIcX_tPZQk/img.png?width=980" id="1290a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="89e0122fc2627a2a88dfe53a7c0aa395" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Graph from Rodale Institute's new white paper "Regenerative Agriculture and the Soil Carbon Solution."
<p>The claim made in the new paper is bold: "Data from farming and grazing studies show the power of exemplary regenerative systems that, if achieved globally, would drawdown more than 100% of current annual CO2 emissions.</p><p>"Regenerative agriculture, as the researchers describe, represents "a system of farming principles that rehabilitates the entire ecosystem and enhances natural resources, rather than depleting them."</p><p>In contrast to industrial practices dependent upon monocultures, extensive tillage, pesticides, and synthetic fertilizers, a regenerative approach uses, at minimum, seven practices which aim to boost biodiversity both above and underground and make possible carbon sequestration in soil.</p><ul><li>Diversifying crop rotations</li><li>Planting cover crops, green manures, and perennials</li><li>Retaining crop residues</li><li>Using natural sources of fertilizer, such as compost</li><li>Employing highly managed grazing and/or integrating crops and livestock</li><li>Reducing tillage frequency and depth</li><li>Eliminating synthetic chemicals</li></ul><p>While passers-by may easily spot visual differences above ground between the divergent agricultural approaches, what's happening below ground is also vital. From the paper:</p><blockquote>Contrary to previous thought, it's not the recalcitrant plant material that persists and creates long-term soil carbon stores, instead it's the microbes who process this plant matter that are most responsible for soil carbon sequestration. Stable soil carbon is formed mostly by microbial necromass (dead biomass) bonded to minerals (silt and clay) in the soil. Long term carbon storage is dependent on the protection of the microbially-derived carbon from decomposition.<br></blockquote><p>As for claims such as agricultural transformation wouldn't be able to produce enough food, the paper counters: "Actual yields in well-designed regenerative organic systems, rather than agglomerated averages, have been shown to outcompete conventional yields for almost all food crops including corn, wheat, rice, soybean, and sunflower."</p><p>But that is far from the only benefit. "When compared to conventional industrial agriculture," the authors write, "regenerative systems improve":</p><ul><li>Biodiversity abundance and species richness</li><li>Soil health, including soil carbon</li><li>Pesticide impacts on food and ecosystems</li><li>Total farm outputs</li><li>Nutrient density of outputs</li><li>Resilience to climate shocks</li><li>Provision of ecosystem services</li><li>Resource use efficiency</li><li>Job creation and farmworker welfare</li><li>Farm profitability</li><li>Rural community revitalization</li></ul>
<p>Rather than framing it as a "wake-up call," the institute says the paper should be seen as an "invitation to journey in a new direction."</p><p>"It is intended to be both a road map to change and a call to action to follow a new path," the authors write. "One led by science and blazed by farmers and ranchers across the globe."</p><p>"Together we both sound the alarm and proclaim the regenerative farming solution: It's time to start our journey with a brighter future for our planet and ourselves as the destination," the paper states.</p><p>Resources accompanying the white paper include a sample letter to members of Congress to urge support for the Agriculture Resilience Act (H.R. 5861), <a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/mike-lavender/a-resilience-roadmap-fulfilling-agricultures-role-as-a-climate-solution" target="_blank">introduced</a> in February by Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), and a "buyer's guide to regenerative food" to help decipher food labels and questions to ask suppliers at farmers' markets.</p><p>"A vast amount of data on the carbon sequestration potential of agricultural soils has been published, including from Rodale Institute, and recent findings are starting to reinforce the benefits of regenerative agricultural practices in the fight against the climate crisis," said Dr. Andrew Smith, COO and chief scientist of Rodale Institute.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/09/26/regenerative-agriculture-and-soil-carbon-solution-new-paper-outlines-vision-climate?cd-origin=rss" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>
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Brain-eating amoeba, naegleria fowleri, was detected in the water storage tank for the Lake Jackson Civic Center Splash Pad, according to Lake Jackson city officials. Lake Jackson Civic Center
Environmental officials have warned residents of Lake Jackson, Texas to boil their water before using it for cooking or drinking after a six-year-old boy died from a brain-eating amoeba in the water. Tests for naegleria fowleri showed its presence in three of 11 samples in the Lake Jackson area, including one from a hose at the boy's home, according to the AP.
<p>Lake Jackson is a suburb of Houston, just over 50 miles south of the city.</p><p>Texas Governor Greg Abbot referred to the water sample tests when he issued a <a href="https://gov.texas.gov/uploads/files/press/DISASTER_Brazoria_County_water_disaster_IMAGE_09-27-2020.pdf" target="_blank">disaster declaration</a> Sunday. He said, "the presence of naegleria fowleri, which can cause a rare and devastating infection of the brain called primary amebic meningoencephalitis, was identified in three of 11 tests of the water supply, posing an imminent threat to public health and safety, including loss of life," as <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-governor-issues-disaster-declaration-over-brain-eating-amoeba-found-in-lake-jackson-water-supply/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">CBS News</a> reported.</p>
<p>Health officials let Lake Jackson know that a boy had become infected with the brain-eating amoeba in early September. Exposure to the microbe usually happens through the nose and the boy's family believes he was exposed through the family's hose or from the nearby Lake Jackson Civic Center Splash Pad where water sprays up from the ground, according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/27/us/water-supply-brain-eating-amoeba.html" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>.</p><p>The splash pad was tested and the brain-eating amoeba was detected in both the splash pad's storage tank and a nearby fire hydrant, said Lake Jackson city officials, as NBC News reported.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/naegleria/general.html" target="_blank">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention</a> (CDC), the dangerous species is found in freshwater lakes, warm rivers, hot springs and soil. It can also thrive in poorly maintained pools or unchlorinated ones, as well as warm water waste from factories, as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/26/us/brain-eating-amoeba-found-in-texas-water-supply-trnd/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported.</p><p>"You cannot get infected from swallowing water contaminated with Naegleria," said the CDC in guidance on parasites posted on its website, as <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/houston-area-water-may-be-tainted-brain-eating-microbe-n1241185" target="_blank">NBC News</a> reported.</p><p>Initially, eight communities were warned not to use tap water for anything except flushing the toilet. However, further testing localized the problem and the warning was lifted on Saturday for all cities in Brazoria County except for Lake Jackson, according to CBS News.</p><p>Then late in the day, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality relaxed its decree for Lake Jackson, changing it from an order not to use the water to a notice to boil the water before consumption. It also warned residents not to let water up their nose during various activities such as bathing, swimming and washing their face, according to the AP.</p>
<p>Lake Jackson, a city of 27,000, will see its water flushed and then tested before the "do not drink" order is lifted, according to the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54313110" target="_blank">BBC</a>.</p><p>"During this period of disinfection and flushing, boiling the tap water makes it safe for drinking and cooking," said the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in a statement, as the AP reported. "Naegleria fowleri is a type of amoeba that can be managed using standard treatment and disinfection processes."</p>
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A crowd of climate activists march behind a banner in NYC during Climate Week on September 20, 2020. Erik McGregor / LightRocket / Getty Images
After decades on the political periphery, the climate movement is entering the mainstream in 2020, with young leaders at the fore. The Sunrise Movement now includes more than 400 local groups educating and advocating for political action on climate change. Countless students around the world have clearly communicated what's at stake for their futures, notably Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who just finished her yearlong school strike for climate. Youth activists have been praised for their flexible, big-picture thinking and ability to harness social media to deliver political wins, as Sunrise recently did for U.S. Sen. Ed Markey's primary campaign. They necessarily challenge the status quo.
<p>"Every social movement in the U.S. that has been successful has always had strong youth and students out there leading the charge—and in most cases, leading the charge more aggressively and demanding actions over and beyond the general population," says Robert Bullard, a professor of urban planning and environmental policy at Texas Southern University. That's certainly true for climate, with youth demanding a radical transition away from fossil fuels on decidedly tighter timelines than their predecessors have advocated for. Pressure from youth such as Varshini Prakash, the co-founder of the Sunrise Movement, led Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden to endorse a bolder <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/07/14/890814007/biden-outlines-2-trillion-climate-plan" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">$2 trillion climate platform</a> over the course of the campaign.</p><p>Sena Wazer, co-director of Sunrise Connecticut, describes how her work is often viewed by older activists: "The main response that I think many of us get from older folks is, 'Well, you're so inspirational and give me hope,' which is nice, but it ends up getting really frustrating, because we're not here to give you hope, you know? We're here to get something done."</p><p>Bullard says it's critical that we, as a society, allow youth's energy and optimism bubble to the top, and to empower young people to assume the leadership they're seeking. Having written more than a dozen books on environmental justice, he considers himself an elder in the movement. In contrast, Bullard calls young people "the tip of the spear," and says it's absolutely critical to have them out there "pushing hard for transformative change."</p>
A Convergence of Issues
<p>The unequal impacts of a changing climate have become extremely clear in 2020, so equity has come to the fore of climate conversations in every corner of the country. A global deadly pandemic continues to rage out of control in the U.S., heat waves are setting new temperature records, wildfires are scorching American Western states, and the hurricane season has already made it to the end of the alphabet for naming storms. In all cases, low-income, Black, Latinx, and Indigenous communities are bearing a disproportionate amount of the impacts.</p><p>"Today, the scab is off, the ugly reality of injustice is hitting us up close and personal, made more realistic by this COVID pandemic," Bullard says.</p><p>This year the decidedly youthful focus on intersectionality is a big part of what defines the transformation of the climate movement. Climate is not just an environmental issue, according to youth activists. It's also a racial justice issue, an economic issue, and an access-to-health care issue.</p><p>"Environmental justice is really seeing the intersection of these issues," says Alex Rodriguez, a community organizer with the Connecticut League of Conservation Voters, which aims to make environmental issues a priority for the state's elected leaders. The group is now focusing their efforts on the coming election and recently succeeded in persuading the state to allow absentee voting in November. "We want people to be safe when casting their vote," says Rodriguez, 26, whose fellow grassroots committee members range from age 16 to 60.</p><p>Rodriguez, who also serves on the equity and environmental justice working group for the Governor's Council on Climate Change, says, "We see our programmatic work as a way to help lawmakers see what they can do to improve the dignity of those suffering from environmental racism, systematic racism, and economic oppression."</p><p>Seeing the overlap and bringing these issues together is a strength that Bullard says was missing from the civil rights organizing he was involved with in the 1960s. He says 2020 is unique in many ways.</p><p>"The number of marchers is unprecedented, from different economic, ethnic, and racial groups—an awakening unlike any that I've seen on this Earth in over 70 years," Bullard says. "Today, the different movements are converging, and I think that convergence makes for greater potential for success."</p>Young and Old
<p>But young people are one essential demographic among many when it comes to climate action. With all that's on the line for climate in the coming elections, up and down the ballot, collaboration becomes key. Bullard says previous generations of climate activists can now play the critical role of mentoring, assisting, and supporting. Standing with, not in front of, youth.</p><p>"Youth are leading us and taking on frontline activity," says Jayce Chiblow, the community engagement lead for Indigenous Climate Action, a Canadian organization that works for Indigenous-led climate justice solutions. But in doing so, she says many young Indigenous activists are experiencing the trauma of violence, getting arrested, and being taken away from their land. "All of our older people are supporting those youth: Elders, mentors, people trained in nonviolent action," Chiblow says. "The youth aren't alone."</p><p>That support can go a long way. "There's a lot of anger and a lot of fear, and that's understandable," says Wazer of Sunrise Connecticut. "I definitely feel those things, too, just considering the ways that our future has been threatened and kind of trashed by older generations."</p><p>Under the Trump administration, the number of environmental rollbacks alone can be disheartening, not to mention new <a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/video/arctic-national-wildlife-refuge/" target="_blank">drilling permits in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge going up for auction</a>.</p><p>Wazer is frank about the risks of burnout, depression, and anxiety from the stress of it all, but draws inspiration from the example of the late U.S. representative and lifelong civil rights activist John Lewis. "That forgiveness and that ability to keep fighting and stay motivated … I think that that is something really powerful to learn from older generations."</p><p>An intergenerational approach can leverage the individual strengths of youth and older people in all their diversity.</p><p>"The elders hold our stories," says Chiblow, who is Anishinaabe from Garden River First Nation, Ontario. Those stories include lived experiences, culture, history, and generations of adapting to changes in climate. Such collective experience continues to inform Indigenous knowledge and connections to the land, as well as how people manage and govern themselves in relation to it. This knowledge is passed on through relationship-building and storytelling.</p><p>"Every time you hear that story, you're at a different point in your life, and you'll pick up something else … something new," Chiblow says.</p><p>Changes in perspectives that come with time and experience are among the reasons why intergenerational learning and coalitions are critical to the climate movement. To combine that living and learning is to expand the reach and meaning of the message exponentially. As part of her research for her master's degree, Chiblow brought together youth, community leaders, and knowledge keepers in her community to workshop climate action. "Those relationships are vital to keep that movement going," Chiblow says.</p><p>The value of intergenerational relationships resonates far beyond Indigenous cultures, too. Rick Lent, a member of Elders Climate Action in Massachusetts, says he is motivated to act for his granddaughter. He recounts the time she said to him, "Please tell me that there is something hopeful regarding the climate in our, in the future, because I'm going to be living with the repercussions, and I'm scared."</p><p>Lent takes that request seriously and says that working on behalf of future generations translates into effective messaging. "When you show up as a group of elders, and you're talking to your legislator, our pitch is, 'I'm not doing this for me. I'm doing this for my grandchildren.' So it gives you a whole different story about who you are and why you're doing this work."</p><p>Elders Climate Action has <a href="https://malegislature.gov/Bills/191/H832" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">campaigned to pass a decarbonization plan</a> in the Massachusetts legislature, which would set a net-zero emissions goal for 2050 and codify environmental justice in state law. With the November elections fast approaching, the group's focus is now on assuring everybody can vote safely. In some states, the group's chapters are pushing for voter registration and in others, ensuring people can vote by mail.</p><p>"We're going to be in a pandemic in this year's elections," Lent says, which poses risks to people's health, especially that of older voters. And because most poll workers, traditionally, have been seniors, Elders Climate Action is also encouraging youth to take up that mantle. "We need vote-by-mail," Lent says, "And we need more poll workers, younger poll workers."</p>
The Unique Value Proposition of Elders
<p>Older activists bring unique strengths to the table, according to gerontologist Mick Smyer, who designs strategies to move people from anxiety to action on climate. He calls himself "the aging whisperer to climate groups" and "the climate whisperer to aging groups." He is quick to point out that the learning can go in both directions.</p><p>"I think older adults are untapped resources," Smyer says. "Older adults bring several resources, one of which is their circles of influence. Just by virtue of having lived longer, older adults are going to have denser and richer networks," Smyer says. "The second is, when it comes to voting and civic engagement, older adults, as an age group, outperform all other age groups."</p><p>He uses the 2016 presidential election to illustrate his point: "The older age groups, 70% of them voted. Nobody [else] came close." He is cautious about making sweeping statements about older people broadly, but he says that ageism is alive and well. And that can deter the kind of collaboration that would beget necessary progress on climate action.</p><p>As the twin global patterns of an aging population and a changing climate continue arm in arm, Smyer says a good place for starting this work is within one's family.</p><p>"We each have that power to use in our circles of influence, particularly in our families, and we don't realize it," Smyer says. Whether it's via Zoom or FaceTime or a phone call or a chat in the living room, Smyer says, family members have a superpower: They will listen to each other, and they'll at least start the conversation.</p><p> "Intergenerational collaboration around climate issues, particularly in this election season, starts at home, and then goes to the polling booth," he says.</p>Speaking the Same Language
<p>As an individual's network of family, friends, and connections becomes wider and more diverse, the more work will need to be done to have them all working toward the same goals. That is equally true for the climate movement at large.</p><p>In bridging the gaps among baby boomers, Gen Xers, and millennials, Bullard says, "Each generation will have some idiosyncrasy and uniqueness about it that another generation will not understand or comprehend."</p><p>If everybody in a group or institution is similar, then there's no need to explain a lot, Bullard says. There's usually a fair amount of shared knowledge and values. But the more diverse that group gets, in age, race, gender, or culture, he says, the greater the potential for making mistakes, stepping on people's culture, and causing pain. But the potential for learning also increases exponentially.</p><p>Chiblow says successful collaboration comes down to being able to speak in shared concepts. The term "justice," for example, is an English word that's hard to translate into the Anishinaabe language. Chiblow says that because her community sees itself as belonging to the land, and being part of the land, the Anishinaabe worldview, and therefore their understanding of justice, is necessarily more holistic than the mainstream.</p><p>"Indigenous people have been feeling [the effects of climate change] for so long," Chiblow says. Today, as wildfires rage across the West, the mantra of "I can't breathe" is being driven home on a grand scale. For better and worse, climate justice is finally a front-page story.</p><p>"It's affecting the broader society," Chiblow says. "We're finally at the turning point where we could start to make real change because … people are really starting to feel that urgency."</p><p>The urgency will be tantamount in the coming election. A lot is at stake, says Chiblow: "Incentives, funding, all-around agreement, and also the way we're able to manage our lands and ourselves as people."</p><p>Bullard, too, is insistent on urgency. "This election is one of the most important elections of a generation, because there's so many things at stake," he says. "We can't wait another 40 years on climate. We don't have that much time. We don't have 40 years to get justice."</p><p>Issues of climate justice will be on the ballot in state and local elections this fall, such as Nevada's proposed renewable energy standards and Louisiana's proposed disaster funding. And the topic has finally made it onto the national stage. Joe Biden called Trump a "climate arsonist" for not acting on or even admitting that the wildfires in California are clearly climate-related. The frequency and intensity of such disasters is indisputable.</p><p>"Hurricanes don't swerve to avoid red states or blue states. Wildfires don't skip towns that voted a certain way," Biden <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-address-west-coast-fires-confront-growing-threat/story?id=73000218" target="_blank">said in a speech on Sept. 14</a>. "The impacts of climate change don't pick and choose. That's because it's not a partisan phenomenon."</p><p>In many ways, the results of the upcoming elections will reflect the ways youth activists and older activists are able come to a common understanding of what climate justice means and what they want the future world to look like. </p><p>"There's a lot of knowledge built up in experience, and there's a lot of energy that's stored in young people," Bullard says. "When you put those two together, you have … an excellent recipe for potential success."</p>From Your Site Articles
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Presidential nominee Joe Biden has not taken a stance on gas exports, including liquefied natural gas. Ken Hodge / Wikimedia Commons / CC by 2.0
By Simon Montlake
For more than a decade, Susan Jane Brown has been battling to stop a natural gas pipeline and export terminal from being built in the backcountry of Oregon. As an attorney at the nonprofit Western Environmental Law Center, she has repeatedly argued that the project's environmental, social, and health costs are too high.
All that was before this month's deadly wildfires in Oregon shrouded the skies above her home office in Portland. "It puts a fine point on it. These fossil fuel projects are contributing to global climate change," she says.
<p>Jordan Cove, the $10-billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) project that Ms. Brown is trying to stop, has yet to break ground. But environmental lawsuits and permitting delays aren't the only barriers. A calamitous crash in natural gas prices and a glut of LNG capacity have cast doubts over its commercial viability and, more broadly, the easy promise of converting abundant U.S. gas into a global commodity and geopolitical tool.</p><p>"There's too much oil. There's too much gas. There's not enough demand," says Clark Williams-Derry at the liberal-leaning Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.</p><p>Still, even if projects like Jordan Cove are shelved, several other LNG terminals on the Gulf Coast already have all their permits and are waiting to secure financing. Their expansion over the next five years would make the U.S. the world's largest LNG producer, creating jobs at home and opening new markets in energy-hungry Asia. </p><p>For a future Biden administration, that's a wrinkle in any serious climate plan. Once built, these LNG plants would potentially lock in decades of heat-trapping emissions that are already hurling the planet toward a hotter, less stable future. "Once you build the infrastructure it's there, and it gets run on a different economic basis than if it's not there," says Mr. Williams-Derry, who tracks the LNG industry. </p>
<p>Proponents say natural gas is cleaner than the coal that it replaces both in the U.S., where it now produces around 40% of electricity, and in countries like India and China. That makes it a "bridge fuel" to a fully renewable energy future that hasn't yet arrived, says Fred Hutchison, president and CEO of LNG Allies, an industry group. "Gas can continue to be part of a low-carbon energy system globally," he says.</p><p>He predicts that LNG firms would be comfortable with a Biden presidency. "He's got a great affinity for working people and labor, and labor is very much on board with regards to LNG," he says. </p><p>On the campaign trail, Mr. Biden has gotten heat over his support for hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which left-leaning Democrats oppose but which is seen as important for winning Pennsylvania, a battleground state in November's election. Far less attention has been paid to where the oil and gas goes, and whether support for LNG exports is compatible with Mr. Biden's clean-energy agenda and plans for tackling climate change.</p><p>"It's not going to save the climate if we're just exporting our emissions overseas," says Collin Rees, a campaigner for Oil Change U.S., an environmental nonprofit. </p>
Moderates Feeling the Heat
<p>If elected, Mr. Biden has vowed to stop new drilling for oil and gas on federal land and in federal waters and to rejoin the 2015 Paris climate accord that President Donald Trump gave notice of quitting. He would reinstate Obama-era regulations of greenhouse gas emissions, including methane, the largest component of natural gas.</p><p>The Biden climate platform also states that all federal infrastructure investments and federal permits would need to be assessed for their climate impacts. Analysts say such a test could impede future LNG plants and pipelines, though not those that already have federal approval. </p><p>Climate change activists who pushed for that language say much depends on who would have oversight of federal agencies that regulate the industry. Some are wary of Biden's reliance on advice from Obama-era officials, including former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, who is now on the board of Southern Company, a utility, and a former Obama environmental aide, Heather Zichal, who has served on the board of Cheniere Energy, an LNG exporter. </p><p>In a letter sent earlier this month, Mr. Rees and other signatories urged Mr. Biden to ban "all fossil fuel executives, lobbyists, and representatives" from any future administration.</p><p>That Obama-era moderates are under fire over their climate bona fides is a measure of rising leftist clout in the Democratic coalition. It also reflects how the climate debate has shifted since Biden was in office, in response to extreme weather events and troubling scientific findings. This includes research into lifecycle emissions from natural gas production and methane leaks and flaring that muddies the argument that it's a transition fuel to a carbon-free future.</p><p>"We've gotten more proof on the science that switching to gas is not enough," says Mr. Rees. </p>
The Push for U.S. Fuel Exports
<p>As vice president, Biden was part of an administration that pushed hard for global climate action while also promoting U.S. oil and gas exports to its allies and trading partners. As fracking boomed, Obama ended a 40-year ban on crude oil exports. In Europe, LNG was touted both as an alternative to coal and as strategic competition with Russian pipelines.</p><p>That much, at least, continued with President Trump. Under Energy Secretary Rick Perry, the agency referred to liquified U.S. hydrocarbons as "<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/29/us/freedom-gas-energy-department.html" target="_blank">freedom gas</a>."</p><p>Mr. Trump has also championed the interests of coal, oil, and gas while denigrating the findings of government climate scientists. He rejected the Paris accord as unfair to the U.S. and detrimental to its economy, but has offered no alternative path to emissions cuts. </p><p>Still, Trump's foreign policy has not always served the LNG industry: Tariffs on foreign steel drove up pipeline costs, and a trade war with China stayed the hand of Chinese LNG importers wary of reliance on U.S. suppliers. </p><p>Even his regulatory rollbacks could be a double-edged sword. By relaxing curbs last month on methane leaks, the U.S. has ceded ground to European regulators who are drafting emissions standards that LNG producers are watching closely. "That's a precursor of fights that will be fought in all the rest of the developed world," says Mr. Hutchison. </p><p>Indeed, some oil-and-gas exporters had urged the Trump administration not to abandon the tougher rules, since they undercut their claim to offer a cleaner-burning way of producing heat and electricity. "U.S. LNG is not going to be able to compete in a world that's focused on methane emissions and intensity," says Erin Blanton, a senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. </p>Stepping on the Gas
<p>In July, the Department of Energy issued an export license to Jordan Cove's developer, Canada's Pembina Pipeline Corp. In a statement, Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette said the project would provide "reliable, affordable, and cleaner-burning natural gas to our allies around the world."</p><p>As a West Coast terminal, Jordan Cove offers a faster route to Asia where its capacity of 7.8 million tons of LNG a year could serve to heat more than 15 million homes. At its peak, its construction would also create 6,000 jobs, the company says, in a stagnant corner of Oregon.</p><p>But the project still lacks multiple local and state permits, and its biggest asset – a Pacific port – has become its biggest handicap, says Ms. Blanton. "They are putting infrastructure in a state where there's no political support for the pipeline or the terminal, unlike in Louisiana or Texas," she says. </p><p>Ms. Brown, the environmental lawyer, says she wants to see Jordan Cove buried, not just mothballed until natural gas prices recover. But she knows that it's only one among many LNG projects and that others will likely get built, even if Biden is elected in November, despite growing evidence of the harm caused by methane emissions. </p>From Your Site Articles
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