Energy Justice

This Earth Day, like so many others, we'll be invited to pick up litter, plant trees, be reminded to recycle, and countless other personal habits we can adopt to save the earth. Corporations pitching "green" products will bust out their "Lorax-approved" logos and encourage our "green" consumption.

This will be the first Earth Day since the Occupy Wall Street movement took form. How can we Occupy Earth Day – or as our Indigenous colleagues have urged us all to rename Occupy... how can we Decolonize Earth Day? To get to the root of this (in other words, take a "radical" approach), we need to look deeper into how Earth Day, and our broader culture, got colonized.

Part of this story starts with Keep America Beautiful (KAB). Formed shortly after the first Earth Day in 1970, KAB seems on the surface to be an innocuous litter-cleanup group. However, according to the Greenpeace Guide to Anti-Environmental Organizations, KAB is actually a sophisticated greenwashing operation that is funded and governed by the waste and packaging industries as well as the corporations most responsible for selling the disposables that become litter – companies like McDonald's, Altria (formerly Philip Morris), Nestle, Anheuser-Busch and Coca-Cola. KAB supports trash incineration (the dirtiest way to deal with waste) and opposes bottle deposit bills, which would increase recycling.

The authors of Toxic Sludge is Good for You! – Lies, Damned Lies and the Public Relations Industry also warn that Keep America Beautiful is a slick PR effort to get consumers to think that they are responsible for the trash that KAB's funders created. You get to pick up their trash, put it in disposable plastic bags, then have it sent to a landfill or incinerator that is probably owned by one of KAB's founders. In fact, the trash decomposes more quickly on the side of a road than in a landfill. If brought to an incinerator, the trash is turned into highly toxic air pollution and toxic ash. While none of us want to see litter, there are better approaches to helping the environment than picking up after the corporations who make disposables – such as challenging the use of disposables in the first place.

Denis Hayes, a national student coordinator for the first Earth Day in 1970, spoke passionately at the Washington, D.C. rally, shouting, "political and business leaders once hoped that they could turn the environmental movement into a massive anti-litter campaign." He stated that "we're tired of being told we are to blame for corporate depredations... institutions have no conscience. If we want them to do what is right, we must make them do what is right." These words still ring true today, yet corporations have been a little too successful at shifting the message and getting people to focus on picking up after corporate messes.

Older than Earth Day, Deeper than Litter

I once saw a pickup truck with two bumper stickers on it. One was some sort of pro-logging sticker, like "have you hugged a logger today?" The other said simply "Smokey Needs You." I was blown away – not only by how these two stickers could be on the same truck – but by the fact that the "Smokey Needs You" sticker didn't even have to tell me the message. The message was already in my head! The sticker was just there to trigger it. The advertising was so pervasive and effective that they no longer even need to say the message. Most anyone growing up in the U.S. knows who Smokey is and what he wants from us. Who is Smokey and what does he want? Of course, he's Smokey the Bear... and he wants us to prevent forest fires. Very good, boys and girls.

Obviously, it took a lot of money to put Smokey's message in everyone's heads. So, who funds Smokey the Bear? Who sponsors all of these ads? Here's a hint. The same organization that funds Smokey the Bear also funds messages that say "don't drink and drive," "buckle your seatbelt," "pick up litter," "wear a condom," "tutor kids after school," "feed the hungry" and many similar messages. They're the same ones who did such popular campaigns as "a mind is a terrible thing to waste," "take a bite out of crime," "friends don't let friends drive drunk," and "just say no" to drugs. You've seen and heard these ads in newspapers and magazines, on TV, radio, billboards, buses and bus stops.

These are all campaigns brought to you by the Ad Council. Most of us absorb the message without even noticing the sponsor. It's almost subliminal.

Around $2 billion a year in Ad Council public service announcements reach people in the United States with 123.4 billion media impressions in 2010 alone. That amounts to 400 ads per person for the year – more than one a day on average.

Who is the Ad Council and what are they trying to tell us? There is a common thread between all of their ads, and you can find it in Smokey the Bear's exact message: "Only YOU can prevent forest fires." The most important word in that message is the one they themselves capitalize: you. The common theme between all of these seemingly different messages is that individuals are the cause of social problems and that individual change is the solution. In case this isn't obvious enough, it's one of their five stated criteria for topics they'll take on: "the issue must offer a solution through an individual action."

The Ad Council and its funders are a Who's Who of major corporations in the United States, including at least half of the nation's 100 largest corporations. The idea for an Ad Council was conceived in 1941 to counter criticism of corporate advertising by showing that ads could also be in the public interest. Advertisers feared that legislation might tax corporate ads or regulate their content. Several weeks later, in 1942, with U.S. entry into World War II, it was founded as the War Advertising Council, to build U.S. support for involvement in the war, with "Rosie the Riveter," "Buy War Bonds" and "Loose Lips Sink Ships" campaigns. The Ad Council has persisted in supporting corporate and government / military objectives, even with anti-communist ads in the 1950s, a post-9/11 "Campaign for Freedom" and military recruitment ads in more recent years. Aside from these military ad campaigns, most of the Ad Council's history has been to use corporate funding to promote campaigns that distract from the corporate causes of social problems.

Only You...

The Ad Council strategy is a blame-shifting public relations tactic. These are the dominant institutions of our time saying that they are not the cause of social problems – you are... that they don't need to change to solve the problems – you do. The Ad Council and Keep American Beautiful exist to prevent such things as the McToxics Campaign, where high schoolers teamed up with community anti-landfill activists in the late 1980s to mail back the Styrofoam clamshells to McDonald's corporate headquarters in Oak Brook, Illinois to get McDonald's to stop using Styrofoam. This is a group activity getting an institution to change the packaging they use so that it doesn't end up as litter and in landfills and incinerators.

The Ad Council strategy is the scientific perfection of this divide and conquer strategy. Instead of dividing people into groups, it divides us into individuals, so that we don’t even see problems and solutions in terms of group identities.

The top 1% stays in power by keeping us divided. They divide us with racism, sexism, heterosexism, immigration status and wedge issues like guns and abortion. They'll divide us along every line except for class, for which they must keep the middle class fighting the poor. If the middle class and poor see past the manufactured culture wars and unite to fight the wealthy, the 1% is in trouble, because we outnumber them. Throughout the history of this country, racism has played an important role. In a book called A Different Mirror – A Multicultural History of the United States, the author spells out this history, showing how plantation owners, when their workers started to organize for better working conditions, would bring in other workers in order to racially divide their workforces, such as having Native Americans work along-side African Americans and paying one group less than the other so that they resent each other and fight each other instead of their bosses. In Hawaii, the sugar plantation owners did the same, paying the Portuguese more than the Japanese workers, and – once that differential wage system was abolished in response to Japanese labor protests – plantation owners brought in more Filipino workers and preferred a specific ratio of Japanese to Filipino workers. The expression "the shit rolls downhill" came from there, where the managers' houses would be on top of the hill, with sewage systems flowing down past the Japanese and Portuguese laborers housing to the Filipino workers' shanty houses at the base of the hill, reflecting the labor hierarchy. This history was very intentional and many sorts of division tactics continue to this day.

The Ad Council strategy is the scientific perfection of this divide and conquer strategy. Instead of dividing people into groups, it divides us into individuals, so that we don't even see problems and solutions in terms of group identities. It's designed to prevent organizing into groups to make change, which is why so many environmentalists start off seeing their options as doing litter cleanups, voluntary recycling, tree planting, adopting acres / cows / whales, etc. – tactics that don't challenge the power structure and which focus on individual changes, not institutional change.

Organizing for institutional change runs contrary to the American ideal of individuality, but social change is usually made by movements, not individuals working alone. Our culture hides this from us when our history books portray the "Rosa Parks effect" – where we learn about social change in the context of individuals who made it possible, not the organizations and entire movements of which these individuals were a part.

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not."
– The Lorax

There is a paradox in the fact that we need to find bigger (institutional) ways to reach large numbers of individuals to get them thinking that individual changes aren't enough to solve social problems, and that their participation in movements to make change is vital (and not just voting for "change" every four years).

We need to wake people up to the public relations distractions around them and decolonize our minds. However, we don't have the reach to counter hundreds of billions of media impressions a year by trying to wake up one person at a time. This is the very weakness of individual change. So, how can we institutionalize systemic thinking, or the dismantling of PR distractions? Is fighting for media democracy enough, when Ad Council ads now appear on websites, without a counterbalance to encourage institutional change thinking?

Occupy has been incredibly successful at changing the narrative on group identity – putting class inequality into the mass consciousness, with the mass media helping perpetuate the simple "99% vs. 1%" framing. Can we come up with a similar meme that tackles the pervasive wave of you-are-the-problem-and-solution advertising and get people thinking in terms of group action to change institutions?

Mike Ewall is founder and director of Energy Justice Network (www.energyjustice.net).

Source: http://www.corporations.org/occupyearthday.html

by Alex Lotorto

This morning, I was sipping coffee and watching Sunday morning talk shows with my parents. We talked about the presidential election when my dad muted the commercial breaks that consistently included fossil fuel industry commercials.

My mom put it simply, "I made phone calls, put up posters, and worked at the [Obama] campaign office in 2008. I won't do that again if he supports fracking. He needs to protect our clean water, public health, and well-being."

Hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking", is used to extract the gas from a rock layer called the Marcellus Shale and in at least 32 states in the country. The biggest corporations in the world have their sites on shale gas plays and the gas trapped in them, including Exxon Mobil, BP, Shell, Chevron, and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC).

The vast grassroots organizing efforts to stop fracking, despite being largely unfunded by traditional Big Green environmental groups that have promoted natural gas as a bridge fuel to a clean energy future for years, have carried their weight in the pitched battle against drilling and are going to play a major part in 2012 kingmaking in swing states like Ohio and Pennsylvania.

The fracking process requires up to 15 acre well sites, one to nine million gallons of water per well per frack, pipeline right of ways, smoggy compressor stations, processing facilities, thousands of truck trips, and fracking fluid cocktails made of up to 596 different chemicals. Thousands of violations related to environmental health and safety have been documented by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, the head of which, Secretary Michael Krancer, is admiittedly pro-drilling. An analysis from 2010 by the Pennsylvania Land Trust Association puts these violations in perspective:

DEP records show a total of 1614 violations of state Oil and Gas Laws due to gas drilling or other earth disturbance activities related to natural gas extraction from the Marcellus Shale in this 2.5-year period.  The Association identified 1056 violations as having or likely to have an impact on the environment.  

There is no such thing as "safe" fracking. See the movie Gasland to learn more.

Stephen Cleghorn, an organic farmer from Jefferson County, PA, has been speaking out for a moratorium on drilling in Pennsylvania, most notably after his wife Lucinda Hart-Gonzalez' lost her battle with cancer in November with a powerful speech at the DRBC protest the day of the canceled vote. From his recent TruthOut piece:

Her joy was in sustaining our farm against the threat of fracking. After Lucinda's ashes become a part of this piece of the good earth, it becomes sacred ground to me, and the company that owns the so-called "rights" to the gas in the shale below our farm is advised to keep their hell away from this place.

This morning, I asked Stephen for a comment on Obama's campaign this year. He responded, "Lucinda and I hosted campaign workers in our farm home for three months. I am very disappointed that he cannot see the need to stop fracking, but the Republicans will be even worse. I will vote for Obama, to be sure, but I am not as likely to have campaign workers here this year."

The grassroots organizing the Obama campaign relied on for the 2008 campaign is waning as rural Pennsylvanians like my mom and Mr. Cleghorn lose enthusiasm.

This situation poses a problem for the Obama for America campaign, especially regarding the latest news reported by the usually-Obama-friendly liberal blog, Daily Kos:

Last week, the Obama administration gave what may be its first formal statement favoring hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, of natural gas in a report, Investing in America (pdf).

[From the Obama administration:]

"Since the mid‐2000s, however, the discovery of new natural gas reserves, such as the Marcellus Shale, and the development of hydraulic fracturing techniques to extract natural gas from these reserves has led to rapidly growing domestic production and relatively low domestic prices for households and downstream industrial users. Appropriate care must to be taken to ensure that America's natural resources are extracted in a safe and environmentally responsible manner with the safeguards in place to protect public health and safety. Provided these precautions are taken, the potential benefits to the U.S. economy are substantial.

Of the major fossil fuels, natural gas is the cleanest and least carbon‐intensive for electric power generation. By keeping domestic energy costs relatively low, this resource also supports energy intensive manufacturing in the United States.  In fact, companies like Dow Chemical and Westlake Chemical have announced intentions to make major investments in new facilities over the next several years. In addition, firms that provide equipment for shale gas production have announced major investments in the U.S., including Vallourec’s $650 million plant for steel pipes in Ohio.  

An abundant local supply will translate into relatively low costs for the industries that use natural gas as an input.  Expansion in these industries, including industrial chemicals and fertilizers, will boost investment and exports in the coming years, generating new jobs. In the longer run, the scale of America's natural gas endowment appears to be sufficiently large that exports of natural gas to other major markets could be economically viable."

President Obama has a very important question to answer about fracking before Pennsylvanians like my mom, and Ohioans turn away from working his campaign in 2012. Namely, the old coal miners' union slogan, "Which side are you on?"

The future isn't very bright for us. President Obama has had an opportunity to halt the practice of hydraulic fracturing every single day of his presidency. Instead he has pursued the following pro-fracking policies that must be ceased immediately:

- President Obama initiated the Global Shale Gas Initiative under his State Department “in order to help countries seeking to utilize their unconventional natural gas resources to identify and develop them safely and economically.” Through this program, Obama has met with leaders of at least India, Poland, and China to speak in favor of fracking, making his administration the largest lobbying firm for shale gas drilling in the world.

- President Obama has ordered his Army Corps of Engineers representative on the Susquehanna River Basin Commission to repeatedly authorize water withdrawals from the basin by natural gas drillers, enabling the expansion of drilling in rural Pennsylvania that has caused thousands of environmental violations.

- President Obama has remained silent on the Delaware River Basin Commission’s ongoing effort to authorize fracking in the Delaware River Basin, drinking water for 15.6 million people, including my high school.

- President Obama’s Department of Interior office in State College, PA, under authorization of the Endangered Species Act, regularly permits gas drilling operations and infrastructure without sending government surveyors to identify endangered species habitat at the sites, instead relying on the paid contractors of the gas industry and the outdated, incomplete, Pennsylvania National Heritage Program.

- President Obama’s Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has authorized the construction of numerous natural gas pipelines, upgrades, and compressor stations that enable further development of gas drilling by moving the produced gas to market.

In Ohio, “Seventy-two percent of voters polled said there should be a halt in hydraulic fracturing, or simply fracking, in Ohio until more was known about the impact of the process, Quinnipiac found,” according to a recent Reuters report.

Ohio has been watching fracking expand at an exponential pace, with 156 permits issued for drilling in the Utica shale that underlies portions of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Maryland, New York, Tennessee, West Virginia and Virginia. Ohio issued 80 of those permits during the last three months of the year, including 32 in November.

Ohio has also been the recipient of fracking waste sludge, hosting controversial Class III injection wells where drillers come from out of state to dump. The big problem? They are suspected of causing earthquakes. Activists young and old have been rallying against and even blocking access to the injection wells. 

Here in Dingmans Ferry, PA, in Pike County where gas leases have been signed within a few hundred feet of the Delaware River and in Promised Land State Park, with thousands more leases upriver in Wayne County, natural gas drilling is on our doorstep.

The river is the drinking water supply for 15.6 million people from New York to Delaware.

Industrial-scale drilling hasn't started here yet because the Delaware River Basin Commission has yet to pass a set of regulations that would permit the use of fracking. A handful of exploratory Marcellus wells in the river basin have already yielded one well casing failure in Wayne County at the Davidson well in Scott Township. Well casings are meant to protect aquifers that provide well water to rural homes from contamination.

The industry states that they are seeking to drill 10,000 to 20,000 Marcellus wells in the Delaware River Basin.

The DRBC is a federal commission made up of President Obama governors of Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware and requires a majority vote to allow drilling.

In November, thousands of brave people planned to protest the final vote on the regulations in Trenton, NJ, causing a last minute dissent of Governor Markell of Delaware. Governor Markell's decision to vote "no" on the regulations was based on his concern that New York has not issued their state's regulations for the process. President Obama remains silent.

In a worse case scenario if New York issues their regulations this spring, the DRBC could vote to approve drilling on the Delaware River as shale gas development scales up quicking in New York as well. That is, of course, if President Obama allows that to happen.

Long story short, the Obama campaign can expect further protests, like the one we held in Scranton when he dropped in for a visit in December.

The anti-drilling protesters were the most numerous, as well as the most visible and the most vocal.

Dingmans Ferry resident Alex Lotorto, an organizer with the Energy Justice Network, said he expects the president to protect rural Pennsylvanians from the harms caused by drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking - a point that will be driven home at every campaign stop he makes in the state next year.

"He needs to keep his promises about clean air and clean water," Mr. Lotorto said.

I expect that anti-fracking activists will visit his campaign offices, campaign stops, and campaign websites to encourage his supporters join in the call, "No Fracking Way!"

It is President Obama’s decision alone whether or not he will lose the key states of Pennsylvania and Ohio by remaining supportive of the gas industry that is pillaging us here. Please inform him of this, starting with his Facebook page. It would do him good to pay attention, act on fracking, and fix what's already broken.

After a year of work with numerous grassroots leaders throughout the U.S., our network of activists fighting "biomass" incinerators has put together a bold and comprehensive platform to guide and unite our work. Since so-called "biomass" incineration cuts across many issues, including energy and waste policy as well as agriculture and forestry issues, it makes sense that this came out of that network. The platform is in solidarity with those who are fighting other forms of dirty energy and seeks an end to nuclear power and all fossil fuels as well. We do not wish to see one form of dirty energy solved by promoting another, which we often see when nuclear power, natural gas or "biomass" are proposed as alternatives to coal. It is urgent that we move beyond all of these. Since many of us fighting "biomass" incinerators are also engaged in protecting communities from these other threats, we see this as one inter-related struggle for clean energy. We urge our colleagues -- both grassroots, regional and national organizations -- to join us in adopting this strong platform and to recognize that natural gas and biomass are not "transition" fuels.

Please view our platform and consider signing you or your organization onto it.

We can meet all of our electricity needs with wind and solar. But what about when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining? Coal, nuclear and natural gas make up 88% of the U.S. electricity mix. There are several answers to the myth that intermittent energy sources like wind and solar can't replace these dirty energy sources. One of the most exciting is flywheel energy storage, now being pioneered on a commercial scale in New York and soon Pennsylvania. Check it out...

Frictionless future for energy

By Scott Stafford, Berkshire Eagle Staff
Monday July 11, 2011

STEPHENTOWN, N.Y. -- The technology contained in a new, first-of-its-kind 20-megawatt flywheel energy storage facility has the potential to make renewable sources of power such as wind and solar even more viable in the coming decades.

Located on seven acres within a couple of miles of the Massachusetts state line, the 3.5 acre storage facility consumes no fuel and creates no emissions by using flywheels housed in nearly frictionless containers. Using kinetic energy, the flywheels absorb or inject electricity to relieve the grid of excess electricity or to pump up power in the grid during high-usage times.

The storage facility’s function has traditionally been filled by fossil fuel-burning plants. The new energy storage facility, due to be inaugurated during a ceremony in Stephentown on Tuesday, eliminates the need for 10 percent of New York’s 200 megawatts of capacity required for grid stabilization. And it is able to absorb and inject power at a much faster rate than traditional plants -- in seconds rather than minutes.

The $69 million dollar project, owned and developed by Tyngsborough-based Beacon Power Corp. and backed by the U.S. Department of Energy and the New York State Energy Research and Development Agency (NYSERDA), was completed in January and ramped up to full capacity last month for the first time.

According to Bill Capp, president and CEO of Beacon Power, the flywheel technology makes this the first
such energy storage facility in the world.

It is considered green energy technology because it uses momentum rather than fossil fuel to stabilize electricity levels in the grid. And because it can react so quickly to power supply changes, it makes the use of inconsistent sources like wind and solar more palatable to the overall power grid.

"It allows for the deployment of more renewable energy by quickly adjusting to meet variations from wind and solar," Capp said.

The flywheel, suspended between two magnetic fields to reduce friction, is set spinning at 16,000 revolutions per minute by electricity pulled from the grid during periods of low usage. When more power is needed in the grid, the momentum of the spinning flywheel engages a generator to produce electricity and inject it back into the grid.

Several of these operations happen from one minute to the next and are controlled remotely by grid operators. There are a total of 200 flywheels in use at the new facility.

Figures provided by Beacon show that a 20-megawatt flywheel plant can reduce coal-fired plant CO2 emissions by more than 300,000 metric tons over a 20-year span, which is the equivalent of planting 660,000 trees.

The facility works at 90 percent energy efficiency, makes very little noise and is, for the most part, underground, said Beacon Power spokesman Gene Hunt.

The plant will likely operate for a minimum of 20 years without maintenance, he added.

A $43 million conditional loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy and a $2 million grant from NYSERDA formed an essential part of the project’s financing formula, Hunt noted.

"We provided $2 million because we do feel it holds a lot of promise and we’re hoping it will provide us with a more stable, reliable and efficient electric grid," said Dayle Zatlin, associate director of communications for NYSERDA. "We are always looking for new ways to provide clean energy and, in this case, clean energy storage. And we are certainly interested in any projects like this in New York State."

The company is now planning a second flywheel energy storage facility in Hazle Township, Pa. with completion anticipated for late in 2012, Hunt said.

Capp noted that in the future, Beacon Power will likely leave development of flywheel energy storage facilities to others while the company produces and sells the flywheel storage hardware to other developers.

SolarTimes editor Sandy LeonVest (www.solartimes.org) talks to energy justice advocate, researcher and political organizer Mike Ewall of the Energy Justice Network about "corporate greenwashing" and false energy solutions.

Listen to It

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On Thursday, March 23rd, executive deputy secretary of the PA Department of Environmental Protection, John Hines, hit send on an unanticipated and regressive email memo ordering all Pennsylvania gas inspectors to stop issuing violations against drillers without prior approval from political appointee Michael Krancer.

The dramatic policy change will effectively suppress "Notice of Violations" (NOV) issuances and shift enforcement actions from professional inspectors to Governor Corbett's appointee DEP Secretary Michael Krancer. In the past two years, Pennsylvania DEP has issued more than 1600 violations to drillers in the Marcellus Shale, more than 1000 of which were identified "Most likely to harm the environment". Concentrating enforcement responsibilities and authority in senior level administrators cannot serve to protect the air and water; rather, it makes our environment less safe as these few administrators cannot keep pace with the gas boom.

For several years, gas drilling in PA has been ratcheting up and the DEP budget has been shrinking. Now operating with 60% of the funds the Ridge administration (yr 2000) spent, the agency should be providing inspectors the freedom to do their jobs as trained professionals without politically appointed administrators duplicating the work or, as many fear, giving industry a free pass.

As Pennsylvania drilling continues at breakneck speed, gas stock prices rise, and President Obama waxes poetic on natural gas as a clean fuel, this policy shift looks like another green light for the industry from the Corbett administration. Corbett relied heavily on campaign contributions (to the tune of $800,000) from the gas industry to win the Governor's Office in November 2010.

Katy Gresh, spokeswoman for the DEP, commented that the policy change is an attempt to ensure consistency in dealing with drillers. However, DEP employees and former DEP Secretary John Hanger (of the Rendell administration) question this motive and the policy the administration is taking to address issues of 'inconsistency'. According to an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer one inspector stated that "Not a single person in my office believes this is about ensuring uniformity."

John Hanger has called the policy "extraordinarily unwise" and stated that it undermines public confidence in the inspections process. It also appears that approvals by the Secretary or other high ranking DEP administrators could be far less consistent AND less accurate than by trained inspectors who have been to the drilling sites.

After the memos were leaked to the press, the DEP explained that this "pilot project" would have a three month trial period. During this period, a 30 member panel (representing industry interests) will search for a "policy agreement between those skeptical of the booming business and those benefiting from it." This comment displays the political maneuverings of the policymakers and reveals an interest in compromise over safety and environmental justice.

In the 120 day trial period we must be outspoken and adamant. This heavy-handed policy was passed without public comment. It reeks of political incompetence and corporate insouciance. Never has a PA administration (Democrat or Republican and none that I know of outside of PA, either) adopted this type of violations-approval policy. This must be reversed immediately.

Lately I have noticed a lot of false equivalence in the media. What's crazier still is the way they are often touted as something to be proud of. As though the cliché phrase “there are two sides to every story” were a golden rule for newscasters to live by. I think that we need to push back on this idea.

In the 1800s newspapers were extremely partisan and not particularly credible. According to E.J. Dionne Jr.'s marvelous book They Only Look Dead, “Between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries American journalism went from one coherent purpose, partisanship, to another, 'objectivity'” (Dionne, 237). Newspapers before the 1900s were simply extensions of the local party apparatus that spoke to the party's base, and the profession of journalism wasn't taken too seriously.

Then, during the Progressive Era, newspapers decided that objectivity might be a better business model. By pursuing “objectivity,” the new newspaper conglomerates could sell one paper to all political persuasions, thereby boosting profits, and journalists could garner respect for their profession. Of course, this completely changed the way we think about newspapers and media, it changed our expectations for their products, and it changed journalists.

Mainstream news outlets like CNN, The New York Times, and others want to become your news source by telling you the facts, exposing wrongdoing, and letting you decide. Since they are “objective,” the press “insists on defining its role in a consciously non-political way” (Dionne, 238). Therefore, if a liberal is featured on a TV segment or in an article, the journalist will inevitably find a conservative to balance out – or, more accurately, battle out – the discussion. In a lame and rather bizarre effort to appear non-partisan, these main-stream news outlets have effectively decided to become bi-partisan.

Now, you might be wondering, “What's wrong with that?” Here is what's wrong with that:

False equivalence is born. Let me say I love Chris Mathews and his be-spittled show. I also have a soft spot for Pat Buchanan for reasons I won't get into here. However, their debate was much more entertaining than informative. Chris Mathews, ultimately, is simply asking them, “What do you believe?” The guests get all wound up because, hey, it's a free country. We're all entitled to our beliefs. Buchanan's beliefs are certainly as valid as Shrum's, right? Clearly, there is no partisan winner if we just have an open bi-partisan debate, right? Wrong! Just by having Shrum and Buchanan on the show to debate the issue, Chris Mathews has reframed global warming from a fact, to an issue, to a question!

Whether they like it or not, the press has a strong impact on politics, “even if it insists on defining its role in a consciously non-political way” (Dionne, 238). Dionne unpacks this idea further: in choosing news stories, he says, “Journalists seek 'impact' while often denying they have goals larger than simply 'doing their jobs.' Journalists think we can balance all of these ideas at the same time. We can say that our goal in investigating Clarence Thomas or Clinton is to expose 'wrongdoing' and to present 'the facts' without any intention of moving the political debate in a particular direction. But our ability and standing to make that claim is under question” (Dionne, 338). Journalists may think they can report on global warming denial in a non-political way, but just giving them the Hardball platform from which to speak lends undue validation to their argument and pushes the political debate further away from the actual truth.

In other words, by saying we wont judge sides in order to maintain some impossible standard of objectivity, Hardball and shows like it suggest that both sides are equally valid. In the global warming example we have been using, one side clearly wants global warming to be a question or an issue of “beliefs.” By presenting it to the American public as an unanswered question, Chris Mathews is agreeing with them. At the end of the segment, the viewer is left with a he-said she-said feeling and no objective answers.*

Hey, Pat, it's great that you feel that way, but what are the facts? I wish Chris Mathews would ask his guests to bring a bibliography with them, so they could cite their claims. But, alas, that wouldn't fit into 30 second sound bites.

Let's try that again without the ideologues. Here is Bill Nye the Science Guy on The Rachel Maddow Showspeaking about Global Warming skeptics/deniers**.

Do you notice how much more productive that is, not to mention calm and clear? Here is a journalist who has decided to step outside the box and present global warming as a news story and not a debate. She is not being biased either. She is still acknowledging skeptics and deniers, but also laying out the facts without getting bogged down in the back-and-forth. I think it is time that we environmentalists started doing the same thing.

Let's end the climate change debate. The debate is, in fact, over. The facts are in, and the outcome is starkly clear. If we don't do something about this problem we will certainly destroy our planet! It's time to stand up and show our leaders and the world that we are serious about climate change, energy issues, and green jobs! It's time to go to Power Shift.

Because if we don't, who will?

If you're interested in helping coordinate Power Shift sign up here: http://energyactioncoalition.org/powershift2011/organize

Please note that the Power Shift dates have changed to: April 15 - 18th in Washington, DC

* (If you want to learn more about how that feeling affects people's beliefs in global warming check out Act II: Climate Changes. People Don't. of last weeks This American Life (TAL) radio program. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/424/kid-politics).

**If you want to see Rachel Maddow and Glenn Beck's beef after the airing of the initial clip posted above, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLEMU3XVhO4

I hope you have been enjoying the break, holidays, winter weather and new year. New Year is probably my favorite holiday of the year, and it's not just because of the parties. New Year is a time of serious reflection. A time to look back on the past year and consider what you did, and what kind of impact you are having on the world around you. Here at Energy Justice Network we are proud of the work did in 2010 and eager to raise the bar in 2011. Here are some of our current projects.

Power Shift 2011

It is now officially Power Shift recruitment season! Power Shift will be held April 1-4 in D.C. It is a national youth conference held in D.C. every other year and an incredible opportunity for young people to meet other like-minded young adults. Participants of the summit are passionate about the environment, global climate change, political action, energy issues, policy making and activism, which makes Power Shift an electric place to be. 

This year has already started with a bang: in just two weeks over 200 grassroots leaders have signed up to be Power Shift Coordinators! Power Shift Coordinators recruit, raise funds and secure transportation to DC so that their community/campus can participate in this extraordinary event. 

If you're interested in becoming a Power Shift Coordinator, sign up here: http://energyactioncoalition.org/powershift2011/organize

Related Links

CNN report on Power Shift:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etjx92rUONw&feature=channel

Power Shift Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9kgn8uCa-o&feature=player_embedded

EAC Power Shift Blog Post:

http://energyactioncoalition.org/content/big-news-power-shift-2011-set-april-1-4

Energy Justice Map

At EJN we have embarked on an incredible endeavor: we are mapping all of the existing, proposed, closed and defeated dirty energy and waste facilities in the United States. We are building a network of community groups to fight the facilities and the corporations behind them. We hope that this tool will be a helpful resource to activists, wherever they may be fighting for a clean, zero-emissions future. 

Our mapping site goes way beyond mapping, and is fun as well as useful. Not only is this a great resource to visualize the state of dirty energy in America, but it also works as a social network, allowing you to connect with other activists locally and nationally. List your group so other activists will be able to contact you with information, ideas, and encouragement. Post a picture of yourself or a dirty energy facility near you. Track facilities you're interested in or find out about a new proposal and map a dirty facility in your area. Log on to our new mapping site and play around!  

You can check out this cool new feature of our site here: http://www.energyjustice.net/map/

Our mapping feature is currently in beta. If you run into any problems, please email us. We are always looking for more feedback.

The Tire Incinerator

The fight continues against tire burning (or “tires-to-energy”). The project – touted as a green energy solution – is a Tire Derived Fuel (TDF) burning facility. It will use two Circulating Fluidized Bed (CFB) boilers to burn 900 tons of tires a day to heat a boiler to create steam to turn a turbine creating 90MW of electricity. For those who aren't up to date, here is a quick history lesson.

History

Erie Renewable Energy (ERE), along with partner Caletta Renewable Energy, first proposed their incinerator project several years ago in Erie, PA. After being kicked out of Erie by local opposition and environmental group Keep Erie's Enviornment Protected (supported by EJN), ERE decided to do something really greasy. First, they changed their name to Crawford Renewable Energy (CRE). Then, surprise, they decided the project should be moved to Greenwood Township, Crawford County, PA, where, according to the 2000 census (during better economic times than these), the per capita income for the township was only $14,584.

Let me stop here and point out a few of the many serious problems with this proposal. The 36.5 million scrap tires needed yearly to run the facility, for example, don't seem to exist. The proposed site is adjacent to Conneaut Marsh, a rare wetland, home to our state's largest breeding population of bald eagles. Crawford Renewable Energy isn't even addressing the linguistic problem with its proposal – the use of the word renewable.

No state laws in Pennsylvania or neighboring states qualify energy produced from burning tires as renewable or “alternative” energy. No environmental organizations consider tire incineration renewable. No renewable energy certification programs do. Tires are produced from fossil fuels and other non-renewable resources. It should be clear they are not renewable. Yet dirty energy producers spend lots of money to confuse the conversation and influence the language. Next time you hear the word “renewable,” beware.

Current Situation

In late April, Crawford Area Residents for the Environment (CARE) was formed with the immediate goal of opposing the tire incinerator. Since then CARE has worked to inform the community on the dangers of the project as well as address local and regional officials with concerns. Together, we are doing everything we can to prevent the construction of this incinerator.

Allegheny College decided to step out and facilitate a non partisan debate on this issue. Although in no way affiliated with CARE or EJN we certainly commend CEED for continuing the discussion and educating the public. CARE and EJN will also host a public meeting. While we don't have a date planned yet we hope to get local press to the event and really spread the truth about tire burning with the public.

As you can tell we have been keeping busy and are moving full steam ahead into the new year. We have every intention of continuing to work on these issues, as well as increasing our load. We are going to help support more communities threatened by dirty energy polluters. We are also always looking for volunteers who can support our efforts. If you think you might be interested in helping out, please send me an email and let me know hours you're available to help.

Looking ahead into 2011, I see an exciting opportunity. A brand new year is a clean slate. It is a chance to get active, join a cause, donate time and/or money, come to Power Shift – a brand new year to make a difference. 

I hope this year you'll join me!

Peace.

Power Shift is happening April 1-4 in DC this year! Sign up to be a coordinator for your school or community and learn more below!

Please visit: http://energyactioncoalition.org/powershift2011/organize

Or don't be shy and just shoot me an email at: ljubica@energyjustice.net

Power Shift 2011

Lets talk about Power Shift 2011. Power Shift is the name of an annual youth summit focused on climate change policy, which has been held in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. Other Power Shift Conferences are also being organized in Africa, Japan and India. Energy Action Coalition (which EJN is a part of) organized the first Power Shift Conference in November of 2007 with around 6,000 students and young people in attendance. Due to this high attendance rate it seems that Power Shift became the largest activist youth event on climate change in history.

According to those who attended past Power Shifts, it can be a life changing experience — an incredible and rare opportunity to meet and connect with other young people who are passionate about the same issues. Power Shift isn't just talk either. It is a space where people find themselves emboldened by numbers. It has led to break out movements and groups. Additionally, on the last day, there is a lobbying component when attendees take to D.C. and take action! In 2007 for example, a rally of between 2,000 and 3,000 people marched on the steps of the Capitol building.

The event has traditionally been attended by various famous and powerful keynote speakers, which included former Vice-President Al Gore in 2007, and Van Jones, Bill McKibben of 350.org, Ralph Nader, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in 2009.

Clearly this conference is an exciting and unique opportunity. However, before we get to ahead of ourselves, we need to plan how to get there. There are important issues to consider. For example: How many people are coming from your school or community? How much will it cost to get you and your group there, back, and fed? What is your school's budget policy? What kinds of deadlines are we working with? What about transportation? Can you rent vans? Will you need busses? Etc. With all these questions Power Shift can seem less like an incredible opportunity and more like an impossibility.

Fear not friends, for you're in luck. Thanks to the awesome planning structure EAC has set in place for the event, you're not alone! I will be available support you; help you figure stuff out; and generally make this trip a success!

So if you're interested in attending and you haven't already done so,

please visit: http://energyactioncoalition.org/powershift2011/organize

and sign up to be a coordinator for your school or community.

Or don't be shy and just shoot me an email at: ljubica@energyjustice.net

Power Shift 2011 is talking place April 1-4 at RFK Stadium in Washington, DC and is being built from the ground up, literally. We'll create our own conference space outside RFK Stadium using massive tents and our creativity. This year's Power Shift is going to be the best yet, but we can't make it happen without you! Please help us by planning and getting involved, and come show the nation how important the environment is to you!

For EJN this is Ljubica Sarafov

Peace.

That was the campaign tagline someone suggested in the "How to Keep Them Out" strategy session of the 2010 National People's Oil and Gas Summit in Pittsbugh, PA (Nov. 19 and 20, 2010).  I jotted it down because I thought it would be a fitting slogan to allude to a campaign to slow, stop, and antagonize the oil and gas industry. After all, for me, living in Philadelphia, gas drilling is about MY water, MY tax dollars, MY politicians. It is about others (presumably YOUR) woods, prairie, and mineral rights, and it has a profound impact on OUR public lands, OUR Congress, OUR health, OUR community, and OUR democracy.

Much of what happened at the People's Oil and Gas Summit centered around the idea of building our connection to one another to protect what is all of ours. Veteran activists from the West (CO, MT, OR, WY, ND etc.) shared their organizing strategies and experiences of living in a drilled territory with those of us in the East sitting atop the Marcellus Shale gas formation (the most recently targeted shale gas formation located beneath OH, PA, NY and WV). From New Mexico we learned how the Western Environmental Law Center and its incredible local allies won permanent protection for the Valle Vidal; from Colorado we heard about acts of determined resistance - landowners standing in front of bulldozers, and from Texas we heard how the town of Dish completed an independent study that is driving one gas facility to shut down. This exchange was a great start.

We need to feed each other information, share campaign and media strategies, political connections, online mapping tools, health experts, citizen science program models, ordinance templates; lend emotional support, legal help, and donate money.  Everything. 

As the Westerners counseled those of us in the East, we'll need to keep organizing, we'll need to be tireless, and we'll need to draw on every resource we have. We'll need to pool our interests and our messages, that is to use our common interests and most powerful messages, as a resource because the gas industry's deep drilling has shaken our democratic foundation. The gas industry exists almost outside the law, its profit margins unhindered by abiding by the regulatory framework that supports every other extractive industry (ie Safe Drinking Water Act, Clean Air Act, Superfund Law, some waste treatment laws etc). The industry is exempted from disclosing what chemical mixture it injects underground, and it seems to hand out non-disclosure agreements with a careless ease.  It can use eminent domain to site and permit its pipelines, and then overnight turn LNG import terminals into export terminals. No need to recognize that pipelines transporting gas for export could not have been sited with eminent domain since there is no public benefit. In the West the industry took advantage of Split Estate law. In the East it is clamoring for forced pooling. Ducking accountability measures, pursuing land grabs, and hiding behind proprietary information clauses, these nasty habits of the gas industry degrade environmental quality and democratic integrity.

We are in the thick of a democratic unraveling with the WikiLeaks backlash and fewer than two months out from the inauguration of a new Pennsylvania Governor and State Legislature. Reflecting on common interests, versatile messages, and an utterly invasive industry; I think it is time to attack the power, influence, and reputation of the gas industry AND campaign for our rights within a democracy. Time to request that we know what is in our water and on our land. Time to assert that we can make the rules, that the industry follows the rules, and that we do, in fact, have control over our communities.  Time to campaign for what is Mine. Yours. Ours.

For those of you who haven't watched Gasland, I would strongly recommend checking it out. Besides the cool shots and excellent banjo accompaniments, the story at the heart of the film is extremely compelling and well told. There are honest and admirable protagonists in the movie, as well as shadowy corporations. The movie was created by Josh Fox, self-described child of hippy parents who built a house in the woods of North Eastern Pennsylvania where he now lives. Josh first encountered fracking through a letter in the mail offering him around $100,000 total for the right to drill on his land. Fox, unsure about this financial proposal, sets out to find more information. He starts out with a town near him where drilling is already underway and ends up embarking on trips to Wyoming, Texas and other highly drilled areas in the country.

When Fox made the movie, he had to travel all across the country to find the type of information he was looking for, from personal experiences to empirical data, it was all scattered. Luckily for those of us interested in the movement, Earthworks.org decided to hold the National People's Oil and Gas Summit in Pittsburgh this year, consolidating many of the people and resources which Fox tracked down in the making of his film. We also had the pleasure of meeting other allies, researchers, and activists not mentioned in the film, and the filmmaker himself (while Fox couldn't be physically there because he was on shoot in Australia, he did take time to skype with us, from a park).

The summit was right in the heart of the Marcellus Shale Natural gas drilling boom region this year, though it is normally held in the west. This served as a stark reminder to all in attendance that the natural gas battle has spread across the country. There were many great speakers and panels, and the range of topics covered was pretty widespread. Here is a list from Earthworks themselves:

• The BIG PICTURE – where are they drilling, why and who’s next?

• Natural gas, CLIMATE JUSTICE and PUBLIC HEALTH: life cycle impacts of gas

• Hydraulic FRACTURING: Full Disclosure, NO Exemptions

• To lease or not to LEASE; landowner and mineral owner rights

• CLIMATE CHANGE: Beyond coal, oil and gas: what is our ENERGY FUTURE?

• MEDIA: reforming the industry one blog, story, movie and wiki at a time

• Legislate, Litigate, AGITATE: lessons on organizing and civil disobedience

The conference was packed with information. From excellent economic analysis on the market for natural gas, to strategies, to the personal stories shared by some of the brave speakers. We even had an oil industry insider -- granted, he was quietly mocked and booed by polite summit goers, due to his lukewarm stance on gas drilling. I was really blown away by how much I was learning. Although sometimes that new knowledge came at the cost of feeling down or overwhelmed, being surrounded by so many activists and people who care was fantastic.

If you are interested in more information about Marcellus Shale, Hydrofracturing, or Natural Gas, here are some links that might pique your fancy.

• On our site you can check out an entire section devoted to Natural Gas at. http://www.energyjustice.net/naturalgas

• You can also check out our mapping feature on our site: http://www.energyjustice.net/map, which not only provides you locations of current operating Natural Gas drilling sites, but also proposed and expanding sites and a plethora of other information

• At the conference there was actually a panel (Web-based Tools for Information Sharing and Documentation) devoted to some other really great ways that people were using the internet and technology to expose fracking sites, landmen, etc.

  • http://www.fractracker.org/ which also deals with mapping fracking sites

  • http://civic.mit.edu/projects/c4fcm/extract-landman-report-card an MIT related project that creates a community for fracked people, and has come up with a report card for landmen. This is really important because it allows locals to share their experience dealing with the landmen. It also gathers all these experiences into really practical data. So that rather than having anecdotal evidence in the fight, we can actually translate it into empirical data, which can be used to change minds and inspire activism.

• Even thought you may not have been there, you can still get some really great information from people like Wilma Subra, personally, on your computer, just by checking out the speaker's power point presentations online at: http://earthworksaction.org/2010SummitAgenda.cfm#PANEL4

• Video was taken during the Summit, in which all the speakers were filmed. The summit organizers still haven't decided if they are going to put up the video on youtube or if they are going to release it in DVD form. Either way, for more updates about that I would check back here:

  http://www.earthworksaction.org/POGsummit2010.cfm 

• Lastly you can hear coverage of the Summit thanks to Rustbelt radio, which covered two stories:

  Audio posted by Pittsburgh Indymedia: Rustbelt Radio Collecti to Pittsburgh Indymedia (54.5 mebibytes)

   

And of course for all of your other Energy Justice Needs come back to us here at Energy Justice Network.

--This has been Ljubica Sarafov, campus and community organizer for PA, signing off!

Newsletter Edition - Thursday, June 18th, 2010

Join Energy Justice Network at the US Social Forum 2010 in Detroit!

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Workshop #1
Mapping for Justice: Open Source, Dirty Energy and Waste Facilities
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http://organize.ussf2010.org/ws/mapping-justice-open-source-dirty-energy...

Wed, 06/23/2010 - 10:00am - 12:00pm
Woodward Academy Room 1449

Energy Justice Network is creating a space to share critical
information about all of the existing, proposed, closed and defeated dirty energy and waste facilities in the United States, the corporations behind them and the grassroots groups and activists
fighting them. By mapping the grassroots environmental justice
movement, we aim to help grassroots environmental activists better
research their opposition and connect with other activists who can
best help them. We want to collaborate with all activists that are
committed to progressive and critical change in sharing data about
waste and dirty energy facilities. Using open source software, we are
building an online community where you can add, edit, and verify the
information. We will share information about dirty energy and waste
facilities with participants in a way that makes it easy to
understand.

The workshop will introduce participants to the concept of mapping
for social change, using the Energy Justice Mapping Tool
(www.energyjustice.net/map/), and discuss the principles of online
collaboration, transparency and accountability. Participants are
encouraged, yet not required to bring their computers if available.

For questions and comments about the mapping tool please contact
Aaron Kreider , if you have questions about the workshop including location, content, etc. please contact Janvieve Williams C.

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Workshop #2
Biofuels, Biomass, Bio-Economy: One Big Bio-mess! in collaboration with BioFuelWatch
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http://organize.ussf2010.org/ws/biofuels-biomass-bio-economy-one-big-bio...

Thu, 06/24/2010 - 3:30pm - 5:30pm

at Woodward Academy: 1473

Biofuels, Biomass, Biochar and the Bioeconomy: Can we replace fossil
fuels with plant-based fuels? What are the trends and implications for
food, agriculture, forests, biodiversity, human rights and climate?
The bulk of supports for renewable energy are directed to "bio"
energy, based on the assumption that agricultural crops and trees are
infinitely "renewable" and that refining or burning them is
"clean and green". But this myth is unraveling. Diverting grains
into biofuels has impacted food production, increased fertilizer use,
and left rural economies burdened with a collapsing industry.
Meanwhile burning wood and other forms of biomass incineration for
heat and electricity is escalating. The result is more industrial
burners polluting the air in our communities, and a massive demand for
biomass that seriously threatens forests, farms and waterways.
Genetically engineered trees and microbes, are being developed to
produce fuels and other "bioproducts". A reality check on the
meaning of "renewable, clean and green" and strategies for
opposing this "false solution" will be discussed.

--------------------------------------------------------
Tabling: Please stop by our table at the Social Forum to say hello!
--------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------
Launching Our Energy Justice Map
--------------------------------------------------------

After two years of hard work, we are officially launching our map of over 10,000 power plants and dirty waste facilities!

Join our online network of activists
and help us make this resource even better.

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**WHAT IS THE ENERGY JUSTICE NETWORK?**
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The Energy Justice Network is the grassroots energy agenda,
supporting communities threatened by polluting energy and waste
technologies.

Taking direction from our grassroots base and the Principles of
Environmental Justice, we advocate a clean energy, zero-emission,
zero-waste future for all. Read more about our work and get involved.