Last week’s news really illustrated the push and pull between green ideals and the realities of life here on Planet X.

The Obama Administration put logging jobs ahead of forest preservation with its decision to allow a road into an undisturbed forest in the Tongass National Forest outside of Ketchikan, Alaska. The forest, a watershed and recreation area, had been left alone under a Clinton-era rule that protects “roadless” forests.

Now, the U.S. Forestry Service will allow two miles of road to be built so a local logging company can access timber. It will help local loggers weather tough times. But conservationists say its a bad call. There’s talk this might be a one-time exception. But then, the road to hell is paved with exceptions. Or is it intentions? In any case, this exception-al road will be bordered with clear-cut timberland. (See more in the Juneau Empire.)

Speaking of blowing up pristine lands, the debate over shearing off mountaintops to obtain coal continues unabated. You’ll recall a few weeks ago climate scientist James  Hansen and Darryl Hannah made headlines while protesting a coal operation in West Virginia.

Another mess, another bank, a different issue

This week, the Rainforest Action Network announced a new tactic in their guerrilla operation to save Appalachia: Go for the money. A newsletter to supporters asks them to call Chase Bank in New York City because the bank is a key financier of these coal operations. They’re not wasting time with some aggravating 800-number either, they’ve got names and numbers of employees and a script to follow. Cute.

So while people chip away at forests and mountains, eco-groups chip back. But what’s missing from these dialogues is, well, you. Consumers are end users of wood products. We don’t know exactly if you’ll be wiping your bottom with the trees from Ketchikan, or settling your lovely tushie on a new chair from Ketchikan. Maybe they have some high-level use in mind for these trees. Hope so.

In the meantime, there are a few small things that you can do to offset the destructive practices in any number of forests where the chain saws roar right now. Buy 100 percent recycled paper with the highest post-consumer content possible. Do this whether you are shopping for printer paper or TP.

Look for these brands, for example:

• Seventh Generation – (their TP is 100 percent recycled, minimum of 80 percent post-consumer fiber)

• Marcal – Their new “small steps” brand is 100 percent recycled “premium paper” (translation: Your tush will be safe)

As for that Appalachian coal. That’s problematic. You can’t ask people to turn off the electricity. But everyone who’s paying an electric bill should check out their power options. In many states you can choose your provider, and often you can choose a clean energy or cleaner energy plan. When you opt for wind or solar you’re keeping the pressure up on the fossil fuel industry.

(Want to know more about coal? Visit the Reality campaign, where they will share tidbits like this one from the US government: “CO₂ emissions from U.S. coal-based electricity are greater than emissions from all the cars and trucks in America.”)

March, take aim and… get great prices on organic yogurt?

Finally, on the green frontlines, was the Wal-Mart story. Bless their ginormous eco-heart, they have done a lot to bring sustainable practices to the mainstream. They’re selling Stonyfield Farm organic yogurt, organic teas, cage-free eggs, and they carried Kleenex Naturals (until that experiment folded).

But they’re still treading heavily on the land with big box stores that make a big thud when they plop down. Check out the controversy over their plans to set up shop next to a historic woodlands and Civil War battlefield in Orange County, Va. Wal-Mart claims it’s not taking a strong offensive; but defenders of history and nature are united in their pique. They want the store moved farther down the road.

The timing of this firefight exposed Wal-Mart’s weak flank: It broke out a day after the world’s largest retailer announced plans to promote green transparency with a worldwide sustainable products index. Ummm.

The moral of the story: It is NOT easy being green. Whoever said that?

(Photo credit: US Forestry Service, Kip Tyler)

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

I always thought that Earth: The Sequel could have been better named. It’s a catchy title, but it sounds like it could be a post-doomsday piece when, in fact, it is the opposite. The book by Miriam Horn and Fred Krupp canvasses the new landscape of green energy companies and entrepreneurs, showing us glimmers of a future economy freed of dirty fuels.

This past week, Discovery Channel brought us the video version of Earth: The Sequel, which followed the road map of the book, but seemed even more uplifting. Maybe the infectious optimism of the green pioneers interviewed was more palpable on video, or maybe I just needed a mood-booster amid  dour times.

It was heartening to hear the developers of wind, solar, solar-thermal and wave-energy projects talking earnestly and hopefully about the immediate future. (Though parts of the documentary were filmed before the economic meltdown last September.)

But there was a dark undercurrent. The vanguard were clearly worried that the playing field has not been leveled because there’s been no price tag placed on carbon pollution in the United States. Coal and oil companies have been allowed to pollute the air without penalty (though within regulations). A cap-and-trade policy would make carbon pollution a part of the market equation — creating a powerful incentive for dirty companies to reduce emissions (and pay for remaining emissions), effectively giving clean tech companies a bonus for not contributing to greenhouse gas emissions.

Pollution would become an economic drag. Finding better ways, a potential boon.

When cap-and-trade was discussed, the entrepreneurs chatted with Krupp became even more animated. They talked about this being the starter engine, the catalyst, the key to breaking through for their businesses.

And as it happens, this week our federal government took an important step that would set up the country for a cap-and-trade system, should Congress decide to go that way. The EPA proposed the first mandatory reporting system for greenhouse gas emissions, noting that the government would need this information to guide its climate change policy.

More than 13,000 businesses/plants would have to compile and report emissions data under the proposed requirement, which would fall under the Clean Air Act and could be approved after a 60-day comment period. Those on the hot seat would include hundreds of power plants – nuclear and coal – as well as oil refineries.

These old-style energy facilities are responsible for the vast majority of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Department of Energy. You can sense that when you drive by a refinery veiled by smog; you suspect it when you read about people suffering from asthma in Appalachia and you see it in the smoke stacks of a coal plant.

Now we’ll get some hard data. Think of it as Our Future: The Prequel.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

NV Energy has postponed plans to build a coal-fired power plant in eastern Nevada due to “increasing environmental and economic uncertainties surrounding its development,” the company announced.

Instead, the company will focus on construction of a 250-mile transmission line to link northern and southern Nevada in hopes of transporting energy from “renewable and other energy production facilities,” NV said in a statement. And it will ask the state regulatory agency to approve accelerated construction of the line.

“We firmly believe the plentiful sources of renewable energy – primarily solar, geothermal and wind – that either already exist or most certainly can be developed within our state make it imperative that we press forward on an expedited basis with transmission facilities so that Nevada and its citizens can benefit from these resources as soon as possible,” said Michael Yackira, president and chief executive officer of NV Energy, in the statement.

NV wants the transmission line in place by 2012, and will be asking the Nevada Public Utilities Commission of Nevada (PUCN) to consider the transmission line separately from the request for the coal plant, known as the Ely Energy Center. The two had been tied together. But NV now says it would not build the coal plant until affordable technology is available to capture and store its greenhouse gas emissions and it predicts that that “is not likely before the end of the next decade.”

The Ely Center has been delayed previously over permitting issues, which resulted in NV Energy replacing the power anticipated from that coal-plant with cost-efficient natural gas facilities.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

A son of Appalachia and its coalfields, Arnold “Bud” Fultz has not forgotten his hometown of Wallins Creek, Kentucky. After 25 years as an airline exec with now-defunct Pan American World Airways, he felt compelled to speak out about what the coal industry was doing to the part of the country he calls home. In his book Fixing the Ungodly Mess: A Pathway to Change (AuthorHouse, 2008), Fultz takes aim at mountaintop removal mining, a technique of withdrawing coal from the mountains by removing up to 1,000 feet of a mountain’s summit.

“My heart never left the area and I still had relatives there.. In July 1999, I was watching Nightline. The camera was panning over my old town. It was a piece about a seventh grade class that was taking on the coal industry. “

Between 1985 and 2002, Fultz says, mountain-top removal mining destroyed seven percent of the forests in Appalachia and buried or polluted about 1,200 miles of streams.

“I drove up there and visited the teacher who said I was one of the first ones to notice. It was then that I was introduced to some of the community rabble rousers or activists. The teacher, Judy Hensley, encouraged me to dig deeper into the story.

“I started out to write a series of articles. By this point I had left the airlines and had started three assisted-living facilities with my wife and was living in Tampa. I wanted to get back in touch with the people of Kentucky and West Virginia.

As Fultz began to research , he was surprised to find how damaging the coal industry was to its neighboring communities. He reports in his book that there are more deaths from breathing coal pollution than the number of employed miners in Appalachia (about 30,000).

In addition, he says there are coal-related medical expenses. Small particulate matter from coal combustion crosses from the lungs into the bloodstream, increasing the chance for cardiac disease, heart attacks and premature deaths. Coal burning for electricity emits 96,000 pounds of mercury each year, says Fultz. A 2004 EPA report stated that one in six women of childbearing age in the United States has enough mercury concentration in her blood to risk brain damage to her newborn.

The series of articles became chapters, which eventually became a book.

While Fultz is encouraged that President Elect Obama says mountain top removal is an issue he wants addressed by his administration, Fultz does have concerns about how this will be accomplished. “Our new Energy Secretary, [Nobel Prize winning physicist] Steven Chu, has indicated that clean coal will play a part in the country’s energy needs.” (Many environmentalists consider “clean coal” to be an oxymoron; it refers to  unproven, expensive carbon capture and sequestration techniques.)

“All the clean coal in the world will not stop the environmental abuses that now exist,” says Fultz. ”Look at some of our rivers in coal country. They are dying. There are no fish and the water is filthy.”

In addition, he says, clean coal won’t address the fact that between 1,500 and 2,000 miners die each year from black lung disease from mining coal. And clean coal won’t end the intergenerational poverty that is the direct result of the coal industry’s relationship with the government, which has often argued “without mining, the coal region would be nothing.”

To fix “the ungodly mess” as his title indicates, Fultz says visionary leadership is needed, with particular attention on three fronts: Renewable energy technology; affordable and accessible health care
and a re-vitalized education system

“My passionate objective is for citizens, both in the Appalachian coalfields and across the country…to rock the hell out of the boat – to reverse ungodly policies, to regain our country’s greatness.”

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

The latest edition of an annual report by the International Energy Agency was released this week, and while the news may not be unexpected, it’s unsettling nonetheless.

After conducting “field-by-field analysis of production trends at 800 of the world’s largest oilfields, an assessment of the potential for finding and developing new reserves and a bottom-up analysis of upstream costs and investment,” the agency projects that . . . without any new government policies, world primary energy demand will grow a staggering 45% by 2030.

Where the world currently uses 85 million barrels of oil per day, the IEA predicts it will demand 106 billion per day in 2030. Demand for coal, it says, will grow more than any other fuel, and while renewables will grow quickly, “oil will remain the world’s main source of energy for many years to come, even under the most optimistic of assumptions about the development of alternative technology.” (The predictions were actually higher last year, before economic turmoil made slower growth likely.)

That report can’t be bad publicity for Josh Tickell, an activist-turned-filmmaker whose new documentary Fuel is trekking across the country in a series of do-it-yourself theatrical engagements. The film, which has won awards including the Audience doc award at this year’s Sundance festival (and previously drew press attention under the title Fields of Fuel), was inspired by Tickell’s move from Australia to oil-industry-damaged Louisiana, and features interviews about the need for alternatives with everyone from Sheryl Crow to Richard Branson.

Audiences hoping to see the film (and maybe catch a glimpse of Tickell’s “Veggie Van”) can check the schedule here; Portland, OR, Seattle and Texas are the next on the list.

Copyright © 2008 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Don’t know if it’s the financial crisis, the change of seasons or just the usual grumpiness over the incessant despoiling of the mothership, but the green agitators seem especially edgy lately.

Reuters reported Monday that Greenpeace had blockaded palm oil ships leaving an Indonesian port bound for China and Europe. Their point: harvesting palm oil in that region is destroying rainforests and wildlife and contributing to greenhouse gases (remember those warm climate forests are especially valuable carbon sinks).

The activists were reportedly bobbing in rubber boats out in front of the palm oil ships and one Greenpeacer was seen jumping aboard the anchor of a ship, where he or she presumably clung for dear life.

This action was eerily familiar to one in Australia three days ago in which protesters also flung themselves in harm’s way, forcing the evacuation of an Australian power station by attempting to chain themselves to a coal conveyor-belt.

No doubt they were upset that Australia draws so much of its power from dirty-burning, greenhouse-gas-emitting coal, which supplies 80 percent of the nation’s electricity, according to the Reuters report.

Of course such actions are nothing new. We’ve reported about the long-running dispute between Greenpeace and Kimberly-Clark over the company’s near exclusive reliance on virgin paper for making retail tissues. K-C says the public wants cushy nose rags. Greenpeace counters that recycled would be good enough for sneezing, and far less harmful to the fragile Canadian forests being tapped for this disposable product.

All these conflicts simply highlight the obvious. We have to set priorities if we’re to preserve our planet. Can we use another oil if it helps save Indonesian rainforests? Can we support, with our votes and our selection of household power companies, the move to renewable energy? Can we shop around to find recycled paper products, and reduce our disposable paper use, to help save forests?

Sure we can. The only real question is, will we?

Copyright © 2008 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Disturbing reports haunt the news lately, suggesting that the faltering U.S. economy could stall environmental progress or even force a digression on climate change programs.

Two U.S. wind energy companies and several corn ethanol projects have been delayed for lack of financing, The New York Times reported this week in “Alternative Energy Suddenly Faces Headwinds“.

A similarly downbeat piece “Environment will wither whoever wins US election” from The Times in London, notes that “environmental groups are already bracing themselves for delays or disappointment on action to tackle global warming”. The article postulates that post-election political leaders will face opposition to environmental programs from job-starved states in the Rust Belt reliant on coal and other heavy industry. American’s immediate need for cold green cash, it warns, could trump green growth.

If leaders aren’t careful, the thinking goes, short-term bread-and-butter issues will cloud the long view. An America struggling to put food on the table will put green ventures back on the shelf and turn its back on the clean energy hobo at the door.

But as sure as they’re tapping geothermal heat in Utah and wind power in Texas, the countervailing viewpoint is gaining steam.

Environmental Defense head Fred Krupp, among others chirping up at green organizations and on editorial pages, believes that retooling our economy to tackle global warming and oil dependence is not a luxury in hard times, but the way out of hard times.

People “will say that the economic crisis will make it harder to solve the global warming crisis. I say just the opposite is true,” Krupp writes in a recent appeal to supporters.

“If we ignore global warming now, we will squander the opportunity to build a solid foundation for long-term, sustainable economic growth… if we unleash our green energy future, we can grow the economy, create jobs, secure our energy independence and stop global warming at the same time.”

It may sound utopian, but it’s not an isolated train of thought. The green movement can, will and should help re-employ the disenfranchised in America argues Oakland activist Van Jones, whose just-released book The Green Collar Economy, How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems couldn’t be better timed.

Across the ocean, Nicholas Stern,  an economics professor at the London School of Economics, continues the dialogue.  The world should learn from the financial crisis that “high carbon growth — business as usual”  will lead us toward a climate disaster, but that re-tooling for low-carbon growth can lead to economic and environmental recovery, Stern writes today in The Guardian.

During this now-certain recession, governments and private business should lay the foundations for dealing with greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, and protecting biodiversity and our water supplies, Stern writes.

“The coming period of growth can be firmly based in the low-carbon infrastructure and investments that will not only be profitable, with the right policies, but also allow for a safer, cleaner and quieter economy and society. ”

Here’s hoping green visions can carry us through the current sea of red.

Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Future energy literally rose above fossil fuels at a site in Pennsylvania where officials celebrated the opening this week of the Casselman Wind Power Project near Garrett, Pa., southeast of Pittsburgh.

Eight of the 23 turbines sit atop the site of a former coal mine.

“Pennsylvania is rapidly becoming a leader among states that are developing renewable and alternative energy sources and implementing advanced energy efficiency and conservation technologies,” said Governor Edward G. Rendell at the opening ceremony.

Rendell noted that the project will help create jobs, reduce dependence on foreign oil and improve the environment.

“The Casselman project is a prime example of the growth we have been able to achieve through smart energy policies and our commitment to developing an advanced energy economy,” Rendell said.

The project was supported by a $500,000 grant from the Pennsylvania Energy Development Authority that helped offset the increased costs of siting the wind turbines over the mine. The project is expected to produce 34.5 megawatts (MW) of power annually. The output has been sold for the next 23 years to FirstEnergy Solutions Corp.

The project’s developer IBERDROLA RENEWABLES also is hosting a wildlife study on the interaction between bats and wind turbines, in conjunction with Bat Conservation International, the company conducted tests this summer in which selected wind turbines were stopped during certain wind conditions. The experiments were aimed at shutting down turbines in certain conditions to reduce bat deaths.

“For the re-use of the coal mine and the wildlife study, we are proud of the industry efforts represented at the Casselman Wind Power Project,” said Don Furman, senior vice president for Development, Transmission, and Policy at IBERDROLA RENEWABLES. “We are committed to setting a high standard in the industry for conserving land and protecting wildlife.”

Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media

In the race for top carbon emissions polluter, the United States is still Number One, but China is sprinting forward and could soon edge into the lead. The current Olympics host nation accounted for a “staggering 57 percent of the growth of emissions” worldwide this century, and will likely surpass the U.S. as the single biggest belcher of fossil fuel emissions sometime this year, according to the Worldwatch Institute.

The standings right now: The U.S. currently contributes 19.5 percent of global fossil fuel emissions compared with China’s 18.3 percent.

China’s pole vault onto the world stage of top polluters has been fueled by rapid industrialization and huge growth in coal plants, which provide about 70 percent of the nation’s commercial electricity, according to the Vital Signs Update released Thursday by Worldwatch, a Washington research and watchdog group.

Still, the United States can claim one title that leaves China far behind, the United States’ per capita carbon emissions eclipse that of all other nations. They exceed China’s by 4 to 1 and India’s by 13 to 1, according to the report.

The burning of fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas – accounts for the majority of CO2 emissions, which means most industrialized nations contribute to the rising cloud of greenhouse gases (which include CO2 and other gases) encircling the globe. Coal is the worst polluter, giving off more carbon gases per unit of energy generated, and it is also the cheapest.

Globally, carbon emissions grew by 20 percent from 2000 to 2007, according to the Worldwatch analysis. Industrializing India contributed 8 percent of that growth. The United States’ and Europe’s emissions accounted for 4 percent and 3 percent, respectively.

As the report points out, accords between industrialized and developing nations, will be key to regulating spiraling carbon emissions. This is one race best run in reverse.

Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media

By

Jobs in renewable energy are increasing worldwide and causing the coal industry to distribute pink slips, according to a Worldwatch Institute study.

The report, written by Worldwatch senior researcher Michael Renner, estimates that 2.3 million people are working in renewable energy jobs – either directly or indirectly. From that number:

• 1 million work in biofuels
• 794,000 work in solar power
• 39,000 work in hydropower
• 25,000 work in geothermal

Renner expects the numbers to increase substantially in the next decade.

“Government officials now have another reason to put the full weight of their support behind renewables,” Renner said in a statement. “In addition to protecting our planet and phasing out an increasingly limited resource, renewable energy also supports job creation.”

The report, released earlier this month, names countries that are increasing their numbers of renewable-energy jobs. Germany, for example, has 259,000 such jobs. Spain follows with 89,000 direct and 99,000 indirect jobs.

Consequently, the coal industry has felt the effects. Coal generates 40 percent of the world’s electricity, according to the World Coal Institute. Despite a one-third increase in coal production, the number of jobs have decreased by half throughout China, Britain and the U.S.

Worldwatch is an independent research organization that focuses on critical global issues, particularly those related to sustainability. Read more about the report on Worldwatch Institute’s Web site.