After Representative Eherlich spoke, members from Environmental League Massachusetts and the Sierra Club outlined the health risks posed by coal power plants. The Sierra Club also offered reference to their recent publication on how renewable energy sources can replace the base load power for the grid which is presently generated by fossil fuels and nuclear power. Four members from Students for a Just and Stable Future then spoke on behalf of their drafted legislation, house docket #2625, which is entitled “An Act to Phase Out Coal Burning and Use”. Unlike other bills in front of the committee that ask for this to be done by the year 2020, Students for a Just and Stable Future believe that the issue demands more urgency and should be accomplished by 2015. The students who spoke addressed the many externalities pushed onto local communities and the environment throughout the coal commodity chain covering everything from the devastation due to mountain top removal to the effects emissions are having in the form of acid rain and global climate change.
This all comes in the wake of last week’s announcement that Dominion Resources will not be challenging ISO New England’s decision and will be closing the Salem Harbor Power Station just north of Boston before June 1, 2014. This announcement is a great victory for community organizations and their partners who have been calling for a closure of the plant.

The continued effort by Students for a Just and Stable Future, and students across the country, shows how important to role of the youth movement is in getting our country off of dirty fossil fuels. Campuses must continue to work with their local communities in order to ensure a healthy safe future for the people and the environment.

At the hearing industry representatives from New England Power Generators Association spoke out against the bill explaining that the free market was well suited to determine which fuel sources are best, and that government intervention will only cause harm.  They later denied to comment on the environmental injustices or social injustices brought on by the continued operation of the power plants.

What Should Be Our Next Steps?
On campuses across the country students are realizing that something needs to be done. We can play a pivotal role in the organizing and networking of different communities. Humanity needs someone to stand up and stop the destruction of society. Right now we are destroying nature. It is nature that we are very dependent on as a means of our survival. With its’ collapse we are only asking for the same. The world is changing at a very fast pace as the ice at our poles melt, the ocean is becoming unbalanced, our forests are disappearing, while communities are being forced to face bioaccumilation of chemicals that they never asked for. It is time to start taking a stand like never seen before.  Malcolm X said “We declare our right, on this earth… to be human being, to be respected as human being, to  be given the rights of a human being, in this society on this earth, in this day and we need to intend to do this by any means necessary. This is exactly what needs to be done. The youth environmental justice movement is constantly being referenced as the revolution of our generation as was Malcolm X’s civil rights movement to his generation. This however is not the civil rights movement. Like the civil rights movement we have organized and a created a vast grassroots network. Like the civil rights movement we also have realized that those in power, our elected officials, are failing us. What we have not started to use is a tool that was used to great success in their struggle, the judicial system. This goes further then taking the lead corporations of the polluter industrial complex to court over regulation infringements but actually putting ourselves into the system. We need to use it as a theater to tell our public narrative and start to frame how these issues are discussed.

By organizing a mass resistance movement on every stage of the coal commodity chain, we may be able to achieve the system change that many envision. Communities may not be able to stand up to industry funding however they do have more numbers then industry does. Not only should the infrastructure that supports this system be targeted but also an effort to discredit the public relations industry that helps to support it. This is an effort that crosses environmental and social justice lines. Literally everyone is being effected in some form as well as contributing to the issue. It is time that people reclaim power from the polluter industrial complex back to where it rightfully belongs.

Reposted from It’s Getting Hot in Here.

Stop Burning Coal
Deaths per Watt of Energy Produced:

(Image by Seth Godin ^[1]. Research by The Lifeboat Foundation.) ^[2]

Protest March
and Art Show

with the art of

Franke James

We are young, and we are driven to revisit the choices of the generations before us. The longer we burn coal, the more we injure our own health, and the further we jeopardize stability of our climate.
We are aware of the massive resources of green power—wind and solar—available to New England. ^[5] We have a choice. We want to share our hope and our vision for the future with our fellow Americans.

We will march from across downtown Boston to our art show at the Old West United Methodist Church, 131 Cambridge Street. The show is open to the public; it invites reflection and discussion on the consequences of our energy choices. Doors open at 4:30 PM after the march.

Saturday April 2nd Saturday April 9th and  Friday April 22th on Earth Day

The march starts from Copley Square at 12:30 pm, and ends with a rally on the Boston Common at 2:30 pm. Then we head to the art show.

If you hadn’t noticed, the world is facing some pretty big issues. I certainly believe in myself as an organizer, but I don’t have the hubris to think that I, with a few friends, am going to turn the climate around.

To create a sustainable future we are all going to need to work together. There is not one best action or one most important step to take. It will vary from community to community, landbase to landbase. Our best chance of success is a continuous series of widespread actions organized by folks in a network. These people need to be in communication with others taking action, so that messaging and tactics build towards the same goal of justice and stability.

Being Director is a great role, because I get to be in on all of the action in SJSF, but also interact with the greater world. How can we best collaborate with outside organizations? How does our work compliment someone else’s? I love outreach, because often I get to hear inspiring stories or great ideas that we could appropriate.

I have been working to combine a list of all of our past, current, and potential future partners around the state, and then reaching out to all of them. These range from larger, national and international organizations to local churches around the corner from our campuses. Because we believe in collaboration, we do not want to force projects or ideologies onto any group that we work with. Instead, we try to work with different organizations and individuals in the way that makes the most sense. Can they come to or advertise the March Against Coal? Can we go with them to help them lobby a state representative? Do they have artists who might want to join our art show? Would they like to work with us to submit a question for the municipal ballot?

I have been so impressed by and grateful for the amazing people whom I have talked with so far this semester. I appreciate all of those who realize that we need everyone’s skills, strength, and insight to truly build a better future. As the campaign builds up in April, with the marches, the art show, our legislation, our ballot question, Powershift 2011, and numerous other local projects, I look forward to meeting all of you out there, who believe in banding together to create the just and stable world that we want to live in.

Students for a Just and Stable Future

We are still accepting art in all media!

Theme Artwork should pertain to energy from coal and its related issues and impacts. We encourage people to show how coal affects the environment, community health, and global environmental change.

Format Two-dimensional and free-standing three-dimensional pieces.

Size Limitations We can accommodate pieces up to 5’ x 6’, if larger, contact Geneva Boyer at Gboyer@brandeis.edu

Show Information There will be three shows in Boston on April 2^nd and 9^th, and 22^nd 2011. The shows will be located outside with a rain location of Old West Church, 131 Cambridge St, Boston. The pieces will then tour the state as a traveling art show.

To Register Email Gboyer@brandeis.edu, subject line: Art show. Include your name, email address and phone number, along with the specifications of your work: Dimensions, Title, Medium.

Delivery Details Art must be delivered by March 24^th, 2011.
Contact Geneva Boyer at  Gboyer@brandeis.edu to make delivery arrangements to the Brandeis University campus.

No fee required to participate.

Work will be accepted if it fits the requirements above. Students for a Just and Stable Future reserves the right to refuse any submissions, at its discretion. For all other questions and inquiries on how you can get involved please email Geneva Boyer at Gboyer@brandeis.edu or call 617 459-6741.

Download the PDF: Call to Artists

What connects Holyoke, Massachusetts, with floods in Australia, and explosions in La Preciosa, Colombia? The answer is coal.

As the January flood waters subsided in Australia the governor of the state of Victoria, medical researcher Professor David de Kretser, pointed the finger directly at climate change. Referring to the spate of record-breaking climate events de Kretser commented “everyone says this week [is a] one in 100, one in 200 years [event] but they are happening pretty much more frequently now.”

Australia’s Greens went further, connecting a few more dots between coal-burning, ocean temperatures, and flooding. In the months preceding the floods record heat had warmed the seas off northern Australia leading to increased evaporation and rainfall, explained the Greens. Then, pointing out that coal is a major contributor to climate change, party leader Senator Bob Browncalled on the coal-mining companies to pick up the tab for the flood recovery and other climate-related disasters via a 40% surtax on their profits.

“We know that climate change is due to the burning of fossil fuels, primarily coal,” said Brown. “I’ve called on the Australian Government to ensure that the tax on super profits on the coal industry [should] be levied in full to help the country pay for future flood, bushfire and drought disasters caused by climate change.”

There is no sign that the Australian government will adopt Senator Brown’s proposal, which is hardly surprising in view of the fact that last year when the Prime Minister, Labor’s Kevin Rudd, tried to impose the same tax the mining companies spent $20 million to defeat him. Mr. Rudd is now theformer Prime Minister, by the way.

But the floods have certainly had an impact on the availability – and, therefore, the price – of coal. Because flooding inundated so many coal mines and railroads in Australia, the price of coal rose 4.5% in the first week of January. Rising coal prices were good news for mining companies like the one that owns La Preciosa mine in northeastern Colombia, where management has long been cutting corners on safety measures. An explosion (the second in four years) tore through the mine at La Preciosa on Wednesday, January 26, killing 21 mineworkers. Today (Tuesday, February 1) another blast killed five more miners, this time at La Escondida coal mine, north of Bogota, Colombia.

Last year, more than 100 Colombian coal-miners died at work. Just five weeks into 2011, the death toll already stands at 26. Other than the ties that bind us all together as humans, what do these deaths in Colombia have to do with us in Massachusetts? The connector is coal: The coal we burn at Mount Tom, Holyoke, comes from Colombia.

How does the coal get from Colombia to Massachusetts? Helpfully, the Wall Street Journalprovides the names of the major companies that own coal mines in Colombia. One of them is BHP Billiton, an Australian company that dedicated $4 million to crushing Kevin Rudd’s surtax proposal. BHP Billiton’s shares were up 0.8% today. Others include Xstrata (up 1.26%) and Anglo American (also up by more than 1%).

As connect-the-dots puzzles go, this one is not very elaborate. GDF Suez imports Colombian coal from companies like BHP Billiton. It burns the coal in power stations like Mount Tom, Holyoke. A lackadaisical approach to workplace safety in Colombia leads to the deaths of miners, and a cavalier attitude to climate safety leads to floods in Australia. What are the common factors joining the Australian and Colombian tragedies? We are. And we are doing something about it.

Let’s ponder the dots connecting our Massachusetts campaign for climate justice to the floods in Australia and the struggle for workers’ rights in Colombia. When we join the dots together and look at the picture, we see that ours is a just cause.

If you want to take action right now and do something to stop GDF Suez burning coal at Mount Tom, sign this petition in support of the Act to Phase Out Coal-Burning in Massachusetts. The proposed law would force power companies to move beyond coal, either by retiring their coal-burning plants or repowering them to run on cleaner energy.

Will signing an online petition fix the problem? No. But it’s one step. And if you would like to do more, let me know: email peter@petervickery.com.

So in the second week of January about 25 students from SJSF got together at The First Church of Winthrop and made plans for this semester’s campaign.  We had some excellent input from friends of SJSF, such as Drew from the Sierra Club, Vanessa from New England Climate Summer and Somerville Action Network, David from National Grid, and Audrey and company from HEET (to name a few).

The campaign that we put together was a product of much advance planning and many exciting developments from conversation that occurred at the retreat (many late nights were spent hashing out exciting details as people came up with all kinds of ideas).

There was some good fun as well, dancing, basketball, ninja, a walk around the town and a movie.  The food was also great, and much fun was had in its cooking and baking!

So, if you are interested in the product of all this work (and a lot of followup work to polish off these ideas) go to http://justandstable.org/campaign/ and check it out!

~Nate

Climate Summer is an internship in which college students bike across New England growing the climate justice movement and bringing communities together to make local change. Biking everywhere we went, my team and I lived the values that we proclaim and invited others to join us. From elementary school children to grandparents, pastors and business people, the people we met were excited to share their activism and learn more about ours. When I think back about this past summer, of course I remember the towns we visited and the organizations that we worked, but what strikes me the most, are the people that I got to know. My teammates with whom I grew so much. Pastors who provided a place to sleep. Mothers who gave us showers and a warm meal. Climate activists who offered counsel. Farmers who donated food. Everyone we met that took a minute or two to talk and listen and share. We often talk about the climate crisis in terms of parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere, but what this summer did was connect me to the people and the communities that suffer from the realities of climate change.

If Climate Summer sounds like the type of change that you would like to be a part of, check out our website <www.newenglandclimatesummer.org> . The priority deadline for applications is January 15^th!

It was great to see three organizations with such very different missions come together to accomplish something real. WATCH, a community organization, works to create affordable housing and empower Waltham residents. NCV promotes community service to help disadvantaged community members. SJSF promotes clean energy and energy efficiency to reduce CO2 emissions and global warming. But all three came together: to plan, advertise, fundraise, and provide manpower for a very successful event.

The event took place Sunday, Dec 5th in a three-story Waltham home, and from 11am-4pm 30 volunteers worked diligently to weatherize the house. The process included sealing up cracks and holes around windows and doors, properly insulating the basement and attic, changing out lightbulbs for high efficiency CFL bulbs, and… installing a kitty door (nice job Harrison)! The process cut down on the heat that escapes the home and reduced the home’s fuel use–reducing emissions and saving the homeowner money on monthly energy bills.

Special thanks to Transatlantic Climate Bridge and Brandeis’s Center for German and European Studies for generously donating funds for our barnraising! They were also great to include us in their Climate Change Campus Weeks, a two-week series of events on Brandeis campus at the end of November. The weeks, put on by the Center for German and European Studies and funded by the German Embassy, were part of an effort “to foster transatlantic cooperation and partnerships between Germany, the US and Canada on climate and energy policies.”

The Climate Change weeks culminated in the Green Unity Gala, at which Dorian made a powerful speech about the work of SJSF and the youth energy movement. The weeks stimulated conversation among many branches of the environmental movement on Brandeis campus, and widened my view of the issue. Whether across town or across the ocean, these are the kinds of partnerships we need to forge to make this movement work. WATCH, NCV, HEET, German Studies, SJSF crew–many thanks to all who contributed to a successful semester and I can’t wait to keep working with you all!