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Welcome to Energy Justice Now, Energy Justice Network's first monthly newsletter! Some
of you are on our email discussion lists while others may not have
heard from us in years. We're happy to now be at a point where we can
engage and support more people, and let you all know what we're doing.
Energy Justice Now
will provide critical reporting on the entire spectrum of the dirty
energy resistance, highlighting the voices of community organizers
battling fossil fuels, nuclear power, and biomass and waste incineration
from sea to shining sea. We are accepting submissions at Josh [at]
energyjustice [dot] net.
Energy
Justice Network exists to build, support and network grassroots
community organizations fighting dirty and unnecessary energy and waste
industry facilities. We've helped communities win victories against coal
and gas-fired power plants, incinerators of every sort (trash,
'biomass,' tires, poultry waste, sewage sludge, medical waste...),
landfills, fracking, pipelines, refineries, ethanol biorefineries,
nuclear facilities and more.
Our
approach includes connecting people fighting similar industries so that
they're helping one another as a network, rather than our trying to
only provide top-down support. Through network-building, we help bring
people from a Not In My Backyard (NIMBY) mindset to a Not in Anyone's
Backyard (NIABY) approach toward dirty technologies for which clean
alternatives exist.
In
2006, we pulled together the nation's first and only grassroots "No New
Coal Plants" network, contributing to the defeat of 85% of 200+ coal
power plant proposals. We also brought together a national grassroots
movement against "biomass" incinerators (burning trees, wood waste,
poultry waste and more), and saw about 50 proposals for waste and biomass incinerators defeated within our network just since 2010. We hope
to do the same soon for those fighting the hundreds of gas-fired power
plants now proposed. Without the big money other groups have to bring
people together for national conferences, we've connected people via
email discussion lists and conference calls.
Our
work focuses on providing tools grassroots community activists need to
win. This includes providing strategy and organizing advice, research
support, information of many sorts (on problems with technologies and
fuels, corporate track records, relevant public policies...),
speaking/training, local environmental ordinances, mapping tools,
connecting student and community activists, and much more. For more
info, see our website for our history, accomplishments, and to learn about the services we provide.
Public Lands, Dirty Energy
- by Josh Schlossberg, Energy Justice Network
Grassroots advocates have done a bang up job alerting the American
public to the disturbing health and environmental impacts of the
extraction, transportation, and generation of dirty energy (fossil
fuels, nuclear power, and biomass/trash incineration). Greenhouse gases,
air pollution, and water contamination from energy sources requiring
smokestacks or cooling towers have become common knowledge to all but
the willfully ignorant.
However, to achieve a critical mass of action that will influence public policy and shift private investment away from energy sources that cause more harm than good, dirty energy opponents must find common threads to weave the fabric of the movement together.
One such thread consists of the forests, prairies, and deserts on public lands that belong to every U.S. citizen, and the threat dirty energy poses to it all.
READ MORE
On the Policy Front...
- by Mike Ewall, Energy Justice Network
While Energy Justice Network's work is mainly focused on helping you win grassroots victories, we've had to weigh in on some state and national policies that would have major consequences for how many bad ideas need to be fought. Misguided policies aiming to limit coal or climate pollution continue to push (fracked) gas and biomass/waste incineration as false solutions. We encourage you to look over some of the well-documented comments we put together and to borrow from them in your own work, as needed.
EPA's CO2 Rule for New Fossil Fuel Power Plants: Thank you to the nearly 600 of you who responded to our action alert in May, telling EPA that loopholes for "clean coal" / carbon sequestration, natural gas, biomass and waste incineration are unacceptable!
Department of Energy Subsidies for Incinerators: A Solyndra-related program to provide billions in loan guarantees to renewable energy and energy efficiency would subsidize trash and biomass incinerators and biofuels, even though the program is required to fund only technologies that reduce greenhouse gases. These technologies are among the worst greenhouse gas emitters! Within just six days, over the 3-day Memorial Day weekend, we pulled together 131 groups on a sign-on letter challenging this, including about 100 grassroots or state/regional groups from 27 states plus DC and Puerto Rico as well as about 30 national / international groups, including some of the big greens: Clean Water Action, Earthjustice, Food & Water Watch, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace USA and Sierra Club.
COMING UP: EPA's CO2 Rule for Existing Fossil Fuel Power Plants:
this 645-page rule just came out this week, and is riddled with loopholes as we
expected. We're concerned that this rule does far too little (nearly
2/3rds of the reductions required by 2020 over 2005 emissions levels
were already accomplished without any rule!), and that it could do more
harm than good by encouraging a switch from coal to
fuels more polluting than coal for the climate, like natural gas and biomass/waste incineration. Biomass is 50% worse than coal for the climate; trash incineration 2.5 times worse.
The plan also would keep open risky and dangerous old nuclear power plants that the industry recently decided it wants to close, and subsidize the building of new reactors, sucking up the money we need for a genuine transition to clean energy. Coal is already on the decline without a CO2 rule due to activism and geology (we've used much of it up and the remainder is getting too expensive to extract). This rule is so weak that it'll do less than what would happen anyway, but could make things worse if we don't beat down these false solutions.
EPA's Waste-to-Fuels (WTF) Deregulation: We're working with Earthjustice and
the Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance (GAIA) to figure out how to stop
this dreadful trend to redefine wastes into unregulated "fuels" that can
be burned in any of about one million boilers in the nation's
industries, schools, hospitals and other businesses.
READ MORE
In Solidarity,
Mike Ewall, Josh Schlossberg, Samantha Chirillo, and Rachel Smolker
Editors, Energy Justice Now
Thanks to Alex Zahradnik Design for the awesome new logo!
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TAKE ACTION!
Energy Justice Summer
This summer, SustainUS and Energy Justice Network are launching a joint project called “Energy Justice Summer” to work in solidarity communities directly impacted by fracking in Pennsylvania.
By supporting and joining our campaign, you will help to stop fracking and bring about a more just energy future. From the frontlines of fracking in Pennsylvania to the devastation of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, people are suffering because of continued fossil fuel extraction. We need to show that fracking is unacceptable and that young people will stand in solidarity with the communities most impacted.
Sign up here for Energy Justice Summer to tell us more about you and get notifications of our events and actions as they are announced!
GET INVOLVED
Energy Justice Network Email Lists
Want to connect with other grassroots advocates across the country fighting dirty energy?
Energy Justice Network hosts seven different email lists each focused on opposing a particular form of dirty energy, from Nuclear, to Natural Gas, to Coal, to Biomass/Waste Incineration, to Ethanol, to Tire Burning, to Power Lines.
Join together with thousands of likeminded folks across the country working on the issues you care about most!
To sign up for any (or all) of the lists, send an email to Niaby [at] energyjustice [dot] net, specifying in the email subject which list you’d like to join and we’ll be in touch!
ACTIVIST TOOLKIT
Energy Justice Map
Energy Justice Network is mapping all of the existing, proposed, closed and defeated dirty energy facilities in the United States and building a network of community groups to fight the corporations behind them.
To plug in, go to EnergyJustice.net/map
INFOSHOP
Learn about dirty energy impacts and the alternatives through our factsheets, powerpoints, and the following pages:
Natural Gas
Coal
Biomass
Nuclear
Trash Incineration
Landfill Gas
Zero Waste
Biofuels
Geothermal
Hydroelectric
Hydrogen/Fuel Cells
Clean Energy Solutions
Environmental Justice
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