Green Design » Resource – Business

EPA Stops Coal Companies From Destroying Hundreds of Mountaintops and Streams With High Explosives

Joe Romm — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:48:38 +0000

This week the EPA scored a one-two combination against our unsustainable use of fossil fuels.

Monday, three weeks earlier than expected, the EPA announced that greenhouse gases are pollutants that endanger public health and welfare (see here), requiring the Obama administration to regulate them in accordance with the Clean Air Act.

And yesterday, the EPA put a hold on hundreds of surface coal mine operations allowing the Agency time to assess the projects’ detrimental impact on the life of streams and wetlands. (More details here.)

The EPA’s announcement is among the initial blows landed in the fight between the Agency and producers of climate-changing, civilization-ending greenhouse gases.

The first skirmish happened earlier this month when, on the same day that the EPA announced plans to regulate coal ash (see here), 4,000 gallons of the toxic sludge mysteriously broke its barriers and spilled into the North Branch Potomac River.

This was not the first, nor the biggest spill in recent memory (see The day ‘clean coal’ died and Breaking: Second TVA coal ash pond ruptures — at Widows Creek coal plant) though the ash slurry flowing down the Potomac, heading for the nation’s capital, seemed to send a conspicuous message.

The AP reports:

Under the Clean Water Act, companies cannot discharge rock, dirt and other debris into streams unless they can show that it will not cause permanent damage to waterways or the fish and other wildlife that live in them.

So if dumping coal wastes into America’s watersheds causes “permanent damage” to the wildlife that (used to) live there, the coal industry would have to cease this practice under penalty of law. Note that the Clean Water Act puts the burden of proof on the coal companies, stating that they must demonstrate their dumping “will not cause permanent damage.”

I wonder if the Army Corps of Engineers–the agency responsible for issuing permits to explode over 500 mountain tops and destroy over 1,200 miles of streams–has remained faithful to this legal provision. Has any coal company ever produced evidence that their dirty practices do not permanently affect the well-being of freshwater ecosystems?

I expect Lisa Jackson will find coal wastes are just as terrible for long-term ecosystem health as crude oil.

Indeed the EPA’s two letters sent to the Army Corps on Monday asserted that mining industry plans to fill in approximately 2.5 miles of stream in Logan County W.Va. would “result in substantial and unacceptable impacts to aquatic resources of national importance,”–not to mention the impacts on employment (mountain top removal mining is more destructive and employs far fewer workers than traditional surface or pit mining) and local communities.

Though the coal industry will surely spend millions lobbying and litigating against environmental oversight, much of Appalachia views the EPA’s decision as a shared victory.

A letter from Appalachian voices, a North Carolina based grassroots organization, expresses this sentiment:

Community and environmental groups across Appalachia strongly applauded the EPA’s Tuesday decision to delay and review permits for two mountaintop removal coal mining operations. The EPA’s action calls into question over 100 pending valley fill permits that threaten to bury hundreds more miles of headwater streams.Mountaintop removal coal mining is an extreme form of surface mining where explosives are used to blast up to 1000 feet of mountaintop in order to reach thin seams of coal. The remaining rubble, or overburden, which contains toxic heavy metal particles, is dumped into adjacent valleys burying headwater streams. Over 1200 miles of streams and 500 mountains have been destroyed due to mountaintop removal.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama expressed concern over mountaintop removal, stating “we have to find more environmentally sound ways of mining coal than simply blowing the tops off mountains.”

“This decision illustrates a dramatic departure from the energy policies that are destroying the mountains, the culture, the rivers and forests of Appalachia, and our most deeply held American values,” said Bobby Kennedy Jr., Chairman of the Waterkeeper Alliance. “By this decision, President Obama signals our embarking on a new energy future that promises wholesome, dignified, prosperous and healthy communities that treasure our national resources.”

Mountaintop removal coal mining, a heavily mechanized process, employs far fewer workers than underground mining. Coal mining once provided over 120,000 jobs in West Virginia alone, but that number has dropped to less than 20,000. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, counties with a high concentration of mountaintop removal mines are some of the most impoverished counties in the United States.

Groups in the region view the recent EPA decision as an acknowledgement of the destruction mountaintop removal coal mining inflicts on the environment and communities of central Appalachia. They hope that, with the halt of new mountaintop removal mining permits, there will be room for green industry and that the president’s green jobs stimulus and renewable energy development plans will reach the Appalachian coalfields.

“Not only does mountaintop removal coal mining destroy mountains, it also destroys the economic potential of Appalachia,” said Dr. Matthew Wasson, Director of Programs for the environmental non-profit organization Appalachian Voices. “This decision rekindles hope for a new economy in Appalachia built around green jobs and renewable energy,” Wasson said.

Carl Shoupe, a retired coal miner and member of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, echoed Wasson’s sentiment that this decision is a step in the right direction. “We finally have an administration in place that uses scientific reasoning to make decisions instead of ideology,” Shoupe said. “We fought for this for years. I hope the EPA comes through and permanently stops the permits in our community.”

It’s exciting to see that the EPA has returned with vigor from an 8-year dormancy, and is doing its job protecting environmental and human health.

– Sean Pool and Carlin Rosengarten

This piece originally appeared on Climate Progress.

Related posts: EPA Makes Landmark Finding: Global Warming Threatens Public Health and Welfare

Photo credit: flickr/The Sierra Club, Creative Commons License.

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(Posted by Joe Romm in Resource - Business at 1:48 PM)

EPA Stops Coal Companies From Destroying Hundreds of Mountaintops and Streams With High Explosives

Joe Romm — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:48:38 +0000

This week the EPA scored a one-two combination against our unsustainable use of fossil fuels.

The EPA’s announcement is among the initial blows landed in the fight between the Agency and producers of climate-changing, civilization-ending greenhouse gases.

The AP reports:

Under the Clean Water Act, companies cannot discharge rock, dirt and other debris into streams unless they can show that it will not cause permanent damage to waterways or the fish and other wildlife that live in them.

I expect Lisa Jackson will find coal wastes are just as terrible for long-term ecosystem health as crude oil.

Though the coal industry will surely spend millions lobbying and litigating against environmental oversight, much of Appalachia views the EPA’s decision as a shared victory.

A letter from Appalachian voices, a North Carolina based grassroots organization, expresses this sentiment:

Community and environmental groups across Appalachia strongly applauded the EPA’s Tuesday decision to delay and review permits for two mountaintop removal coal mining operations. The EPA’s action calls into question over 100 pending valley fill permits that threaten to bury hundreds more miles of headwater streams.Mountaintop removal coal mining is an extreme form of surface mining where explosives are used to blast up to 1000 feet of mountaintop in order to reach thin seams of coal. The remaining rubble, or overburden, which contains toxic heavy metal particles, is dumped into adjacent valleys burying headwater streams. Over 1200 miles of streams and 500 mountains have been destroyed due to mountaintop removal.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama expressed concern over mountaintop removal, stating “we have to find more environmentally sound ways of mining coal than simply blowing the tops off mountains.”

“This decision illustrates a dramatic departure from the energy policies that are destroying the mountains, the culture, the rivers and forests of Appalachia, and our most deeply held American values,” said Bobby Kennedy Jr., Chairman of the Waterkeeper Alliance. “By this decision, President Obama signals our embarking on a new energy future that promises wholesome, dignified, prosperous and healthy communities that treasure our national resources.”

Mountaintop removal coal mining, a heavily mechanized process, employs far fewer workers than underground mining. Coal mining once provided over 120,000 jobs in West Virginia alone, but that number has dropped to less than 20,000. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, counties with a high concentration of mountaintop removal mines are some of the most impoverished counties in the United States.

Groups in the region view the recent EPA decision as an acknowledgement of the destruction mountaintop removal coal mining inflicts on the environment and communities of central Appalachia. They hope that, with the halt of new mountaintop removal mining permits, there will be room for green industry and that the president’s green jobs stimulus and renewable energy development plans will reach the Appalachian coalfields.

“Not only does mountaintop removal coal mining destroy mountains, it also destroys the economic potential of Appalachia,” said Dr. Matthew Wasson, Director of Programs for the environmental non-profit organization Appalachian Voices. “This decision rekindles hope for a new economy in Appalachia built around green jobs and renewable energy,” Wasson said.

Carl Shoupe, a retired coal miner and member of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, echoed Wasson’s sentiment that this decision is a step in the right direction. “We finally have an administration in place that uses scientific reasoning to make decisions instead of ideology,” Shoupe said. “We fought for this for years. I hope the EPA comes through and permanently stops the permits in our community.”

It’s exciting to see that the EPA has returned with vigor from an 8-year dormancy, and is doing its job protecting environmental and human health.

– Sean Pool and Carlin Rosengarten

This piece originally appeared on Climate Progress.

Related posts: EPA Makes Landmark Finding: Global Warming Threatens Public Health and Welfare

Photo credit: flickr/The Sierra Club, Creative Commons License.

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(Posted by Joe Romm in Resource - Business at 1:48 PM)

Create Your Own Currency

Sarah Kuck — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 18:51:50 +0000

"Money," wrote Jamais Cascio, "is the tangible manifestation of an agreement between you and other people that the oddly-colored piece of paper in your hands has value."

But what's truly valuable is not those units of currency, so much as the units of time they represent to those who earn and spend them. Two women from Ashland, Ore., who follow this philosophy have created a way to turn units of time into currency that can be directly traded and track through their online system OurNexChange. This "community currency" allows local residents to buy goods and services without exchanging any money.

Sharon Miranda and Libby VanWyhe recently told the Ashland Daily Tidings about the system:

"The whole idea is to harness the resources of our businesses, organizations and government into a system that provides sustainability," Miranda said.

This would be done through a Web-based system that would track the exchange of currency units through users' accounts. There would be no tangible money.

"The idea is it's an online complementary currency exchange program," VanWyhe said.

To get started, all you need to do is apply. After that, you are awarded "Trade Dollars," which you earn by volunteering, working for a neighbor or bartering. If you watched your neighbor's children for an hour, for example, he could pay you in Trade Dollars online or could trade you for an hour of weeding in your garden. Using the OurNexChange system, you can easily record and keep track of this time and work. Businesses and organizations will also be allowed to participate, and will be awarded a line of credit to begin with to get things moving.

A community cooperative will help run the transaction fee funded system, but what will ultimately sustain the community currency will be a willingness from the community to participate.

The system, which took about six years to create, mostly relies on trust and transparency. Each transaction takes place online, and is recorded within the system. Users can then rate and provide feedback for each other, search the directory or use the systems networking tools.

The two said that they didn't design the system to operate in place of the current economic system, but to enhance it. Although, the better it works, the less people will need to rely on the dollar.

Miranda told the Ashland Daily Tidings that this system is more stable in the long run because the value of someone's time does not fluctuate as currency does. And in hard economic times, being able to spend and earn time instead of money helps the local market for services stay afloat.

"We're developing a conscious community of choice," Miranda said. "It requires everyone to stand up into their roles."

For another great example of DIY-currency, check out L.A.'s Echo Park Time Bank or learn more about the idea of TimeBanks here.

What's worldchanging about creating your own currency (if you can get it flowing) is how stable and therefore sustainable it is. With your value of time being equal, the system is less subject to fluctuation. With value placed on your time, you work for what you need, reducing waste and excess. And in working with your neighbors, you increase trust, which might be one of the biggest stabilizers of all.

Image credit: Flickr/mins3rdkid

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(Posted by Sarah Kuck in Resource - Business at 10:51 AM)

Citizen Renaissance: A Conversation Toward a New Economy

Julia Levitt — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 04:23:28 +0000

A few months ago, we posted about a WWF-UK report that predicted the "green" consumer craze would eventually hit a wall. According to the report's author, Dr. Tom Crompton, the marketing approach to green products, green lifestyles and individual small steps, when "sold" to consumers using the same kinds of pitches used for most other commercial goods, didn't run deep enough to change an individual's core values or true consumption habits. He argued that in fact, the approach could even be detrimental to sustainability – if it simply encouraged more people to buy more stuff.

Identifying the problem was an important first step. The next step – finding a way to appeal to people's intrinsic values, to make them adopt a simpler, less consumption-oriented lifestyle because they truly want that – is more difficult.

Now a friend and former colleague of Crompton's, author and quality of life consultant Jules Peck, has teamed up with Edelman UK CEO Robert Phillips on an independent project meant to produce some of the answers to the question: What will it take to restructure our economy into a system that promotes the well-being of individuals and the environment, while encouraging a voluntary decrease in superfluous consumption?

The result of their study is www.citizenrenaissance.com, a collaborative project that has led to a white paper and will eventually become a book. As they develop the book, they are going to encourage a wiki-style interactive debate to push the conversation even further. In their words:

When we started writing, we sensed that there was something genuinely interesting and powerful in the convergence of three seismic shifts of our time: Climate Change; the awakening to Wellbeing; and the reforming power of Digital Democracy. We see tremendous potential for a major turning point in consumerism as we know it, and our current communications landscape. We seek to engender and facilitate a debate, an accelerator for public conversation to focus on the biggest and most urgent issues of our times.

Peck and Phillips posit that in order to make the economy work for both people and the planet, we must shift the focus from quantitative, growth-oriented measures like GDP and onto measures of qualitative development. They envision a new "Wellbeing Economy" and "Ecological Economy," which will measure and define economic progress in a way that accounts for environmental and social issues, and that can supplement GDP as a central measure of the state of nations.

Among the models that they cite in their research are those put forward by York University economist Peter Victor and Fritz Schumacher, author of the book Small is Beautiful.

An excerpt from their work:

It is important to be aware that the idea of merely ‘greening’ consumption will not achieve the necessary absolute reductions in use of resources and creation of waste. The scale and urgency of issues such as Climate Change, ecosystem collapse, energy, water and food famine and poverty are such that ‘slightly better’ just will not do. The crucial part of the above definition of qualitative development relates to the ‘carrying capacity’ of natural systems. These are already overloaded. Achievements like an 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050 are impossibilities in the context of expected ‘business as usual’ growth.

What is needed, we think, is a shift in developed-country societal focus to psycho-spiritual real needs and away from an approach that attempts to deliver to created desires through relative-materialism. In addition we need to take an approach that no longer makes a god of growth and aims for a steady-state economy.

An economic revolution, and a shift from being passive consumers of products and politics to active citizens seem like they will be positive adaptations in a world of finite resources, a growing human population, and quickly developing societies around the world that are searching for prosperity for their citizens. If you have ideas to contribute to the study, we encourage you to add them to this collaborative conversation.

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(Posted by Julia Levitt in Resource - Business at 8:23 PM)

Oil Addiction and Recession

WorldChanging Team — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 00:47:19 +0000

Vulnerability to oil prices helped cause this collapse.

by Alan Durning

Poorly regulated real-estate lending wasn’t the only cause of the economic meltdown now gripping the industrial economies. Oil addiction also contributed.

The extraordinary rise in oil prices since 2003 has sucked hundreds of billions of dollars out of the US economy (and the Cascadian economy). High oil prices have been a contributing cause of most recessions: Since 1948, “all large oil price increases but two have been followed by recessions,” as Andrew Hoerner and Nia Robinson of Redefining Progress (RP) write (pdf). “Four of the five recessions since 1970 . . . were preceded by big jumps in oil prices.” The figure above, from the Reserve Bank of St. Louis (hat tip to RP), illustrates the point. Shaded gray bars show the recessions officially declared by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The black and blue lines show the price of oil in inflation-adjusted “real” terms and in unadjusted “nominal” terms.

What’s more, the oil price surges of the recent past helped to trigger the wave of defaults and foreclosures that revealed the overextension of US mortgage lending. High energy prices have severely strained family budgets—especially low- and moderate-income family budgets. Some of those families couldn’t afford to keep paying their mortgages and also buy gasoline.

In short, if we weren’t so addicted to oil, we would not be so vulnerable to price shocks. This fact underlines the importance of seizing the opportunity of the financial meltdown and its resulting economic downturn to break the addiction.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Resource - Business at 4:47 PM)

Book Review: Nudge

WorldChanging Team — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 18:36:55 +0000

By Coco Krumme

Call it the Malcolm Gladwell effect. With its pristine cover design and one-word title, Nudge---an engaging jaunt through the field of behavioral economics--- seems at first glance to belong to a certain species of book. Gladwell’s ‘Tipping Point’ ushered in an era of white covers, crisp titles, and catchy anecdotes connected by a thesis: think Wikinomics, Blink, Go.

But Nudge has an interesting prospect beneath its slick white cover. Authored by two Univeristy of Chicago heavy-hitters, Economist Richard Thaler and Law Professor Cass Sunstein, the book explores the policy implications of behavioral economics, a field describing the irrationalities of human behavior. Taking findings from psychology (e.g. people procrastinate; they’re averse to losing money), Thaler and Sunstein propose policies to help us make the best decisions, in light of our irrational tendencies. In a classic example, they suggest we design 401k plans to require “opting-out” rather than “opting-in,” thus encouraging people to save by default.

The core idea of behavioral economics—that humans don’t behave like rational economic agents-- is several decades old, and the authors lean heavily on the work of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky (and to some extent, Herbert Simon). But Nudge goes beyond psychological research to suggest concrete ways to improve public policy in light of experimental findings.

Humans are bad at long-term planning: but what if cars came with stickers tallying the monthly cost of gas over the next five years: sticker shock might lead buyers to a more efficient car? Or what if we “nudged” people to conserve energy by showing how their energy use stacks up with that of neighbors? Thaler and Sunstein cite an experiment in which residents of a Southern California town reduced their peak usage by 40% once they were incited to compete with households next door.

It’s not hard to imagine other psychological tricks to encourage energy (or financial) savings. What about a thermostat that displays the cost per hour of raising the heat by one degree, as Thaler proposes in a 2008 talk at Google?

The strength of Nudge lies in the insight that there exists a third way in designing social policies while preserving market forces and individual freedoms. We need not go whole hog in order to eke out efficiencies, whether in personal savings or recycling. While Energy Bill talks iterate endlessly through Congress and Kyoto stalls out at the starting line, city governments, technology innovators and homeowners are coming up with smart ways to use our irrational tendencies to our (and the planet’s) advantage.

But can the concept be generalized? Thaler and Sunstein suggest it can be (they tag their broader concept “liberal paternalism”). It’s true that the new wave of behavioral economists, like the experimental economists (a la Steven Leavitt) who preceded them, are the sort you’d like to have around at a cocktail party (especially if the alternative includes old-guard number-crunchers at the Fed). Down with equations –this new generation proclaims—experimentation is Economics’ new currency! Yet, for all of the joys of experimenting, poking holes in old theory doth not a new one make.

Kahneman and Tversky’s brilliance lay in the recognition of the classical model’s flaws, but there’s a certain risk in generalizing these—as Thaler himself dubbed them-- “anomalies”. Dust has been kicked in the face of the old guard: that may be success enough. But we can go further. New research about the brain holds promise, as do increasingly refined methods to tap meaning from large sets of human data. Behavioral economics has laid the groundwork for injecting observed human behavior into the old models. It will be exciting to see, when the dust settles, what new ones emerge.

Coco Krumme lives in San Francisco.

Photo credit: Yale University Press

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Resource - Business at 10:36 AM)

Resource: NDRC Green Enterprise

Julia Steinberger — Thu, 15 May 2008 01:55:08 +0000

There's a lot of evidence to suggest that sustainability and business are a good match. We've often said as much. Amid the many voices out there clamoring for businesses to "go greener," however, the National Resources Defense Council (NDRC) has put out a new resource that may do quite a lot of good.

The NRDC Greening Advisor, as this online guidebook is called, is a no-nonsense guide to examining and improving your company's environmental impact. We like that its businesslike language spares its users any of the green movement's ubiquitous cute rhetoric (the peppy tone has certainly got its place, but not in the boardroom). In fact, the main page practically apologizes for the use of the term "greening:"

Greening an organization is a colloquial way of saying that we’re working to ecologically improve an institution’s supply chain and day-to-day operations.

The site directs users through a series of response-to-climate-crisis tutorials, from a clear and reasoned explanation of the social, environmental and economic threats we're facing as well as the basic business sense of reducing waste and increasing efficiency.

The NDRC goes on to offer concrete, usable solutions for businesses that range from the extremely short-term (using both sides of your paper) to the more far-reaching. Plans for corporate improvement include company-wide environmental policy statements, sustainability reports, energy-efficient building renovations and smarter waste-reduction policies.

Along with nearly every suggestion, the guide offers pragmatic resources, from lists of best products and links to reputable sources, to sample letters and contract language. Often, there are illustrative examples from other big businesses that have successfully implemented green policies.

The NDRC itself admits that the guide is not exhaustive, and we have to agree. While the suggestions for improvement will put a company on the right track to lessening its footprint at the headquarters, the solutions offered don't begin to address issues like how a consumer-packaged-goods company transports its products, designs its manufacturing systems or sources its labor. But as a manual for making-over your office, the NDRC's green enterprise guide offers an inspiring plan, conveyed sensibly and in manageable chunks, and we find that hard to argue with.

Main photo by Michael Galpert, licensed by Creative Commons. NDRC logo, borrowed from NDRC.

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(Posted by Julia Steinberger in Resource - Business at 5:55 PM)