My First Task: Beat Big Oil
Yep - I'll be heading back to the golden state for my first placement. As I learned more about Prop 23, I realized that this is the chance of a lifetime to work on a campaign that will have significant implications for climate legislation in the U.S. and therefore the world.
Proposition 23 is a ballot initiative funded by two Texas oil companies, Valero and Tesoro. Both companies have oil refineries in California, which are among the top ten emitters of carbon dioxide in the state. In 2006 the California state government passed a clean air law, AB32, the "Global Warming Solutions Act," that requires industry to reduce emissions that threaten public health and contribute to global climate change. This legislation was the most progressive legislation in the country at the time, and in the wake of the federal climate bill failing in the senate this spring, it still stands as the country's strongest climate legislation.
Prop 23 would suspend AB32 until California's economy improves following the recession. Unemployment in California is currently at a grim 12%, and Prop 23 proposes to suspend AB32 until unemployment falls below 5%. On the surface this seems like a good idea, if AB32 is indeed standing in the way of new industry jobs. The caveat is that the unemployment rate rarely falls below 5% in California, and is not projected to do so in the foreseeable future. Therefore, Prop 23 would effectively kill AB32. The clean energy sector, which AB32 encourages and supports, has grown ten times faster than any other sector in California since 2005, and has created jobs in manufacturing and construction where others have been lost to the recession. At the most basic level, this campaign pits shortsighted special interests against long-term sustainable development - the very problem facing communities the world over.
I'll be working in Berkeley and the Bay area to educate the public about the issue, and organize a portion of "Get Out the Vote" (the program started during Obama's campaign to raise voter turnout). Voter turnout during presidential elections can be as low as 30%, and is even worse during midterm elections. The Bay area is very liberal, and harbors huge support for climate legislation, so it's my job to mobilize that support and get people to the ballot box. I'll also be recruiting for Green Corps at UC Berkeley which will be a blast; I'll get to relive my university days vicariously through my volunteers.
Credo Mobile, a California cell phone company, is funding the campaign. They're a company that allots a portion of their budget to socially responsible actions. Cindy Kang, the Director of Green Corps, said they had a tough time deciding whether to partner with a company, because they've historically only worked with non-profits. They decided to do it in this case because the stakes are so high and we're up against so much money. This made sense to me. While I think that environmental groups have to be very careful about which businesses they work with, I think it's counterproductive to draw a line in the sand between the corporate and non-profit worlds. If more partnerships like this one were made, it would strengthen the legitimacy of environmental groups and make them competitive against big coal, big oil, and big agriculture.
Thoughts of Home
Speaking of the big three, my favorite speaker in this last week of training was Lorelei Scarboro. Lorelei was born and bred in West Virginia. Growing up she ate fish from the rivers and whatever her Daddy brought home from hunting in the woods. Her father was a coal miner, as was her grandfather, and as was her husband, who died of black lung disease. Lorelei is now 55, and stayed at home her whole life raising three kids. Her husband worked underground, and it was only a decade ago when Lorelei first became aware of a new type of mining deemed "Mountain Top Mining," or "MTM" by the coal companies. It is better known to the public as "Mountain Top Removal," or "MTR," which is a much more accurate name for the practice.
Mountain top removal mining is done by first clear-cutting the forest, and then literally blowing the tops off of mountains with ammonium nitrate and fuel oil. This creates flat moonscapes identical to those seen in the tar sands. 500 mountains in Appalachia have been flattened this way thus far, destroying thousands of acres of montane habitat. The health of those living in coal country is also significantly affected. The blasting carries coal dust and silica down the mountainsides, and heavy metals running off the sites find their way into community wells. In Prenter Holler, a small Appalachian town of 200, over 90% of adults have had their gallbladders removed due to cancer. For a news clip, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6C5sUTIbbY Lorelei told us all of this in an endearing southern drawl that reminded me of Arlo Guthrie.
She has spent the last three years campaigning for a moratorium to be placed on MTR, and has met with dozens of senators and EPA officials. She's a champion of transition jobs. Her son-in-law works at an MTR site to support Lorelei's daughter and grandchildren, but would work somewhere else in a heartbeat if he had the choice. Lorelei is advocating for the government to fund habitat restoration projects at thousands of old mines, and is working with international clean energy companies to exploit the wind energy potential of the mountains.
All of this reminded me of the Tar Sands issue in Canada. There, the scale of development dwarfs these MTR projects, however it's taking place so far north that it is largely out of the public eye. It's incredible to think that here in the U.S. people are literally dying due to resource extraction practices, and despite being vocal about it, these practices are still being permitted by the government. I subsequently have no hope for the Tar Sands being shut down in Canada any time soon.
Despite this, one must do what one knows to be right, and so I will work in California to uphold climate change legislation that will hopefully, ever-so-slightly, move the world's biggest economy one baby-step closer to kicking the fossil fuel habit. It will be a long, frustrating, and rewarding road.
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