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 Brown called 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 the former 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 Journal provides 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.

COAL COUNTRY: Thursday, Feb. 24

Colombian mine explosion

“Ana Luz Acosta, a relative of miner Jorge Lara, sheds tears outside La Preciosa mine in Sardinata, northeastern Colombia, Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2011. Lara is among 20 miners feared dead after an explosion believed to have been caused by a methane gas buildup rocked the underground coal mine early Wednesday. Methane gas was also believed to be the cause of an explosion at the mine in 2007 that killed 32 miners.” Image and caption, Associated Press.

Most of the coal we burn in Massachusetts – including the coal burned at the Mount Tom power station in Holyoke – comes from Colombia. So we have a very real connection to the miners at La Preciosa coal mine in Sardinata, Colombia, where an explosion has claimed twenty-one lives.

I am trying to identify workers' organizations that we in Massachusetts can work with to support the injured miners and bereaved families. So far I've contacted the United Mineworkers of America, Justice for Colombia, and the Colombian branch of the International Labor Organization. As soon as I have any news I'll post it.

In the meantime, if you know of any other organizations likely to have on-the-ground links to the community near La Preciosa, please tell me (peter@petervickery.com) and I'll help spread the word.

The struggle of the coal-miners of Colombia is intimately bound up with our campaign for climate justice. Let's show some real solidarity.

Op-ed in Daily Hampshire Gazette

Plea to coal plant: Burn gas, not coal
by Peter Vickery & Dick Stein
Daily Hampshire Gazette, Wednesday, January 5, page c1

News of the planned closing of the Salem Harbor coal-fired power station has leaked out. Could something similar happen to the coal-burning power station at Mount Tom in Holyoke, on the upper Valley’s doorstep?

Tighter regulations and rising prices are pushing power companies away from coal, so almost every week somewhere in America a coal-plant is shutting down. If the company that owns Mount Tom (GDF Suez) follows the national trend, the plant’s days may be numbered. Because of the damage coal does to children’s lungs and the impact it has on the climate, some people might rejoice.

But we would certainly not be among them, much as we want to see a speedy transition from coal to cleaner energy. Why not? Because in addition to electricity, Mount Tom generates some real and much-needed benefits for Holyoke, benefits like jobs and taxes. Last year, the City of Holyoke took in almost $2 million from the plant, which provides employment for more than 50 local people. If the jobs and taxes disappeared, Holyoke would suffer, and neighboring communities would feel the knock-on effects.

We need to keep Mount Tom open, minus the coal. Moving from coal to renewable energy is an urgent priority. Climate change is starting to bite – the outgoing year, 2010, was the second hottest since records began – and coal makes up about one-third of our country’s output of the main cause of human-made climate change, CO2. So we can get serious about tackling climate change, or we can carry on burning coal; but we can’t do both.

Can we move Mount Tom away from coal while protecting existing jobs, creating new ones, and keeping those tax dollars flowing for Holyoke? Fortunately, the answer is yes we can. One option is to repower Mount Tom from coal to natural gas. Although natural gas is a fossil fuel, it emits much less carbon dioxide than coal, which is why some states (like Minnesota and Colorado) are requiring utilities to switch from coal to natural gas.

At this point, unfortunately, wind and solar energy are not by themselves feasible substitutes for coal at Mount Tom. It would take many more wind turbines than the landscape has room for – or about 300 football-fields worth of solar panels – to generate 146 MW of electricity. But with natural gas, Mount Tom could produce three times as much electricity as it produces now and at a fraction of the carbon cost. With higher profits from increased sales, GDF Suez could afford to absorb the upfront expense of repowering the plant. By the way, this is a company that is investing $2 billion (yes, billion) in a coastal wind park off northern France.

Natural gas could be an interim stage in the process of moving Mount Tom away from coal, a stepping stone on the path to 100% renewable energy. There are downsides, certainly. Getting natural gas out from underground through the process of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking” for short, can contaminate drinking water. Crazily, in 2005 Congress exempted fracking from key provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act. But instead of waiting for Congress to come to its senses and reverse itself, Colorado has also moved to close the loophole and written its own regulations to keep drinking water safe from the side-effects of fracking.

Natural gas is by no means a perfect solution. But as a stop-gap measure, it has merit so long as we follow Colorado’s example and ensure that the gas companies extract it responsibly and safely. This step-by-step approach, using natural gas as a bridge from coal to renewable energy, could create hundreds of jobs, both in the construction and green-tech sectors. Just expanding the gas pipeline (currently operating at full capacity) would involve new jobs. Refitting and reconfiguring the site, replacing the coal boilers with high-efficiency gas turbines, would involve hundreds more.

Is it practical to repower a coal-fired plant to natural gas? Yes, it’s happening not just in Colorado and Minnesota but much closer to home. The University of Massachusetts, Amherst, repowered from coal to natural gas and now boasts a system that doesn’t waste energy the way a coal boiler does. When a power station burns coal, only some of the energy goes toward making electricity. The rest gets wasted. In contrast, UMass now uses that energy to heat offices, classrooms, and dorms across the campus.

Unemployment is high and the climate crisis is deepening, but we can do something very practical to meet those challenges right here in the Pioneer Valley by taking the UMass example and scaling it. Repowering Mount Tom from coal to cleaner energy would protect existing jobs, create new ones, maintain Holyoke’s tax revenue, and help get the climate back in balance. Good news for Holyoke and the surrounding communities; good news for GDF Suez; and good news for our climate. That’s not just a win-win solution. It’s a win-win-win.
To make it happen, our elected officials need to engage GDF Suez in dialog, and it is up to active citizens to nudge them.

In the coming months, we look forward to a grassroots coalition of community organizations joining together to get our political leaders and GDF Suez talking to each other about a clean-energy, green-jobs future for Mount Tom. Let’s not wait for any nasty surprises.

the most powerful Green in the world

Meet Adam Bandt, the new Green member of Australia's House of Representatives and arguably the most powerful Green in the world.

Bandt won his seat from the governing Labour Party in last Saturday's inconclusive election, which left no party in overall control, and he now finds himself in a pivotal role. A few seats short of a majority, Labour has to look to Adam Bandt and the handful of independent members of parliament in order to stay in power.

Why do I call Bandt the most powerful Green in the world (other than because of my penchant for hyperbolic headlines)? Because Australia's greenhouse gas emissions in 2009 were 537 million tonnes, "the largest amount per person of any developed country," according to the Sydney Morning Herald (May 28, 2010), and the sole Green legislator is uniquely positioned to ensure that the next government takes a big bite out of the country's GHG output. Coal is at the root of Australia's growing CO2 discharge, and a one of the main issues in the general elections was a proposed tax on coal profits. With his leverage, Bandt could force Labour to increase the coal-tax rate and push Australia away from coal and toward renewables.

So Adam Bandt, age 38, Ph.D., labor-lawyer turned legislator and a vocal supporter of marriage equality, has real power. Acquiring, maintaining, and using political power is the purpose of electoral politics, a fact lost on too many candidates of all stripes. But Bandt is one Green who is not afraid to use the word "power." See for yourself in his short campaign video.

In two minutes, Bandt defines himself, his party, the voters, and the issues. It's a masterful piece of persuasive advocacy, in my opinion, and I would welcome your comments on Bandt's message and how he presents it. In particular, I hope you'll notice the tried-and-trusted rhetorical devices.

brownout

So, no federal climate-and-energy bill until after the November elections.

As you may have read, the Democratic leadership shopped the carbon-cap bill around the Senate, did a head count, discovered that the Republicans didn't like the bill, and decided to let it go.

Oh well, thank goodness it's not urgent (please forgive the sarcasm).

Where does our own Senator Scott Brown stand on climate change? It's hard to tell. Yesterday evening, during a Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) meeting in Worcester, I called Nat Hoopes, the senator's legislative assistant in DC, and left a voicemail asking whether Senator Brown would support a comprehensive climate-and-energy bill. No word back yet.

According to UCS, when he was a state senator Scott Brown was pretty good on environmental issues. But (as I blogged) during the special election candidate Brown claimed that climate-change was something scientists had yet to reach agreement on. Now, I suspect, he's moved on to full-blown denialism, especially since he voted for an amendment that would have stripped the EPA of its authority to regulate greenhouse gases. But I live in hope and would welcome a reassuring call from the senator's office.

Do you share my curiosity about Scott Brown's voting intentions? Would you like to know whether he would support a carbon-cap bill that would bring clean-energy jobs to Massachusetts?

Here's the number to call: 202 224 4543. Ask for Nat Hoopes, Senator Brown's legislative assistant who is handling the issue. If you do manage to speak with him, please let me know.

On the Beach

We Vickerys are creatures of habit, especially when it comes to our summer holidays. We go to the same place every year, namely Bethany Beach, Delaware. Not exactly Biarritz, I know, but it's walkable, not too overbuilt, and family friendly.

During this year's trip to Bethany Beach we decided to attend the nearest 350.org Hands Across the Sands event to protest offshore drilling. The organizer was a high-school student, which was encouraging. She told us the start time and gave us clear directions. All we had to do was walk about one quarter of a mile up the beach to the rendezvous point, join hands with other climate-action types, pose for a few photographs for uploading to the Hands Across the Sands website, and head home for lunch with a warm glow of worthiness.

Moving two adults and three kids along a quarter mile of sand is a straightforward task (it's just Bethany Beach, not the Oregon Trail) and we should have accomplished it in under 15 minutes. We set off at 10:45, aiming to be there for the great hand-holding ceremony on the dot of 11 o'clock. But before we'd reached the garden gate Pixie (12) decided she had to change footwear (flip-flop issues), and then -- when we were properly under way -- Arthur (5) noticed several pieces of driftwood in need of protracted inspection, and Peter (43) spotted dolphins out in the bay and how can you not stop to watch the dolphins? Needless to say, ours were not among the Hands that joined across the Sands.

We had the best of intentions but we dawdled, foot-dragged, and failed to take note of time slipping away. Do I need to spell out the moral of the climate-change parable?

We can tackle climate change or we can carry on burning coal. We can't do both. As the latest issue of Union of Concerned Scientists publication Catalyst points out, "coal-fired power plants are the United States' largest source of heat-trapping emissions." And the time to march away from coal is not tomorrow, but yesterday. Vickery-style footdragging is not an option.

Fortunately, the legislature of Minnesota can boast greater alacrity than the Vickerys. Back in 2001, it told the state's power giant, Xcel Energy, to clean up its act. With their eyes on Xcel's coal-burning plants the state's lawmakers established a body to supervise the company's reduction of global-warming gases. Last year the company unveiled one of the results: a power station that used to burn coal but now uses natural gas. You can read more about the coal-to-gas conversion here.

By the way, Xcel also runs a hybrid solar-and-coal power station in Grand Junction, Colorado. Did it come up with the idea all by itself? No, the Colorado legislature passed a law -- predictably christened "the Clean Air - Clean Jobs Act" -- mandating the change. Despite opposition from the mining industry and some labor unions, lawmakers instructed Xcel to retire, repower, or retrofit its coal-burning stations, and switch to natural gas or other low/zero emission energy sources.

To recap, the state legislatures of Minnesota and Colorado have compelled the power companies that do business in their states to quit burning coal. Is the coal industry crying foul and predicting catastrophic consequences, e.g. electricity prices going through the roof, unaffordable heating bills, puppies with frostbite, etc.? Of course. But the power companies are complying and converting their power stations from coal to less harmful fuels.

Our commonwealth is host to a dozen coal-burning plants, including Mount Tom in Holyoke, a facility that belches a million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. Here in Massachusetts we burn coal from mountain-top removal sites in West Virginia (mining without miners), and surprisingly perhaps, even more of it from Colombia. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists' 2008 figures, Colombia supplied 83% of the coal burned in Massachusetts. So it's not as though our coal habit is helping keep American coal-miners employed.

As the Xcel story shows, it is perfectly feasible to convert power stations from coal to other energy sources. The technology and know-how are there. The only other essential ingredient is political will.

Colorado and Minnesota are leading the way, forcing the power companies to do what they won't do of their own accord. Is our overwhelmingly Democratic state legislature racing to pass a similar measure here in Massachusetts? Don't bet on it. You'd be safer putting your money on the Vickerys making it to a beach protest on time.