I’ve been trying to explain why I’m ready to quit calling myself an "environmentalist," and this latest missive from the Friends of the Columbia Gorge, calling not for the shutdown of the coal-fired power plant that is ruining this national treasure, but for hundreds of millions of dollars to be spent on it, has just about put me over the edge.
So I wrote my own version of the Friends’ canned letter to reflect what should really change.
Stop Coaling Oregon by 2012
I am writing to comment on the proposed rulemaking for the 2008 Oregon Regional Haze Plan and proposed regulation of the PGE Boardman coal-fired power plant. The power plant is the largest single source of haze-causing pollution in Oregon, resulting in haze and acid rain in the Columbia River Gorge and in wilderness areas throughout the region. The current proposal fails to adequately control air pollution from the power plant.
The proposed hundreds of millions of dollars to retrofit Boardman are the policy equivalent of lipstick on a pig and would go a long way to paying for a pair of combined cycle natural gas turbines or, even better, one gas-fired turbine and one concentrated solar power Sterling-cycle turbine that takes advantage of the abundant solar resource in Boardman.
To better protect public health and the health of the Columbia River Gorge, the DEQ should require industry-standard controls at Boardman to reduce harmful coal emissions by 100%.
Stop Coaling Oregon by 2012
The best science indicates that we have very little time to radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Boardman, like all coal plants, is massively inefficient and massively polluting, and the proposed haze reduction scrubbers will only make the plant even less efficient, causing it produce even more greenhouse emissions per kWh produced.
DEQ should give PGE until 2012 to shut down Boardman as a coal plant.
By 2011, PGE will have all the information necessary to make a decision about the future of Boardman. PGE has no excuse for further delays.
DEQ should waive the already-planned and required mercury pollution reductions in return for the shutdown commitment by 2012.
Allowing PGE an extra two years to continue uncontrolled emissions of mercury, in addition to the many years the utility has already delayed installation of these controls, poses a significant threat to Oregonians’ health and environment.
Please consider these suggestions as critical to improving the natural and scenic values of the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area and other important natural areas throughout the region. Oregonians deserve a plan that will aggressively protect these breathtaking places.
I also dusted off an essay I’ve been working on:
Imagine being arrested for following your faith, despite the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion. Now imagine that, at the same time, governments at every level are doing exactly what you’re being tried for.
That’s occurring in Oregon, where we the people, through our district attorneys, are charging faith-healing parents with manslaughter. Meanwhile, we blithely practice an unspoken faith healing rather than respond to the climate crisis. For, despite all the press and the high-fives that the Oregon Legislature gives itself for its good intentions, the plain fact is we are endangering all Oregon’s children with our climate policies, which amount to little more than hopeful faith healing.
If Oregon were tried for this abuse, for using the policy equivalents of poultices, laying on of hands, and prayer, we would see that our failure to look after the well-being of younger Oregonians is much graver and less justified than even the actions of the parents now on trial.
Exhibit 1 in the abuse trial for Oregon is the Boardman power plant, an antiquated coal-burning monstrosity that spews millions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, along with asthma-and heart disease-inducing particulates, mercury, radioactive materials, and haze-forming chemicals. Instead of following the science and shutting down the plant promptly, our faith tells us to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to “upgrade” Boardman, adding scrubbers and other emissions treatments, which will raise both rates and greenhouse emissions as the devices reduce plant efficiency and require more coal for the same power output.
Worse, "environmentalists" have become the lead enablers for Boardman, hoping that dancing the "be reasonable" dance deftly enough will persuade the plant’s owner to make a few healing chants over the plant, even as it gets ready for another fifty years of destroying the earth.
There are many more exhibits that could be introduced, each one showing our deep faith that “they’ll think of something,” that something being anything that will let us continue business as usual and without interfering with church services at the altar of Economic Growth, the central deity of our society and of our public lives. Our faith in Economic Growth is complete, and it is reflected in our every law, from the tax code on down. We reject all heresies, such as emission reduction mandates.
Instead, we keep bowing towards Economic Growth and seek to turn our carbon emissions sins into salvation with a new species of financial instruments, tradable carbon allowances. Just as the faithful seize on cancer remissions to argue that prayer is medicine, we seize the example of sulfur emissions trading to bolster our faith in carbon trading as a new divine indulgence. Sadly, short-lived sulfur emissions and long-lived carbon emissions mean that carbon trading is to climate response what the withdrawal method is to birth control: the folly comes first and the consequences come later.
I don’t have an easy solution. But when I see us prosecuting parents who sacrifice children by putting faith before science, and then look at us—how our homes and businesses gorge on power, at our plans for Boardman, coal-fired ethanol plants, massive new automobile bridges, and ever-expanding cities—I am shocked that we have the nerve.
Another coal plant bites the dust
Blowing up our clean energy future
Comments
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Gar Lipow Posted 3:10 pm
22 Jan 2009
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Russ Posted 7:29 pm
22 Jan 2009
Yes. That's always been my bedrock objection to CCS.
JMG, I like your take on America's faith-based pseudo-market fundamentalism. We see it everywhere today in economic, energy, and environmental policy. Reality becomes less tenable for them by the day, and they must burrow further and further into their toxic delusions.
It won't do any good. Reality is digging for us.
Worse, "environmentalists" have become the lead enablers for Boardman, hoping that dancing the "be reasonable" dance deftly enough will persuade the plant's owner to make a few healing chants over the plant, even as it gets ready for another fifty years of destroying the earth.
By coincidence, just this morning I started reading a book which has been on my shelf for awhile, Green Rage by Christopher Manes, on the rise of Earth first and the radical environmentalists, in large part against the lukewarm, "reasonable", reformist movement.
I guess they would say just because you reject the collaborationist crew doesn't mean you need to dump the term "environmentalist" altogether.
Then again, I don't know if radical environmentalism even exists anymore. The last time I checked out the Earth First website it just had news links and stuff about gatherings from years ago - no new content at all. So maybe the movement is moribund.
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amazingdrx Posted 10:58 pm
22 Jan 2009
Burn life down, or build it up? It's a clear choice.
Guzzle the planet into internal combustion machinery, or live as part of the whole. See, there is no real choice.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Pompey Road Posted 12:13 am
23 Jan 2009
We need to all buy a copy of the redneck dictionary in order to communicate our concerns to Joe Six Pack.
I kinda like Corona Light, might be able to go all the way and drink a long neck bud.
Hey! its an acquired taste..
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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Backcut Posted 12:23 am
23 Jan 2009
"Burn life down, or build it up? It's a clear choice."
The eco's have chosen to burn forests down, with no sane reason at all. Indeed, they should stop calling themselves "environmentalists".
Pompey Road needs to start calling himself "snaghugger", to match the realism in the forests.
Idealistic dogma drama is the choice of Gristers, and they are surely do NOT represent mainstream American views. (Which is sad because they do have good hearts, misguided as they are.) Gristers DO have their points regarding a great many issues but understanding ecology is apparently not one of them they even want to understand.
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
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amazingdrx Posted 1:02 am
23 Jan 2009
You ride with your chainsaw, and are proud of that. You enjoy the fact that it annoys us.
You ride in your steel wheelchair in fear of "snags". Ent-like, snags have lashed out and tagged you before.
A day without fire is like a day without sunshine, right? Hehehey.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Pompey Road Posted 1:31 am
23 Jan 2009
Backcut,
If I am only left a tree to hug. Mountain Top Removal has reduced me down to hugging the weeds that grow back on ruined deciduous forest of Southern Appalachia.
When a mountain is blasted away and pushed over into a valley by a coal corporation they strike it off flat and spray a weed seed mixture on it and call it reclaimation.
Its enough to make one drink something and like the song said " they fill their cup with whatever strong brew they are drinking and they dig coal from the bottom of their grave"
From the song, You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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Backcut Posted 1:40 am
23 Jan 2009
Since I live in the forest, I don't want it burned down. Is that too much to ask? Why do you people so tenaciously cling to the idea that catastrophic wildfires are good? Why do we have to burn down the forests to "save them"?
Go to my blog to see how I cherish nature.
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
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Pangolin Posted 1:42 am
23 Jan 2009
At this point reality has very little trade value in our political discourse. We're freeing ourselves from dependence on Mideast oil by building 450 hp. SUV's. We're ripping "clean coal" from the ground with mountain top removal mining and massive drag-line pits. We're "improving health care" by blowing a third of our spending on insurance company scams. Our farm policy demands the use of synthetic nitrates and oil-based pesticides that pollute our rivers and streams.
Backcut, the forests that were here when Europeans showed up where subject to regular fires lit by natives to produce forage for game. The snag thickets you complain about are the products of loggers and fire crews. You're not a great advocate of the cool-season burns that would preserve your timber for harvest.
Reality doesn't get majority poll on sites like Gristmill and the rest of the world is a lost cause. Why shouldn't major environmental groups cash out by parrotting the "clean coal" fiction? Who's going to call them on it?
Put the Carbon Back
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Pompey Road Posted 1:45 am
23 Jan 2009
Simply Amazing:
"is it hard for thee to kick against the pricks" we have no snags, not even the semblance of a forest.
Nitrates by the millions of tons and caterpillar makes a larger footprint on the land than steel wheel chairs.
It is a hard thing to save a forest when even the foundation of it is destroyed. The chainsaw has been silenced in Appalachia except for the clear cutting that ushers in the nitrates before the caterpillar's attack.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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Jon Rynn Posted 3:26 am
23 Jan 2009
If you look at my most recent posts I go into some detail concerning where greenhouse gas emissions come from, and forests are definitely one of the big ones -- and even if the forests were saved and immaculte accroding to your prescriptions, we'd still be in big doo-doo from climate change, the state of the oceans, the nonforest soils, etc etc, not to mention what will happen when humans freak out when fossil fuels disappear. so I ask you to consider several different problems when you engage in blanket condemnations (as I ask others to do the same).
As for "environmentalist", I guess I always call myself a "progressive", or even when I'm being indiscrete, a "leftist" or "radical", words which I hope have some positive connotations. In other words, I think it's important to combine environmental concerns with other concerns, economic, political and social.
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Backcut Posted 3:53 am
23 Jan 2009
We seem to have chosen this path despite the obvious catastrophic effects and feedbacks to our climate. Sadly, forests are being used to further ulterior motives from all sides.
Someday, people will realize that we can mitigate all these forest issues but, until then, forests and endangered species will suffer and disappear. I've presented dozens of reasons why forest management is preferable to no action at all. No one wants to listen to the greatest minds in forest ecology, like Dr. Jerry Franklin and Dr. Thomas Bonnicksen.
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
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Pompey Road Posted 5:06 am
23 Jan 2009
You are totally correct about forest and I know we can do without them. The forest of England and Europe have been cut for century's. In the time before coal large parts of the American forest were cut down. It is a fact the planet will survive without forest. Well not a total fact yet because we still have had large plots of forest elsewhere to act as the lungs of the planet we may have just not reached the tipping point yet. We will have to wait until we finish off the Amazon and Russia cuts down the great forests of eastern Europe and Siberia.
I love my forest and being genetically disposed to living in a valley snuggled in between two mountains "actually one and a half now" I will selfishly adhere to the we need to save the forest theory. We will go our separate ways and one throw the other under the bus for co2 while the other has forest tunnel vision and yet another undercuts the so called environmentalist who is fighting for clean water.
If you ever find out what an environmentalist is and find two or three that work together let us know.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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For the Gorge Posted 5:43 am
23 Jan 2009
The goal of the regional haze rule is to achieve natural levels of visibility in Class I airsheds by the years 2064. Not a loftly goal, but better than nothing. States are required to adopt a regional haze rule in order to comply with amendments to the Clean Air Act that were passed in the 1990s. Existing industrial sources of air pollution that impact visibility in our Class I airsheds (wilderness areas and national parks) are required to implement the best available retrofitting technology (BART) in order to clear the air in Class I airsheds. The current rulemaking will determine the what pollution control devices must be installed at the aging plant, not whether it should be closed because of the tremendous amount of greenhouse gasses coming out of its stack. Nevertheless, our coalition is seeking the stringent measures and an aggressive timeline to clean up air pollution from the PGE Boardman power plant or closure of the plant and replacement with cleaner energy sources.
We forgive JMG for the misrepresentations. Our public outreach efforts have obviously motivated people like JMG to get involved and to advocate for closure of this aging polluter. Thank you to JMG for getting involved and writing a great letter to the DEQ!
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JMG Posted 6:21 am
23 Jan 2009
Worse, if you succeed in your efforts to get PGE to blow several hundreds of millions on "clean up" at Boardman, you will guarantee the plant's continued operations for decades more. That's the point and my only point.
How do you think Oregon ratepayers---and thus, their reps, and thus the PUC---will respond to the necessity to close Boardman once they've sunk $400-$500M into the place?
The 5% Project
Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay.
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Pangolin Posted 6:32 am
23 Jan 2009
In addition this plant will produce mountains of coal ash full of toxic heavy metals, mountains of overburden stripped off a coal seam somewhere and dumped wherever is handy and a river of polluted water that invariably runs off coal mining operations.
The environmental burden of a wind, solar and conservation program to replace the power output of that coal plant is tiny by comparison. There are also ample geothermal resources in Oregon and Washington state that remain untapped.
Are we saying the sun doesn't shine even in Eastern Oregon and the wind doesn't blow? We can't find active geothermal sites in active volcanic range? No, they're claiming credit for generating awareness while weaseling on the cleanup of a major polluter.
Good job guys!! Way to muddy waters and poison wells while achieving nada. How well does that pay anyway?
Put the Carbon Back
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Pompey Road Posted 7:57 am
23 Jan 2009
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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Backcut Posted 9:54 am
23 Jan 2009
Again, people need to know that global warming alone isn't the culprit in killing trees and causing mortality. The only difference between my desires and yours is how we will get there and how long it will take. It doesn't matter why the earth is warming but that it truly is. What matters is that we CAN mitigate this disaster using science and hands-on management instead of simply watching it happen. I do advocate prescribed fire, when it meet the prescription. The current levels of prescribed fire ARE inadequate, due to current laws, rules and policies. Change our way of doing business and we can move forward but, it will take radical change that many will find unpalatable.
I will try to avoid posting about this to see if people really want a change for the better in their environment. It's up to you people to change the world. Time to get down to it, folks.
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
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JMG Posted 10:45 am
23 Jan 2009
3. Contribute to a fight to make PGE's Boardman Plant cleaner
As the leading source of haze and a dangerous source of air pollution in the Columbia River Gorge, it is time to require PGE to install modern pollution control devices on its Boardman Coal Fired Power Plant. The plant is outdated and, instead of producing clean power, is one of the biggest contributors to filthy air and acid rain in our state. It is a threat to our natural beauty and public health.
Groups such as Onward Oregon, Columbia Riverkeeper, and the Sierra Club are working tirelessly to rally the public to get involved. Join the fight - write to the Department of Environmental Quality, demanding that we clean up the Boardman Plant.
Comments will be accepted until January 30th - write today!
The 5% Project
Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay.
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