Veterans Memorial 5K entry form for 8 a.m. Saturday, November 7, 2009, linked below video

Today was United Nations Day

Tomorrow, Oct. 24, we reflect on the founding ideals of the UN and the work it accomplishes around the world.

This year's commemoration is particularly significant as the United States embarks on a new era of global cooperation and engagement with the United Nations.

We at UNA-USA are energized and more committed than ever to our mission to educate, inspire and mobilize Americans in support of the UN's principles and vital work to create a better, safer world. Here is a snapshot of UNA-USA news and events and information on how you can participate:

Major Announcements
UNA Delivers Global Classrooms Curriculum in Chicago
UNA-USA President Tom Miller joined Chicago public school officials and city leaders on Oct. 23 at an international education conference on world studies held at the University of Chicago. The conference also formally reintroduced the expanded Global Classrooms curriculum to educators in the Chicago public school system, where 9th grade students are now required to take world studies courses. Read more about it here.
Board Member Nominated for Post of Ambassador to UN in Geneva
Betty King, a UNA-USA board member and former Unesco ambassador, has been nominated by the White House to be the next US ambassador to the UN in Geneva. Among other roles, this office maintains oversight of the Human Rights Council, which the US joined in May 2009. UNA-USA congratulates Ambassador King on her nomination. Read the full UNA statement here.

Take Action Today
In September, President Obama addressed the UN for the first time, calling for a new era of engagement through the world body. Although he was speaking to world leaders, the president's message can be directed to all of us as individuals. Tell Congress you support international cooperation.
The International Criminal Court is a major achievement of the UN, and UNA has a program, AMICC, to support it. Celebrate this success on UN Day by reminding the administration to support the ICC..
UN Day Events
UNA-USA chapters nationwide are holding events to commemorate UN Day. From university campuses to city halls or governors' mansions, serious debates of issues before the UN are taking place. Find an event in your area by visiting our event calendar or learn more about local events here.
Program Events
UNA’s Council of Organizations most recent event highlighted milestones that reflect the international community’s efforts to ensure gender equality and the empowerment of women. Read about their latest event here.
Official UN Day Messages
US President Barack Obama's UN Day Proclamation
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's UN Day Message
US State Department Fact Sheet: US Multilateral Engagement Benefits
--
Dick Bennett

Fayetteville Climate Change Action begins at 2 p.m. at Dickson Street and Campbell Avenue next to Bordinos

Fayetteville Climate Change Action begins at 2 p.m. at Dickson Street and Campbell Avenue next to Bordinos.

March and Rally - Fayetteville will join with over 4,000 others world-wide. We hope you will come to learn more about Climate Change and show solidarity. Join with fellow citizens of NW Arkansas at 2:00pm at Dickson and Campbell Streets (next to Bordinos)...the march will begin there and head to the Square. There will be speakers, music and information on how we can make a difference affecting the December treaty in Copenhagen. This is the most pressing universal issue that concerns us all...It's a chance for all of us to Stand up for Action on Climate Change. The event is sponsored by 350.org and 1 SKY. For more information call 530-7786.

A one day screening of The AGE OF STUPID in Fayetteville at the UA Union Theater from 6-9 pm on October 24th.
All of the community is encouraged to attend this FREE screening! Parking free in Union Parking Lot.

After the International Climate Day of Action (2:00 pm beginning on Dickson by Bordinos)

Friday night book forum on climate breakdown in Greenland, Arkansas

FORUM ON CLIMATE BREAKDOWN

The OMNI Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology and its Climate Change Task Force will present a Book Forum on Climate Breakdown at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, October 23, at the Greenland Community Center.



Panelists will discuss the latest science-based scholarship explaining how the climate is collapsing with accelerating speed because of the rapid increase of human-generated CO2 in the atmosphere. The consensus of scientists know that by 2050 the atmosphere must be restored to 350 PPM (parts per million) of CO2 if our civilization is to survive even in a reduced condition. Panelists are Steve Boss, Ryan Bancroft, Jonathan Gibbs, and Joanna Pollock. Moderator: Carl Barnwell.



The Forum offers two firsts:

This is the first public presentation in Arkansas of the best books on climate change. All express the scientific consensus that 350 PPM of atmospheric C02 must be the goal, and it must be achieved quickly. And it is the first Forum by OMNI presented in a town other than Fayetteville, Springdale, and Rogers. OMNI and its Climate Change Task Force, with its climate educational programs, are reaching out to NWA beyond its major cities and colleges..



Books to be discussed are: Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum, Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future; David Archer, The Long Thaw: How Humans Are Changing the Next 100,000 years of Earth's Climate; Mark Lynas, Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet; James Speth, Bridge to the End of the World. (Additional excellent books among the many: Joseph Romm, Hell and High Water: The Global Warming Solution; Larry Schweiger, Last Chance: Preserving Life on Earth; James Lovelock, The Vanishing Face of Gaia A Final Warning .



Directions to the Greenland Community Center

South on 71: At Greenland stoplight turn right onto Wilson, cross railroad tracks, keep on Wilson to “Y”, turn right onto Leticia, go 2 blocks to Center.

South on 540: At Greenland Exit, go east on Wilson to “Y”, turn left onto Leticia, Center will be on right.





--
Dick Bennett
jbennet@uark.edu

Ducks Unlimited Banquet October 29, 2009, in Fayetteville, Arkansas

Please click on images to move to Flickr site and use magnifying tool above photo to ENLARGE for easy reading.

Green Groups Guild meeting Thursday

From: Green Groups Guild (ggg@listserv.uark.edu) on behalf of ggg (ggg@UARK.EDU)
Sent: Tue 10/13/09 2:31 PM
To: GGG@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU

Meeting 10/15/09 7:00 p.m.
209 Thompson Ave. Three Sisters Bldg on Dickson above Fez Hookah Lounge.
Patrick Kunnecke
GGG President
ASLA Vice President
4th Year Landscape Architecture Student
479-544-1906

Runners and Sponsors sought for Nov. 7, 2009, 5K veterans' memorial race to benefit Fayetteville National Cemetery

Please click on image to move to Flickr site and ENLARGE for easy reading. The Regional National Cemetery Improvement Corporation meets at 10:30 a.m. Saturday October 10 and needs to add sponsor names to the file for the race T shirts and the brochures so that printing can begin. Already, Tyson Foods has donated at the Medal of Honor level and has challenged others to join them at the top of the list, thanks to the effort of RNCIC Secretary Peggy McClain.

Green-building conference in October 2009

Cities Alive Introduction from Johan A. du Toit on Vimeo.

Video of modern concept of the tree of life, post-Darwin

League of Women voters sponsoring discussion of Arkansas' electric future on September 23, 2009

Concerned about a proposed SWEPCO rate increase and developing energy efficiency?
A panel of experts will discuss the electrical power dilemma facing
Arkansas and ratepayers during a public information program
moderated by Hoyt Purvis, University of Arkansas Journalism Department.
Wed., Sept. 23, 2009, from 6:00 to 8:00 at the Fayetteville Public Library
This is also a special LWVWC membership invitation event. Come early, 5:30 to 6:00, for refreshments and visit the membership table before the program for more information.
Topic:
Arkansas finds itself with a need to expand electrical production at the same time it has overcapacity. A controversial coal-fired generating plant, choice of what fuels should be used in the future, an urgency to upgrade transmission, serious environmental concerns and ratepayer costs combine for a perfect “electrical” storm. Learning what Arkansas is facing and what that means to ratepayers is the focus for this League of Women Voters of Washington County’s public program.
Panel Participants:
Sandra Byrd, VP, Strategic Affairs, Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corporation and former chair of the Arkansas Public Service Commission
Nicholas Brown, President and CEO of Southwest Power Pool, Inc.
Ken Smith, Executive Director of Audubon Arkansas, an organization involved in the lawsuit over the J.W.Turk, Jr. coal-fired plant
Eddie Moore, an attorney working with Audubon on electric efficiency and ratepayers issues and representing the Arkansas Public Policy Panel on energy issues during the 2009 legislative session

Fall color fades in western United States as aspen trees die

Fall colors fade in U.S. west as aspen trees die

By Laura Zuckerman
52 mins ago

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) – The American West is losing its autumn colors as global warming begins to bite and there is far more at stake than iconic scenery.
Aspen, the white-barked trees with golden leaves that gave their name to the famed Colorado ski resort, have been dying off across the Rocky Mountain states. The die-off is puzzling but some foresters point to climate change.
This disaster coincides with beetle outbreaks that have laid waste to millions of acres of pine and spruce forest in the American and Canadian west. They too have been linked to warmer winters since extremely cold temperatures are needed to kill the insects.
Recent droughts and other factors linked to global warming are seen as likely causes for "sudden aspen decline," or SAD, so named because it can strike a forest so quickly.
"Assuming climate predictions are true, it probably is a sign of things to come," said Jim Worrall, forest pathologist with the U.S. Forest Service.
Dwindling aspen would spell trouble for mountain towns like Aspen, Colorado, where tourists flock each autumn to see their spade-shaped leaves turn from green to gold before skiers arrive for the winter.
Failing aspen forests also hurt sawmills and threaten large animals such as elk seeking food with consequences for hunting and other outdoor industries.
The effects have yet to hit home in a city that trades on its scenic beauty, but officials are braced for the worst.
"A large die-off could be devastating," said Aspen Mayor Mick Ireland.
Colorado acreage ravaged by SAD quadrupled from 2006 to 2008 to more than 850 square miles (2,200 square km). The syndrome has also struck in Utah, Wyoming and Idaho, where researchers suggest a warmer, dryer West may all but eliminate aspen from the Rocky Mountains by the end of the century.
Stands afflicted by SAD lose leaves, are assaulted by insects and frequently fail to reproduce.
Delta Timber Co. in southwest Colorado, where SAD is at its height, depends almost entirely on aspen to produce paneling for walls and ceilings.
"We're struggling right now with the same thing all sawmills are facing because of the housing crunch," said owner Eric Sorenson. "Now with the trees dying, it's going to create more challenges."
NOTHING TO BE DONE?
Dale Bartos, aspen ecologist with the Rocky Mountain Research Station in Logan, Utah, is cautious about using climate-based forecasts to predict an end to aspen.
"I see aspen moving up and down the hillsides with climate change," he said. "As it dries out, we may see aspen on the lower end move up the hill. I don't think the answer is cut and dried."
Others foresee a grim outlook for a tree whose image has long been associated with the outdoors appeal of the West.
"What we think will happen is that aspen will disappear in some areas and there will not be anything we can do about it," said SAD expert Wayne Shepperd of Colorado State University.
A study by scientists with the federal Rocky Mountain Research Station in Moscow, Idaho presented just such a scenario. It predicted the near total disappearance of aspen in the Rocky Mountain region by 2090.
The research, to be published in Forest Ecology and Management, links ailing aspen to global climate change and concludes that up to 41 percent of Western forests would be unable to support aspen by 2030. That figure would rise to 75 percent by 2060 and as much as 94 percent in 2090.
Study co-author Gerald Rehfeldt said a combination of less rain and snow, the timing of precipitation and warmer summers would outstrip the tree's ability to colonize new areas.
Future forests may show an increase in evergreen seedlings as they encroach on areas once occupied by aspen. But aspen in other areas may also replace dying spruce and pine.
"Things are happening pretty quickly and that's what's scary," said Forest Service plant pathologist John Guyon.
(Editing by Alan Elsner and Peter Henderson)

Land Institute announces September 25-27, 2009, Prairie Festival in Salina, Kansas

From: scoop
Date: Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 12:45 PM
Subject: Klinkenborg at Prairie Festival!
To: Land Institute Friends


Scoop from The Land Institute
Issue 33, September 3, 2009

scoop@landinstitute.org

* Request a complimentary Land Report, email to olsen@landinstitute.org.

Verlyn Klinkenborg in Salina, KS, September 26

Prairie Festival, September 25-27--reserve catered dinner by September 18

Starting Friday, September 25, 2009, evening barn dance,

Through noon, Sunday, September 27
Full program and speaker bios:

www.landinstitute.org > Calendar > Prairie Festival

Presenting: Verlyn Klinkenborg, New York Times editorial board staff

Verlyn has been an editorial board staff for The New York Times since 1997.

He authored "Making Hay" (1986), "The Last Fine Time" (1991) and "The Rural Life" (2003).

His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, Esquire, National Geographic, The New Republic, Smithsonian, Audubon, GQ, Gourmet, Martha Stewart Living, Sports Afield and The New York Times Magazine.

Verlyn has taught literature and creative writing at Fordham University, St. Olaf College, Bennington College and Harvard University.

He received the 1991 Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writer's Award and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.
Catered Sat. dinner, pay deadline September 18
Limited reservations are available for a catered picnic dinner on the Land Institute grounds Saturday evening is only available—pay by September 18—see the Festival registration form, following, or phone 785-823-5376.
Registration form: http://www.landinstitute.org/pages/pf09_reg_form2.pdf
Full Festival program and speaker information: http://www.landinstitute.org/vnews/display.v/ART/2009/04/09/49db65f52854c
Land Institute staff members visiting near you?
www.landinstitute.org, at “Calendar” provides details.
Open to the public:
September
KS, Salina (Sep 8)—Ken Warren, Horticulture Club
MO, Kansas City (Sept 13, Sun)—Ken Warren presentation, “Pathways,” Country Club Christian Church.
KS, Salina (Sept 25-27, Fri-Sun)—Land Institute Annual Prairie Festival
October
NY, New York, (Oct 1, Thu)—Jerry Glover, Metrics for Assessing Global Agriculture Symposium, sponsor Earth Institute, Columbia University.
CA, Claremont (Oct 9, Fri)—Wes Jackson at Pitzer College.
November
MN, Lake Shetek (Nov 6-8, Fri-Sun)—Wes Jackson at Minnesota Naturalists Conference.

KS, Overland Park (Nov 11, Wed)—Wes Jackson, Kansas Studies Lecture Series, Johnson County Community College.

December
NY, Pocantico Hills (Dec 3-4, Thu-Fri)—Wes Jackson presenting at Young Farmers Conference.

Not open to the public, but just to let you know we are out and about:
China (Sept. 13-19)—Scientists Stan Cox, Lee DeHaan, David VanTassel, international perennial grains research meeting with scientists from China and Australia
China, Beijing (Nov 2-3)—Jerry Glover, conference.
IL, Chicago (Nov 16)—Lee DeHaan, department seminar at University of Chicago.
KS, Salina (Nov. 20)—Ken Warren, KSU-Salina, ethics class.
Please forward this news to others!

You may contribute to our work on-line at secure “Support This Work”
Or via the yellow “Donate Now” button on each website page.
SCOOP back issues are at www.landinstitute.org, “What’s New?”
The Land Institute
2440 E. Water Well Road, Salina, KS 67401
785.823.5376
www.landinstitute.org
Contact: olsen@landinstitute.org

Karst wetland management practices

the effects of these activities are mostly irreversible
and as such are regulated in Queensland through the
Integrated Planning Act 1997 and/or the Environmental
Protection Act 1994. any new or modified
development may require appropriate development
approval under this legislation and must comply with
any conditions applied to this approval.
some karst wetlands are now protected under the
Queensland Nature Conservation Act 1992 through
the declaration of protected areas such as national
parks. some are also protected through other national
legislation as outlined in the national conservation
status section.
Land and water use
Land and water use that changes water flow and the
processes feeding karst wetlands can also cause direct
or indirect impacts on the wetland. Changes or
reductions in water flows through water extraction,
damming or diversions can reduce water tables or
water input balances which can result in structural
failures in karst wetland caves and other underground
voids that contain wetlands and impact on the
delicate ecological balance on which wildlife depend.
stygobites are particularly fragile to these changes.
the removal of water-filtering vegetation or changes to
soil cover can cause siltation of watercourses and
ultimately karst wetlands, where they are directly fed
from external streams, smothering small wildlife.
any extractive industry within a karst wetland
catchment, be it geological, biological or chemical
can change balances in karst systems resulting in
effects on geological and ecological processes and
ultimately the wildlife that live there.
since catchments for karst wetlands may extend
beyond the karst system, land managers should seek
advice before installing structures that may alter the
hydrology of karst wetlands. Further information
about current legislative requirements regarding
construction of dams, bores, bund walls, drains and
other structures is available from the Queensland
department of natural and Resources and Mines
(nR&M) website (www.nrm.qld.gov.au/).
Land use activities within karst wetland catchments
should aim to maintain a constant and adequate level
of natural vegetation and ground cover. activities
should be conducted in a manner that prevents or
minimises soil disturbance, erosion and water
quantity and quality changes. activities should
comply with appropriate legislation, industry codes
of practice and guidelines.
Managing karst wetlands
the geological, chemical and hydrological systems
that build and maintain karst wetlands are inherently
governed by the relationships between water, land,
vegetation and soil. any change in the input of one
or more of these aspects can pose serious threats
to the integrity of both karst systems and their
associated wetlands.
Runoff from non-karst areas can contribute to
subterranean wetlands. this means that threats can
be both direct and indirect. Management of karst
wetlands must take account of direct threats on karsts
such as mining and indirect threats such as pollution.
these may be difficult to quantify.
Consequently, development proposals and planning
should consider the breadth of the karst wetland’s
catchment (including that beyond the limestone
outcrop) and apply appropriate environmental
monitoring and management measures. activities
within the catchment of a karst wetland should
comply with appropriate legislation and conditions
and follow best practice management regulations,
codes of practice and guidelines.
to protect karst wetlands there needs to be an
understanding of where they occur and how they
might be impacted upon. this can only be resolved by
systematic surveys and mapping the extent of the karst
wetlands, catchment boundaries and their
hydrological interactions.
UNDErsTANDiNG and recognising the
extent of karst wetlands, their catchments
and hydrological interactions through
systematic surveys and mapping, together
with appropriate planning and management,
are the keys to protecting karst wetlands.
Mining and quarrying
some of Queensland’s karst landscapes have been
subject to mining and quarrying for a variety of
products. Mining and quarrying can directly destroy
species and their habitat. these activities can cause
direct destruction to a karst wetland but may also
cause indirect threats to the system through pollution,
changing the biological and chemical balance and
altering karst wetland characteristics such as water
flows. Mining and quarrying can also have impacts on
the visual amenity of a site and the value of the site
for other uses such as recreation and water use.

OMNI book forum on the denial of global warming's reality

Our Forum is almost complete, and I am sending this PR to KUAF soon. Let me know if you see anything needing correction. Videographer needed. Leonard and Aaron OK?
At end a letter from Sierra that emphasizes the importance of our Forum.
THANK YOU ALL, Dick

AUGUST 2009

CLIMATE BREAKDOWN BOOK FORUM

Sponsored by OMNI Center for Peace, Justice, and ECOLOGY

SEPTEMBER 18, FRIDAY, 6PM, NIGHTBIRD.

FOUR PANELISTS

Ryan Bancroft: Chris Mooney, Unscientific America

Jonathan Gibbs: Mark Lynas, Six Degrees

Steve Boss: David Archer, The Long Thaw

Joanna Pollock: Larry Schweiger, Last Chance: Preserving Life on Earth.

DESCRIPTION
This OMNI Book Forum discusses the latest science-based scholarship explaining how the climate is breaking down with accelerating speed. Imagine inland United States average temperature a few degrees hotter within a few decades, with many states ravaged by mega-droughts and widespread wildfires, while our coasts drown from a increases in sea levels, which are climbing inches a decade. This Planetary Purgatory is the likely future facing our country before mid-century—probably in our own lifetime—if the politics of denial and delay that have triumphed so far continues for another decade. Most Americans and many policy makers and journalists still don’t understand how global warming will ruin America for the next fifty generations if we don’t act quickly
The widespread confusion about our climate crisis is no accident. For several decades, corporate and conservative religious deniers that climate change is an urgent problem have run a well-financed propaganda campaign to spread myths that misinform debate. The U. S. has never had an efficient energy system. The Bush administration muzzled government climate scientists. The highest ranks of the National Hurricane Center and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have misinformed the public. Media failed to explain science and the science of CO2 and warming (special sections in newspapers every week on Religion, with rare, small reports on science). Many environmentalists have been unfocused and timid. But the science is clear and has been clear for over three decades: We humans are the primary cause of global warming, and we face a bleak future if we fail to act quickly.
But that humans are the primary cause is also the primary hope: we can reverse the growth in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and assert leadership to bring in every country. We have cost-effective technologies today that can sharply reduce global-warming pollution. California, for example, has embraced critical clean-energy strategies that if adopted nationwide would deliver vast benefits—a sharp drop in use of fossil fuels and therefore foreign-oil imports (and our massive trade deficits), a large gain in air quality and health, and a big boost in high-wage, high-tech jobs. But this hopeful future will happen only if the President and Congress join together to create a super-Manhattan Project (that built the atom bomb).
Time is short. We have at most a decade to sharply reverse course. If we fail to act in time, global warming will profoundly and irreversibly remake every aspect of American life. For example, no other nation has as much wealth along its shores. As catastrophic sea-level rises, we will be overwhelmed by urban triage—deciding which sea-side towns and cities can be saved. Katrina reveals what is to come for this country.
These books will put fire in your belly and set your hair on fire. (Dick from Hell and High Water).

VOLUNTEERS

Coordinator: Dick Bennett, 442-4600 (always glad to be replaced)

Moderator: Carl Barnwell

Greeter: Leonard Schulte

Publicity Campaign (using Dick’s Guide):

Photos: Aubrey Shepherd

Video:

Flyer and Poster:

Distribution of Flyer and Poster:
News Release (traditional): Dick
News Release (electronic): Aaron?
NEW BOOKS ON CLIMATE BREAKDOWN (thanks to Art for several annotations
Nightbird Books has a large display of these and related books.
This Forum focuses on the realities of warming, on the need 1) to return to 350 PPM CO2 in atmosphere 2) quickly. The books marked with an asterisk tentatively seem to be especially suitable.
*David Archer, The Long Thaw: How Humans Are Changing theNext 100,000 years of Earth's climate. This is somewhat science oriented, would be enjoyed by a scientist, engineer, etc. (Art) “This is the best book about carbon dioxide and climate change that I have read.” James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. “Not only are massive climate changes coming if we humans continue on our current path, but many of these changes will last for millennia….This is the book for anyone who wishes to really understand what cutting-edge science tells us about the effects we are having, and will have, on our future climate.” Richard Alley. [Steve Boss]
*Tim Flannery. The Weather Makers. This is the first book I read about climate change. For example, I first learned there about the inevitable submersion of many Pacific islands. Interesting reading. (Dick)
Thomas L. Friedman, Hot, Flat, and Crowded: why we need a green revolution, and how it can renew America. Again, this book is more about energy and "being green" than about global warming. It sends out a good, positive message that most people can identify with. (Art)
Fred Krupp (Pres of Environmental Defense Fund) & Miriam Horn, Earth: the sequel. The race to reinvent energy and stop global warming. This book looks more at energy than it does at global warming, has lots of suggestions for alternative energy and energy conservation. (Art)
*James Lovelock. The Vanishing Face of Gaia A Final Warning. Basic Books, 2009. 288 pp Lovelock argues that climatic change is likely to lead to a hotter Earth able to sustain only a small fraction of the world's current population. Hot off the press. (Dick)
*Mark Lynas, Six degrees: our future on a hotter planet. For general readers, it will wake people up. It tells us what will happen with 1 degree of warming, then with 2 degrees, ...and finally with 6 degrees. By about 3 degrees, things are getting really bad. (Dick) [Jonathan Gibbs]
Arjun Makhijani, Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. eRoad Map for U.S. Energy Policy: Creating a Carbon Free & Nuclear ... The Plan: We can eliminate carbon emissions from the US energy system by 2050 without relying on nuclear power, and we have a plan to do it! The Carbon-Free ... www.carbonfreenuclearfree.org/ - [PPT] Carbon-Free and Nuclear Free File Format: Microsoft Powerpoint - View as HTML Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy. 17 February 2009. Arjun Makhijani, Ph.D. 301-270-5500 ... www.carbonfreenuclearfree.org/.../CFNF.Slides.2009-02-17.part1_.ppt - Similar Energy Policy, IEER's latest book, available free ...iicph.org/ieer-book –
Bill McKibben. Fight Global Warming Now: The Handbook for Taking Action in Your Community. Holt, 2007.
*George Monbiot. Heat. This is the 2nd book I read on CO2 and planetary heating, and it had a stronger effect upon me then did Flannery’s probably because I was understanding the scientific discussions better, though some chapters were very slow going. Full of arresting stories; for example, his chapter on the extraordinary quantify of CO2 produced by airplanes came as a surprise, since I had only read about cars before. Monbiot has spoken and written repeatedly that the IPCC report and his own book are too optimistic, and I think he was the first I encountered to urge a change from “warming” to “breakdown.” (Dick)
*Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum. Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future. Basic Books, 2009. How religious ideologues, an education system weak in science, science-ignorant politicians, and the corporate media have collaborated to create this dangerous condition and how scientists have failed to counter it. [Ryan Bancroft] See: The Republican War on Science. “A well-researched, closely argued and amply referenced indictment of the right-wing’s assault on science and scientists.”
*Joseph Romm, Hell and High Water: The Global Warming Solution. Harper Perennial, 2007. Even though this books was published in 2007 (and therefore written in 2006), it seems up-to-date, and that, his book reveals, is because a scientific consensus about warming existed by 2006. The book is very clear reading, punctuated by gong after gong of reality. (Dick)
Eric Roston. The Carbon Age: How Life’s Core Element Has Become Civilization’s Geratest Threat. Walker, 2008. A history of carbon, of carbon chemistry and chemists, and of the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere and climate breakdown. Packed with interesting anecdotes, interspersed with explanation of the developing science, and moments of powerful summation. For example, this explanation of why I was uneasy about the Weather Channel’s air quality reporting never mentioning CO2: “The invisibility of carbon dioxide emissions to the naked eye itself is part of the reason it has been so easy for deniers to confuse the public about dangerous man-made global warming for more than twenty years.”(172 in the midst of an account of Charles David Keeling’s CO2 research); and Keeling’s empirical proof of the rise of CO2: “When Keeling’s first apparatus was set up at Mauna Loa, the reading was 313pp. Today it has passed 383ppm….Up it goes, 2ppm a year or so, and accelerating.” (Dick)
*--Schweiger, Larry. Last Chance: Preserving Life on Earth. Fulcrum, 2009. The causes and effects of global warming on our ecosystems, human life, wildlife. “our best chance toward a future we will be proud to leave future generations,” Robert Redford. (Dick) [Joanna Pollock]
*James Speth. The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability. Yale UP, 2008. I recall Art saying this is excellent. It explains why capitalism is a root cause of climate collapse. (Dick)
(If you want a step by step explanation of how to set up
Twitter here is the link for that. Twitter Activism Step-By-Step: http://tcxs.net/step_by_step.php )
-- The clearest succinct statement I as a general citizen have read recently about the accelerating dangers of climate breakdown is the editorial of The Nation (August 3/10, 2009), “The G-8 Abdicates.” . Here’s a sample: “Now comes the really bad news: we are already at 387 ppm. And at current rates atmospheric concentrations of CO2 are set to double by the middle of the century, resulting in catastrophic rise in sea levels,” which would “utterly transform civilization as we know it,” unless “emissions are drastically reduced soon.” The Nation recommends three solutions: 1) the rich nations “must cut their carbon emissions radically and quickly,” 2) they “must spend enormous sums of money to subsidize the transformation of developing economies away from coal and oil toward carbon-neutral forms of green energy,” and 3)”there must be massive investment in developing alternative energy sources.” (Also see Sharon Begley, “Climate-Change Calculus: Why It’s Even Worse Than We Feared,” Newsweek, August 3, 2009, about the surprises scientists have experienced recently regarding the unexpected worsening of Arctic sea ice loss, of Greenland mass loss, of permafrost melting, and more. “Given the pathetic response to global warming, skepticism that the world will get its act together seems appropriate.”) The media are waking up and speaking out against the deniers, delayers, and scammers.
Thanks, Dick

Dear Dick,
Tell Companies to Demand the US Chamber of Commerce Stop Denying Global Warming
We've rallied, we've sent messages to the EPA, and we've shown that Americans overwhelmingly support a clean energy economy that creates jobs and fights global warming.
Now the US Chamber of Commerce wants to silence us by threatening to sue the EPA in an effort to put "the science of climate change on trial." This ridiculous and dangerous stunt is engineered to undermine the EPA's authority to fight global warming, which we fought so hard to support.
Send a message to US Chamber of Commerce member companies telling them that this case is closed--responsible businesses know climate change is real and that we need to do something about it now.
The Chamber of Commerce already had an opportunity to air any legitimate concerns when the EPA held a 60 day comment period on its finding that global warming poses a threat to our health and welfare.
Where was the Chamber of Commerce then?
The Chamber wants to pretend that the 41,000 comments we collected supporting the EPA were never written, that the 2,000 people who rallied at the hearing in Seattle never showed up, and that the people speaking out in favor of action to fight global warming at the hearing in Arlington, VA did not out number the skeptics by 9 to 1.
It's time to tell responsible companies to stop letting a handful of polluters use the Chamber of Commerce to hold our Country hostage to last century's dirty energy technology--Sign the petition today!
Earlier this year, a group of big companies like Nike and Johnson and Johnson sent a letter to the Chamber asking them to more accurately reflect the majority of American businesses who are well aware that the science of global warming is settled, and who want to move the U.S. into a cleaner energy future.
But it seems the Chamber is siding with a minority of polluting energy companies, even though it is now clear that reducing global warming emissions is good for both the economy and the environment.
Sign our petition to these responsible companies urging them to back up their words with action--the U.S. Chamber of Commerce needs to come to its senses and side with the majority of its members who support action on global warming, or these companies should resign their memberships.
Thanks for all that you do to protect the environment.
Mary Anne Hitt
Sierra Club Big Picture Campaign
P.S. After signing up, please forward this message to a friend! Chamber companies need to hear our message loud and clear.
Sierra Club
85 Second St.
San Francisco, CA 94105

Dick Bennett

Leased riparian areas to be restored to protect Illinois watershed

The Morning News

Local News for Northwest Arkansas


State, Federal Government To Lease Land To Protect River

By Doug Thompson
THE MORNING NEWS
ROGERS — More than 20 square miles of land along the Illinois River and its tributaries will be planted with trees, native grasses and other plants under a project launched Tuesday.

The program's goal is to stop 10,000 tons a year of pollutants and sediment from getting into the river, state and federal organizers said. The 15,000-acre, $30 million program will be the largest of its type in Arkansas, by far, said Randy Young, director of the state Natural Resources Commission.
"Northwest Arkansas, growing economic gem that it is, is also cognizant of the need to protect our natural resources," said Gov. Mike Beebe. The governor publicly thanked the Walton Family Foundation for a $1 million contribution to the project.

The Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program is voluntary, organizers said. Landowners can apply to sign 15-year contracts with the U.S. Department of Agriculture for their plots of land along the river and streams.

Cropland and poor quality pastures are sought under the $30 million project. Those lands will be planted with native plants to stem erosion and provide food and shelter to wildlife, organizers said. The contracts will pay an estimated average of $85 per acre annually with a starting bonus amounting to as much as $350 an acre.

"I'm very interested. I'd sign up today if the forms were here," said dairy farmer Bill Haak of Gentry. "This is very farmer friendly and, if you look at the details, you can see that the people who wrote this up have the insight into what will make it work."

"I have grandkids," Haak said when asked why he was interested. "You need another reason than that? Well, this is a chance for farmers to step up to the plate and help preserve water quality."

Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson is suing Arkansas poultry companies in federal court over pollution in the Illinois River. The case is scheduled for trial Sept. 21.

"We hope this project will help prevent pollution from reaching the waters of the Illinois and its tributaries and support these types of efforts in both states," Edmondson said in a prepared statement about Tuesday's announcement.

The conservation program in Arkansas will match up with a similar one in Oklahoma. The two programs will cover the entire Illinois River watershed, Young said.

Of the $30 million, $24 million will come from a federal appropriation sought and obtained largely through the efforts of 3rd District Rep. John Boozman, R-Rogers, organizers said. Most of the rest will come from a $1.5 million appropriation from the state and in-kind services provided by the state, such as planning for each plot's project by the state Game and Fish Department and other agencies and water quality monitoring by the state Department of Environmental Quality.

Contact Information
Watershed Leases

Those interested in the project can call the Washington County office of the federal Farm Service Agency, 479-521-4520, or the Benton County office, 479-273-2622. Information is also available at www.fsa.usda.gov.

Carbon Caps Task Force to meet at 1:30 p.m. Sunday, August 16, 2009, at OMNI's office in the usual place on Maple Avenue

Dear CCTF,
We will be having a meeting this Sunday, August 16th, at 1:30 PM in the UCM down under area, OMNI's usual, though now only temporary, abode. Please come if you are able.
Attached, you will find the meeting's agenda.
We will discuss CCTF's direction, with a heavy focus on action, and then delegate the concrete (or, more appropriately, green) tasks that arise from our discussion. Join in guiding our city and nation's future!
Hope to see you there!
~Ryan Bancroft
(479) 799-9065
rpbancroft@gmail.com

Telecommunications Board

Telecommunications Board

Shared via AddThis

PSC chairman spins threat of major ratepayer costs if coal-fired plant not built

Gladys - I believe it was you who asked, at the CCTF meeting a week ago, what was the effect and the status of the recent Ark Appeal Court's judgement against the Turk coal plant. This rather long article is a pretty complete answer to that question. Cheers - Art

Date: Sun, 09 Aug 2009 10:00:00 -0500
From: slcox1@aep.com
Subject: Fw: PSC Chairman Suskie comments on court of appeals ruling of SWEPCO
Turk plant - Ark Business
Swepco Ratepayers Could Be on Hook for Cost of Turk Plant

PSC Chairman Paul Suskie: "If the Court of Appeals' ruling stands, I don't see how a plant can get built anywhere in the state of Arkansas, period."

By Jamie Walden
8/10/2009

"If the Court of Appeals' ruling stands, I don't see how a plant can get built anywhere in the state of Arkansas, period. Whether it's a solar farm, a wind farm, you're going to have to have, I think, amendments to law," Suskie said. "Because of the way the Court of Appeals interpreted it, you would have to have a fundamental rewrite."

Swepco Ratepayers Could Be on Hook for Cost of Turk Plant
By Jamie Walden - 8/10/2009
If Southwestern Electric Power Co. can't complete its embattled John W. Turk Jr. coal-fired power plant in Hempstead County, Swepco customers in Arkansas and elsewhere could be on the hook for more than $876 million.
The case, now on appeal to the Arkansas Supreme Court, appears to hinge on three major issues, one of which could permanently alter the approval process for power plants in Arkansas.
In early 2007, three private hunting clubs and a family trust launched an offensive on the Turk plant, claiming it would harm the environment. In June, the plaintiffs won their case in the Arkansas Court of Appeals. The argument by Hempstead County Hunting Club Inc., Po-Boy Land Co. Inc., Yellow Creek Corp. and Shultz Family Management Co. targeted the approval procedure by the Arkansas Public Service Commission and simultaneously argued that Swepco didn't adequately document a need for the Turk plant or its evaluation of alternative locations.

The PSC regulates the construction and location of power plants under the Utility Facility Environmental & Economic Protection Act of 1973. A company must obtain a Certificate of Environmental Compatibility & Public Need, or CECPN, to build a plant.
The PSC also wields the authority to approve the transmission lines that transport the power generated by the plant.
Ever since legislators wrote the utility act in 1973, the PSC has interpreted the method of handing down these approvals in one consistent way. But recently the Arkansas Court of Appeals said the PSC has been doing it wrong all this time.
And/Or
The contentious clause grants the Public Service Commission exclusive and final jurisdiction "for the expeditious resolution of all matters concerning the location, financing, construction and operation of electric generating plants and electric and gas transmission lines and associated facilities in a single proceeding."
The PSC has, for the past 36 years, interpreted the "single proceeding" to mean an issue is heard solely by the commission. "Not in a district court or a circuit court here, not in front of one state agency here, have it all in one place," PSC Chairman Paul Suskie said.
Furthermore, the use of the word "and" in that construction - "electric generating plants and electric and gas transmission lines and associated facilities" - has led the PSC to handle the construction of a plant in one docket and the transmission lines in another docket. Despite the division of those hearings, the PSC thought it was following the law because the proceeding was held by one body.
The Arkansas Court of Appeals, however, interpreted that phrase to mean the plant construction, transmission lines and associated facilities should all be part of one hearing.
"Piecemeal consideration of all the matters concerning a generating plant and its transmission lines corrupts the spirit and letter of the law," the appellate court wrote.
Suskie said that Ed Dillon, an attorney with Entergy in 1973 who helped the PSC staff write the legislation, filed the first application for the White Bluff coal-powered plant in Redfield just months after the legislation was passed. Dillon, with first-hand knowledge of the law, separated the plant application from the transmission lines application.
"It's pretty compelling to me when the attorneys that wrote the law then months later apply it that way," Suskie said.
The Court of Appeals disagreed and was unmoved by the "we've always done it this way" argument.
"Significantly, the APSC's procedure of separating generating plants from transmission lines in CECPN proceedings has never been challenged in a court proceeding. The mere fact that the practice has gone unchallenged cannot create a presumption that it is proper," the appellate court wrote.
Suskie said the PSC contemplated the transmission lines in the first proceeding, but didn't approve the transmission line sites until the second hearing. However, he said that in the first proceeding to approve the plant, the PSC dictated certain rules that Swepco must follow when siting the transmission lines.
The PSC addressed the transmission lines "on the front end because in the orders, we put conditions upon it. And some of those conditions were, 'You could not run transmission lines over sensitive areas and the interveners' property,'" Suskie said.
In this case, the hunting clubs were some of those interveners.
The determination of the sites where the transmission lines would run, however, occurred during a different proceeding. And the plaintiffs argued that affected parties, such as property owners, should know the whole plan, including the sites of the transmission lines, before a plant is approved.
Part of the commission's duty, though, is to make the process "as expeditious as possible." Separating the hearings does just that, Suskie said.
"If you did all those at once, it would extend the time frame. ... It could easily run two years, but the statute requires the Arkansas commission to do it as 'expeditiously as possible,'" Suskie said.

"In the way this case was handled, the Turk plant was approved. And then after it was approved, [Swepco] continued with the processes for approvals, the air permit and so forth. Well, after that took place, we were still in the process of siting the transmission lines."
The PSC approved the Turk plant in November 2007, and then finally gave the nod to the plant's transmission lines in January.
The division of hearings can also be convenient for out-of-state businesses. Because a plant, depending on the size, can often take longer to build than the laying of transmission lines, the time needed to bring an operation online is shorter if a business can start earlier on the plant.
A Question of Need
Regardless of how the Supreme Court rules on the question of whether two PSC proceedings complies with the law - if, that is, the high court chooses to hear the case when it reconvenes after Labor Day - the plaintiffs still allege there is no need for the Turk plant. And proving need is one of the first hoops through which a utility provider must jump before getting a CECPN.
Charles Nestrud of Chisenhall Nestrud & Julian PA of Little Rock, which represents the groups challenging the project, pointed to Swepco's market in Texas.
Because transmission lines for the Turk plant cross state lines, Swepco also had to present its case before public service commissions in Texas and Louisiana.
"Swepco's need has deteriorated. In the Texas proceeding, they couldn't project that they needed this power plant because the need had evaporated," Nestrud said. "If you look at their latest [annual report], their wholesale sales are down, their retail sales are down."
Paul Chodak, president and chief operating officer of Swepco, disputed the notion that the need for the Turk plant had disappeared.
"Now, have we seen an economic downturn? Sure, we've seen an economic downturn. But we're building this plant to last the next 40 years, really the next 60 years," Chodak said. "So what the economy does in a two-year time frame is not the basis by which you build a plant."
Nestrud also contended that a natural gas plant makes more fiscal and environmental sense than a coal plant.
"We believe that now with the cost of this plant having escalated the way it has, with the gas prices having decreased below anybody's projections, and with the cost of carbon-capture for coal plants, this plant could never survive in a cost comparison of alternatives," Nestrud said.
Chodak said Swepco aims for energy diversity with a current portfolio of 60 percent coal plants and 40 percent natural gas facilities.
"To point to one summer where natural gas prices are low - and I'm sure they're forecasted to stay low into the future - I would urge you to go back and look at what gas prices were last year," Chodak said.
"The certainty about forecasts is that they are wrong. I don't know if they are wrong high or if they're wrong low."
Alternative Locations
Finally, the Court of Appeals cried foul at the treatment of alternative locations during the process.
"Swepco's application states that the Hempstead site was selected because it was large enough to accommodate the facility, had water supply, had nearby rail access, and had a property owner willing to sell," the appellate court wrote. "The other sites were not mentioned.
"Staff witness Clark Cotton admitted that Swepco's [environmental impact statement] did not contain a description of the comparative merits and detriments of each alternative location as required" by a section of the utility act.
Plaintiffs' attorney Nestrud agreed. "They didn't look at need and compare that to environmental impacts and to alternatives that were available. So when all that occurs, I don't agree that it's a forgone conclusion that they're going to get a certificate."
Court of Appeals Judge Josephine Linker Hart, in her concurring opinion, addressed what has become a major point of controversy in the case: why the "mostly idle" Union Power Station plant in El Dorado, owned by Entegra Power Group LLC, wasn't considered as an alternative location.

Suskie said that Entegra didn't bid on the Arkansas project and thereby fulfill certain requirements held by the Louisiana Public Service Commission. For the past 10 years, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has required utilities to plan by region because transmission lines cross state borders, multiple states are involved in approving a project like the Turk plant.
"The [Louisiana commission] asked for proposals to meet that need, and Entegra never bid."
Arkansas and Texas didn't require Swepco to solicit bids.
Entegra later tried to intervene in the Arkansas docket. Though Suskie wasn't on the PSC at the time, he said the commission saw that move by Entegra as an attempt to block a competitor from entering the market.
"They didn't bid at the proper time. And then they wanted to intervene in the Arkansas docket essentially to block the plant from being built because it's competition," Suskie said.
Holding the Bag
Although Swepco, which has 113,500 customers in Arkansas, has the most cash in play, other parties stand to be affected by the outcome of the case.
The Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp., which has about 490,000 Arkansas customers, has a 12 percent ownership stake in the plant.
If the Supreme Court takes on the case and sides with the Court of Appeals, Swepco would be forced to restart what has been a multiple-year application process. And if plaintiffs' attorney Nestrud is right and Swepco can't demonstrate a need for the plant this time around, customers would be left holding the $876 million bag.
According to Swepco's most recent quarterly report, the company would seek to increase its rates to recoup $136 million in contract termination fees plus whatever it has invested in the plant thus far. Swepco had spent more than $740 million as of last week on the Turk plant, spokeswoman Kacee Kirschvink said.
"If the Turk Plant cannot be completed and placed in service, Swepco would seek approval to recover its prudently incurred capitalized construction costs including any cancellation fees and a return on unrecovered balances through rates in all of its jurisdictions," the filing states.
So what are the possible outcomes? Suskie said the Supreme Court could kick the case back to the PSC for more hearings, uphold the PSC's procedure or support the appellate court's decision.
"If the Court of Appeals' ruling stands, I don't see how a plant can get built anywhere in the state of Arkansas, period. Whether it's a solar farm, a wind farm, you're going to have to have, I think, amendments to law," Suskie said. "Because of the way the Court of Appeals interpreted it, you would have to have a fundamental rewrite."

Green Faith Alliance of Central Arkansas to meet by telephone with like-minded or curious Northwest Arkansas residents at UA business school

The Green Faith Alliance of Central Arkansas will meet with us by
telephone on Monday, August 3, at 5:30 pm. Our meeting will be held in
Willard J. Walker Hall, room 546 (fifth floor) on the Business School Campus area at the
University. Attached are directions (from I-540) to the Harmon
parking garage, which is directly across from Walker Hall. The cost
to park there is about $3 for an hour.
As you may recall from my previous email, we talked briefly about the
possibility of having a Green Faith Alliance of Arkansas (dropping the
word “central”) instead of forming a second group called Green Faith
Alliance of Northwest Arkansas. This way, there would be one group,
instead of two, and we might accomplish more by working together than
we can separately.
I am currently on vacation in Georgia. Vivian Hill from St. Paul’s
will be your host for this meeting.
Please RSVP accept or regret to Vivian at vhill@walton.uark.edu as
soon as you can.
We hope that you will be able to join us for this meeting. Again, the
details are:
· Monday, August 3rd
5:30 pm
Willard J Walker Hall, Room 546, U of A Campus
Many thanks to you and thanks for your ministry for the planet that we share.
Michele Halsell

Carbon Caps Task Force meeting at 1:30 p.m. today at the OMNI Center office downstairs at 902 W. Maple

Sunday August 2
1:30 pm
Carbon Caps Task Force
Re-Organizing Meeting
OMNI office
United Campus Ministries 902 W. Maple (Maple Street & Storer Avenue)

Several interesting options for action are emerging. Come find out how you can plug in, because you are needed. And meet OMNI's new environmental organizer Ryan Bancroft. And Robert McAfee will bring lemon cake. You don't want to miss this meeting.
_________________

Gladys Tiffany
www.omnicenter.org
Omni Center for Peace, Justice & Ecology
Fayetteville, Arkansas USA
479-973-9049 -- gladystiffany@yahoo.com

UA Sustainability Council to meet at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday July 28 in room 504 of RJR, wherever that is, to discuss the climate plan below

September 2009 Sustainability Council
This plan outlines methods by which the University of Arkansas flagship campus in Fayetteville will reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 50% between 2009 and 2021, and establishes a target date of 2040 to become climate neutral.

Climate Action Plan

University of Arkansas
Climate Action Plan

Executive summary 4
University of Arkansas Sustainability Council 6
List of figures 7
List of tables 7
Abbreviations 8
1 Introduction 9
1.1 Current resource consumption 10
1.1.1 Building and infrastructure energy 10
1.1.2 Water use 12
An energy savings performance contract will fund the installation of low flow fixtures, automatic flush valves, flow moderators and related building water conservation equipment. That work will be completed by September 2010. 12
1.1.3 Transit and transportation 12
1.2 Implementing this plan 15
1.2.1 Campus and public input 15
1.2.2 Administrative support and approval 15
1.2.3 Short-term, mid-term and long-term targets 15
1.2.4 Funding and financing 16
2 UA-F greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions inventories 17
2.1 2002 – 2008 GHG inventories 17
2.2 Summary of key trends of GHG emissions 19
2.3 Estimated 1990 emissions 20
3 Projected campus energy demand, 2010 - 2050 20
4 State and Federal policies and GHG emissions 23
5 Actions to reduce and mitigate GHG emissions 24
5.1 Short-term actions (2009 – 2013) 26
5.2 Mid-term actions: reduce emissions to 1990 levels by 2021 27
5.3 Long-term actions: achieving climate neutrality by 2040 32
6 Curriculum and education 32
7 Monitoring and reporting 33

Executive summary
In February 2007 the University of Arkansas’s flagship campus in Fayetteville, under the leadership of then-Chancellor John White, became a charter signatory to the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC). We subsequently initiated aggressive and innovative programs and structures that will lead us to climate neutrality by the middle of this century. This report outlines our short-term and mid-term means for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50% below the business-as-usual level, and provides a framework for attaining a climate neutral campus as technologies, State and Federal policies and regulations, and financial instruments combine to provide means to do so.
A business-as-usual approach would result in annual GHG emissions of 250,000 metric tons CO2 equivalent by 2021. In contrast, implementation of this plan will result in annual emissions of only 125,000 MT CO2 equivalent by then. The plan to achieve climate neutrality before 2040 will be described in detail in a future revision of this document.
Our approach is sequential. First, we implement energy conservation and energy efficiency measures to buildings and transportation systems. These measures often pay for themselves in fuel and utility cost savings, and the value of social benefits and carbon emissions reductions make conservation and efficiency even more important. Much of this work has been approved and is underway, and much more will be accomplished in the next five year period under our short-term plan.
Second, we will create campus policies that facilitate energy and water savings and increase recycling. A campus building use policy, a recycling policy, a travel documentation policy, and a water conservation policy will complement our existing sustainability policies.
Third, we will pursue installation of renewable energy systems and purchase green energy from local sources. Northwest Arkansas receives abundant solar energy, over 500,000 Btu ∙ ft-2 ∙ yr-1. As technologies improve and government policies increasingly promote solar energy, we will install both solar thermal and photovoltaic arrays on campus. The wind resource is not well-documented, but several wind farm developers are collecting data in Washington and Benton Counties, and some wind professionals think that there are several class 4 (commercially viable) wind resource sites within 50 miles of the University. Poultry litter and forest resources are abundant in northwest Arkansas, and there is significant potential to use them as viable sources of biomass energy.
Forest resources across Arkansas also hold promise as sites for managing carbon sequestration projects. Forest carbon sequestration projects are financially and technically complex, and lead time to design and implement them is lengthy. But preliminary analyses suggest that sequestration through enhanced forest management yields atmospheric carbon reductions more inexpensively than most renewable energy systems (based on the costs and benefits of systems available in 2009). We will begin an active research program to assess the technical and financial feasibility of sequestering carbon in Arkansas forests.
Finally, we will acquire carbon credits and related offsets as needed to make our campus fully climate neutral within our long-term timeframe. Some emissions, such as those that result from airline travel and commuter travel, are individually generated. It is efficient, fair, and relatively inexpensive to ask travelers to offset travel-related emissions with the purchase of direct offsets. At current prices (just under $10 MTCO2e-1 for sequestration projects) most flights would cost only $5 more than they currently do by including purchase of an offset. Similar offsets might be purchased by commuters as part of the parking permit process. Air travel and commuting combine to account for over 15% of the institution’s carbon emissions.
Because the future impacts of Federal energy policies, the status of available technologies and the future of carbon markets are uncertain, the current plan provides details only for projects that we will implement before 2021. The long-term strategy, which will map our route to full climate neutrality, will be articulated in a future update of this plan.

University of Arkansas Sustainability Council
Myria Allen Faculty Senate
Catherine Baltz Alumni Association
Dennis Brewer Graduate School
Nick Brown (executive secretary) Office of Sustainability
Nilda Burgos Bumpers College of Ag, Food & Life Sciences
John Coleman City of Fayetteville
Robert Cross College of Engineering
Norm DeBriyn Razorback Foundation
Craig Edmonston College of Education & Health Professions
Chris Erwin School of Continuing Education
Uché Ewelukwa Leflar Law School
Dawn Farver Graduate Dean's Student Advisory Board
William Fleming (co-chair) Associated Student Government
Jerrid Freeman Dean of Students
Andy Gilbride Parking & Transit
Jim Hashbarger Office of Business Affairs
Bryan Hembree Honors College
Laura Jacobs University Relations
Jon Johnson (co-chair) Applied Sustainability Center
Mike Johnson (co-chair) Facilities Management
Andrew Lenarz Associated Student Government
Sarah Lewis Fayetteville Council of Neighborhoods
Justin Maland Athletics Department
Tahar Messadi School of Architecture
Juanita Muckleroy Arkansas Union
Jeff Murray Walton College of Business
Felisha Perrodin Staff Senate
Susan Rousch Pat Walker Health Center
Cynthia Sagers Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences
Charlotte Taylor University Development
Juana Young Office of the Dean of Libraries
Bill Zemke Chartwells

List of figures
Figure 1. Water use on the UA main campus, 2002 - 2008
Figure 2. UA-F GHG emissions by scope, 2002 – 2008.
Figure 3. Enrollment on the UA main campus.
Figure 4. GHG emissions based on growth of enrollment.
Figure 5. Planned growth of space.
Figure 6. GHG emissions based on growth of space.
Figure 7. Wedge graph of greenhouse gas emissions at the University of Arkansas, 2002 – 2008 actual, 2009 – 2021 projected.

List of tables
Table 1. GHG emissions avoided from existing projects.
Table 2. UA-F, Summary of GHG emissions, 2002 – 2008.
Table 3. GHG emissions reduction strategy, 2009 - 2014.
Table 4. GHG emissions reduction strategy, 2015 - 2021.

Abbreviations

ACUPCC American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment
AEP American Electric Power, the parent company of SWEPCO
ASG Associated Student Government, the ‘student council’ of the University
Btu British thermal units; KBtu = thousand Btu and MMBtu = million Btu
CO2e carbon dioxide equivalent; a measure of the impact of a greenhouse gas
ECM energy conservation measure
ESPC energy savings performance contract
GHG greenhouse gas
GSF gross square feet; building space as measured by exterior building dimensions
kWpeak peak electrical production in kilowatts of power
MT metric ton, 2204 pounds
RGGI regional greenhouse gas initiative
SWEPCO Southwestern Power Electric Company, the provider of electricity to UA




Climate Action Plan
for the University of Arkansas main campus in Fayetteville

1 Introduction
In February 2007, the main campus of the University of Arkansas (UA-F) became a charter signatory to the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, and thereby made a commitment to become a carbon neutral institution of higher learning as soon as it is practical. Being among the first one hundred signatories to make this commitment, UA-F has taken the lead in higher education in Arkansas toward developing cleaner and greener energy systems and other sustainability solutions on our campus.
By the summer of 2007, the Applied Sustainability Center in the Walton College of Business began operations, and has helped hundreds of area businesses understand how they can operate more efficiently, operate in a manner that is friendlier to local and global environments, and at the same time, sustain local communities.
In Fall 2007, a campus sustainability coordinator was appointed, and the UA Sustainability Council was subsequently formed in Spring 2008. Thirty colleges and programs were offered seats on the Council, which then began work to develop programs and projects on campus to reduce UAFs carbon footprint, and to make policy recommendations to the University Administration that, when implemented, will result in a more sustainable campus and community.
All together, over 100 projects and programs, including research, curriculum, extension, facilities, transportation, recycling and community-based projects, are underway at UA-F. Despite significant investments in campus infrastructure and dedicated commitment to energy conservation by the University administration, students, faculty, and staff, GHG emissions have risen every year. The reality is that growth in enrollment, the addition of new research and housing facilities, increased complexity of research facilities, and increasing per capita energy demands caused by electronics-dependent lifestyles have combined to increase fossil fuel use and associated emissions of GHG. A comprehensive and focused climate action plan that provides long-term and clear benefits to all of the University’s stakeholders is needed to achieve our goal of climate neutrality.
To operationalize the ACUPCC commitment, the University is developing policies and implementing energy load management strategies, is putting into place extensive energy conservation and efficiency mechanisms, installing renewable energy systems, purchasing green power from area producers, developing carbon sequestration projects, and purchasing carbon offsets and/or renewable energy credits. This report presents the initial steps being taken to meet the commitment, and describes what students, staff, and faculty are doing to reduce the University’s carbon footprint.
To move from our current level of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of 188,968 metric tons of CO2 equivalent (MT CO2 e) in academic year 2008 to a climate neutral future, we will
• develop policies and communications that engender energy conservation;
• invest in conservation and energy efficiency measures on campus, including upgrades of campus energy delivery infrastructure;
• develop new partnerships that will result in acquisition of green power;
• develop and implement carbon sequestration projects; and
• purchase carbon offsets and renewable energy credits.

1.1 Current resource consumption
1.1.1 Building and infrastructure energy
In 2008, buildings on the main campus used 128,049,425 kWh of electricity, all purchased from Southwestern Power Electric Company (SWEPCO), which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of American Electric Power (AEP). As SWEPCO’s generation portfolio consists of 90% coal-fired electricity, use of electricity results in 1.02 kg kWh-1 of CO2e emissions, which is about 15% above the national average.
Purchased electricity accounts for about two-thirds of the University’s GHG emissions. Total campus space is 7,568,076 gross square feet (GSF), and building energy use is 69 kBtu GSF-1 yr-1, far under USDoE’s cited national average of 280 kBtu GSF-1 (http://www.energystar.gov/ia/business/tools_resources/new_bldg_design/2003_CBECSPerformanceTargetsTable.pdf) for annual building energy use on university campuses. GHG emissions from building energy use are 20.15 MT CO2e ∙ 1000 GSF-1 yr-1.
The campus is growing rapidly. From 2002 through 2008, space increased from 6.2 million GSF to 7.6 million GSF, a 22% jump. During this six-year period, building energy use rose 20%. Campus policy commits new construction to meet LEED silver or Two Green Globes standards, and energy use per GSF will surely continue to drop over time. But a long-term goal of becoming a campus of 25,000 students and a campus of 10 million GSF of space assures that campus growth will outstrip gains that building energy conservation and efficiency will produce. Therefore, while conservation and efficiency is an essential base for eventual renewable energy systems, energy conservation measures will not be sufficient to reduce total emissions below current levels.
In 2005, the Arkansas State legislature passed Act 1980, which authorizes energy savings performance contracts (ESPCs) to be implemented by public institutions. Under these contracts, engineering firms guarantee energy savings that accrue from energy conservation measures implemented by institutions. Over the past four years, UA-F has developed three ESPC projects that when completed will reduce GHG emissions by 20,000 MT CO2e yr-1 below the level produced by business-as-usual energy use. The three ESPC projects combine to make a $40 million investment in energy conservation improvements and energy infrastructure upgrades on our campus.
By the time that UA-F signed the ACUPCC in 2007, significant energy conservation programs had already been implemented on our campus, including central plant upgrades, lighting efficiency improvements, and building energy upgrades. Over the past two years, other projects have been approved, and implementation of those projects is underway.

Table 1. GHG emissions avoided from existing projects.
Project description GHG emissions avoided (in MT CO2e yr-1) Cost
ESPC I, central plant boiler and chiller upgrades* -2170 MT $14 million
ESPC II, Poultry Science Center 4,528 MT $3.6 million
ESPC III, all major educational and general buildings 19,373 MT $23.9 million
Relamping upgrades, exterior 508 MT $.3 million
Total 21,731 MT $41.8 million

* Central plant projects provide financial savings on utility bills, and the conversion from natural gas to heat pump chillers results in a negative GHG balance.

1.1.2 Water use
Although water conservation has not been a subject of focus and investment over the past few years, per capita water use has dropped for five of the six most recent years. The total of all uses, including personal and research uses, central utility uses, landscape irrigation and athletics fields maintenance was just over 10,000 gallons per student (based on total fall enrollment) in 2008, which is down from over 14,000 earlier in the decade. Central utilities used 35 – 50% of all water during most reporting periods from 2002 through 2008. Irrigation accounts for about 30% of total water use.

Figure 1. Water use on the UA main campus, 2002 – 2008.

An energy savings performance contract will fund the installation of low flow fixtures, automatic flush valves, flow moderators and related building water conservation equipment. That work will be completed by September 2010.
The quantity of water used can be minimized by using non-potable water for irrigation, including lake and river water or rain water, the installation of water saving fixtures, re-use of gray water in toilets and for irrigation, use of xeric or low-input landscaping, and intention conservation by personal water users. But water use also varies significantly from year to year, depending on weather conditions and the subsequent need for irrigation and utility water (chilled water and steam) It also varies from campus to campus, depending on whether athletic fields are natural turf or synthetic, whether heating and cooling systems are building level or district systems, whether non-potable water is available for irrigation needs, and research consumption needs. Recognizing that comparisons are limiting in those ways, several published averages are shown below.
University of Wisconsin at River Falls 10,000 gal/student/yr
North Carolina State University 13,000 gal/student/yr
University of Virginia 23,000 gal/student/yr
1.1.3 Transit and transportation
Razorback Transit provided 1.2 million free rides to students and members of the Fayetteville community in FY2008, which kept thousands of cars away from gas stations and out of our parking lots. Free rides on Razorback Transit buses allow thousands of Fayetteville residents to shop and make their way to vital services throughout the city.
Ten Razorback Transit routes provide service throughout Fayetteville. The twenty-one bus fleet that serves these routes used 98,021 gallons of diesel fuel, resulting in 961 MT CO2e. Problems with gaskets and seals and with cold weather performance limit the feasibility of retrofitting the existing fleet for biodiesel use. Even if those issues could be overcome, there is almost no supply of biodiesel in northwest Arkansas currently, and none on the short-term horizon. UA Parking and Transit operates several programs that are designed to conserve reduce the use of fossil energy and GHG emission, including a bicycle loan program (Razorbikes), bicycle racks on Razorback Transit buses, and a rideshare program (GoLoco). Over 500 bicycle loops are installed at the 40 busiest buildings on campus, and a bike shelter on the north end of campus accommodates 100 bicycles out of the weather. While these programs promote energy conservation behavior, they thus far combine to do little to avoid CO2e emissions.
UA maintains a fleet of 17 passenger cars, 70 work trucks, 17 vans, and 43 off-road vehicles that are used for maintenance and operations. Those vehicles used 208,905 gallons of unleaded gasoline in FY08 and produced 2889 MT CO2e in GHG emissions.
To date, electric vehicles have not been found suitable for use on campus, because 1) the hilly terrain limits speed and battery durability, and 2) the higher initial cost limits their acceptability to budget managers. It is likely that electric vehicles will replace off-road diesel vehicles sometime between 2014 and 2021. It is difficult to predict, however, when the life cycle analysis will make their purchase viable for our campus, or which models will become practical first.
Similarly, as hybrid and alternative-fuel system technologies continue to improve and become more reasonably priced, we expect that existing staff car and work truck fleets will gradually be replaced with vehicles that are fueled by hybrid systems, flex-fuels, biodiesel, ethanol, and hydrogen fuels.
Emissions from commuter travel rose by 8.8% from FY2000 to FY2008. This increase is correlated with the increase in student population, and is expected to increase further until the UA-F student enrollment goal of 25,000 students is achieved. Current parking supply is often filled beyond capacity. A campaign that increases awareness of sustainable transportation practices and provides incentives to participate in “environmentally friendly” transportation will be implemented.
Programs will be developed to increase the adoption of environmentally friendly healthy travel behavior. Disincentives to one-to-a-car commuting will be developed and incentives to carpooling, alternative fuels use, zip car use, bicycling and walking will be developed.
Potential parking management changes
• Creation of incentives for carpoolers and owners of hybrid, high mileage/efficiency or alternative fuel vehicles. Two types of incentives will be offered:
o Parking permits at a 25% discount from standard rates; and
o High fuel efficiency vehicle parking lots.
• Payment to fulltime students who do not buy a parking permit. Stanford has implemented a program that pays students who do not buy parking permits $160, and it has been successful.
• Create an attractive, easily navigable, campus carpool on-line system.
• Improve existing bicycle programs, by increasing the number of bike racks.
• Implement a ban on campus parking for freshman students who reside on campus.
• Improve existing transit bus system
o Install a remote lot that has a shuttle with a direct route to the bus depot next to the Union on campus (no stops in-between)
• Consider a ban on campus parking permits for all members of the campus population who live within X miles of the main campus
• Provide zip car rental services for campus users.
• Create infrastructure to support hybrid and alternative fuel vehicles, such as charging posts and alternative fuel pumps (since there is now an alternative fuel pump at the station on the way to Greenland, would it be possible to find out their supplier, and possible install a fueling station for that type of fuel here on campus?)
• Provide additional viable housing options on or near campus
• Implement telecommuting/compressed work schedules for faculty/staff
• Provide improved, readily accessible and reliable technologies for virtual meetings.
• Implement landscaping practices to reduce the need for mowing/weed-eating/etc. (rain gardens)

1.2 Implementing this plan
1.2.1 Campus and public input
In Spring 2009, UA-F held the inaugural Students F1rst Sustainability Competition, which solicited ideas to save energy and water on campus, and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with innovative programs and projects developed by interdisciplinary student teams. Ideas obtained from proposals submitted in that competition have been integrated into this plan.
A draft of this document was posted on the UA Sustainability SharePoint site (https://sharepoint.uark.edu/sites/UASustainabilityCouncil/default.aspx) from May through August 2009. The Sustainability Council discussed the approach, outline, and an early draft of this document at meetings on May 19 and July 28, 2009, and public input was obtained from the Fayetteville community at the Fayetteville Public Library in August 2009. Principles of the integrated design charette process were integrated into public input forums.
1.2.2 Administrative support and approval
The Chancellor’s Executive Committee, which consists of the Chancellor and the campus’s five Vice Chancellors, considers policy proposals from the Sustainability Council as well as other campus committees. The Executive Committee has recognized that the strategies in this plan represent an appropriate direction for our campus, and endorse it as a means for meeting our responsibilities to the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment.
1.2.3 Short-term, mid-term and long-term targets
The commitment to become carbon neutral ‘as soon as it is practical’ is proffered by signatories of the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment as an intentionally flexible trajectory.
By 2013 we will reduce GHG emissions to a level 20% below the business as usual level, and will emit 160,000 MT CO2e or less.
By 2021, operations of the U of A campus will emit 125,000 MT CO2e (the 1990 emissions level) or less. 2021 will mark the University of Arkansas’s 150th year as an institution, and as our State’s flagship campus of higher learning. By 2021, a business-as-usual trajectory would result in 225,000 MT CO2e of GHG emissions, or nearly twice the 1990 level. This plan shows how the U of A will reduce, offset, and otherwise avoid 100,000 MT CO2e by 2021, to meet this target.
By 2040, the U of A campus will avoid and reduce emissions, purchase green power, install and/or manage renewable energy projects, develop and manage sequestration projects, and offset emissions through financial and policy mechanisms at levels that, according to goals and metrics established by ACUPCC, will make no net contribution to GHG emissions.

1.2.4 Funding and financing
Funds that are saved as energy conservation and efficiency reduce utility bills will be available for many other purposes on campus, including enhanced salaries, more job opportunities, reduced tuition and fees, and improved facilities.
Energy savings performance contracts (ESPCs) allow the University to invest in energy conservation, energy efficiency, and renewable energy systems at no front end cost, and the investment in those technologies is recovered directly from energy cost savings. UA Facilities has leveraged $40 million under three ESPCs, and additional funding will be secured as Athletics, Housing, Parking & Transit, the Arkansas Union, and other auxiliary units establish ESPCs in their facilities. Up to $10 million in additional investment may be leveraged over the next four years through new ESPCs.
Investments in photovoltaic, wind and biomass energy systems will become much more attractive as carbon emissions acquire additional market value through regulatory or legal actions. If carbon markets become regulated in the US over the next couple of years, initial prices are likely to be $20 - $50 per metric ton of carbon. As carbon markets become stronger, and when the transition is made from voluntary to regulated markets, avoided CO2 emissions will have fungible value. We therefore include the value of emissions avoided as a financial asset in calculating the net present value of proposed installations. This change will result in the designation of capital improvement funds to fund renewable energy systems to power the campus.
Across the nation, students have levied voluntary and mandatory fees on themselves to support the purchase and installation of renewable energy systems on campuses (http://www.aashe.org/resources/mandatory_energy_fees.php).
In a Fall 2008 poll by the UA Associated Student Government (ASG), more students (47%) identified sustainability (motion sensor lighting, relamping, increased recycling bins) as their most important issue than any other topic. Two-thirds of all students are willing to pay some additional fee to fund sustainability projects on campus, and one-quarter are willing to pay $0.50 to $1.00 per credit hour more. A student fee of $0.50 per credit hour would raise $120,000 for sustainability work on campus.
To meet the financial challenges of implementing the twenty-one projects outlined here, financial resources will be developed from:
• Special funds, including funding secured under energy savings performance contracts, through which lower utility bills pay directly for conservation and renewable energy projects as cost savings accrue;
• Alumni, who continuously donate to causes that strengthen the long-term viability of the University;
• Students, who contribute to sustainability efforts at colleges and universities across the nation, through voluntary and mandatory self-levies, through special fees and through class gifts;
• Capital improvement, maintenance and operations, and deferred maintenance budgets, which will purchase hardware as they fit into the Campus Strategic Plan and other long-term infrastructure timelines;
• Staff and faculty, in the forms of travel offsets, parking fees, and similar levies that represent pay-as-you-go payments;
• Grants and contracts, from government agencies and private foundations that support green energy and carbon reduction programs; and
• Private and corporate contributors and donors, who see value in becoming part of the effort to fulfill the University’s commitment to responsible energy management.
When all stakeholders make substantive contributions to the development and implementation of solutions, acceptance of a successful long-term strategy is likely.

2 UA-F greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions inventories
2.1 2002 – 2008 GHG inventories
Over the past year, a team of graduate students, engineering faculty, facilities managers, and consultants have put together GHG emissions inventories for the years 2002 through 2008. The inventories were conducted in accordance with procedures developed by Clean Air Cool Planet, which provides a campus calculator.
The University of Arkansas in Fayetteville is the flagship campus of the UA system, and is often referred to as the main campus. 19,021 students registered for Fall 09 classes, making it the state’s largest campus. Although the Arkansas Agricultural Research and Extension Center (AAREC, known locally as ‘The Farm’) is only two miles north of the main campus, the Division of Agriculture is administratively separate from UA-F, and its facilities, farmland, and forests are not included in these GHG emissions inventories. For purposes of defining and tracking UA-F GHG emissions, the campus is defined as 157 buildings located on a 345 acre main campus, plus four buildings on a 125 acre campus in south Fayetteville, the Arkansas Research and Technology Park, along with the transportation systems that serve them.
A summary of GHG emissions from UA-F is shown below.
Table 2. UA-F, Summary of GHG emissions, 2002 – 2008. (Sightlines 2009)
Metric 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
Scope 1
Agriculture GHG (MTCDE) 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
Fleet GHG (MTCDE) 2721 2873 4030 4062 3851 3871 3849
Refrigerant GHG (MTCDE) 0 0 0 4722 1180 0 1
Scope 1 Utilities GHG (MTCDE) 28622 30540 25420 24180 23368 25296 27648
Total 31348 33418 29455 32969 28404 29172 31503

Scope 2
Electricity GHG (MTCDE) 98237 99381 113780 116614 115478 117919 124818
Purchased Chilled Water GHG (MTCDE) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Steam Purchased GHG (MTCDE) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Total 98237 99381 113780 116614 115478 117919 124818

Scope 3
Other Scope 3 GHG (MTCDE) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Solid Waste GHG (MTCDE) 753 753 753 753 792 714 693
Total Air GHG (MTCDE) 13815 13815 13815 13815 13815 13815 15624
Total Commuting GHG (MTCDE) 14996 14924 14682 15235 15636 15787 16330
Total 29564 29492 29250 29803 30243 30316 32647

Total GHG Emissions
Gross GHG Emissions (MTCDE) 159149 162291 172485 179386 174125 177407 188968

Total Offsets (MTCDE) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Net GHG Emissions (MTCDE) 159149 162291 172485 179386 174125 177407 188968



A summary by scope (category of emissions) shows that natural gas use and transportation energy expenditures have been steady over the past six years, while the use of purchased electricity has risen by 25%.

Figure 2. UA-F GHG emissions by scope, 2002 – 2008.



2.2 Summary of key trends of GHG emissions
Having developed GHG emissions inventories for a six-year period from 2002 through 2008, we can observe several trends in campus energy use and GHG emissions.
• Although space on our campus grew by 21.5% and fall enrollment was up 19.7% between 2002 and 2008, GHG emissions rose by only 18.7%. Building energy use was up only 17.6% during the six-year period.
• Over 90% of our total energy use is building energy use. Razorback Transit, fuels used by commuters to and from campus, airline travel and other energy uses account for under 10% of the total.
• The use of natural gas on campus declined by 7% between 2002 and 2008.
• GHG emissions attributable to solid waste declined by 8% over the six year period.
• Because of a growth in enrollment, emissions due to commuting rose by 8.8% during the six year period.
• Despite $17 million of investments in on-campus energy efficiency and conservation, GHG emissions have increased 25% over the past decade.
• We have established a goal to increase enrollment by 6,000 students over the next decade. This makes our commitment to reduce GHG emissions 50% below the business-as-usual level by 2021 more difficult.
• UA-F has not yet initiated the use of offsets or sequestration as tools to minimize GHG emissions.

2.3 Estimated 1990 emissions
As 1990 was the year that the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated and has become a baseline year for many purposes, UA-F will use the 1990 emissions level as an interim emissions target. Based on available data for enrollment, building space and utility bills, GHG emissions were approximately 125,000 MT CO2 e in 1990.

3 Projected campus energy demand, 2010 - 2050
The master plan for the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville projects that the campus will grow significantly in building space and in enrollment over the next ten to twenty years. In an attempt to improve the proportion of Arkansans who have a college education, the main campus has established a goal of enrolling 25,000 students by the year 2021. There are no enrollment goals beyond 2021, and this plan assumes that enrollment will not rise significantly between 2021 and 2050.

Figure 3. Enrollment on the UA main campus.


We have detailed data for campus energy uses from 2002 through 2008. Based on extrapolations from those data, we expect a level of 270,000 MT CO2 e under a business-as-usual energy use scenario when enrollment reaches 25,000 students.

Figure 4. GHG emissions projection based on enrollment.

To accommodate classroom space and other facilities for 6,000 additional students, the main campus will expand its current capacity of 7.66 million GSF to about 8.5 million GSF by 2021 and 10 million GSF by 2050. Extrapolations from 2002 – 2008 datasets show that a campus of 8.5 million GSF campus would emit 220,000 MT CO2 e yr-1 and a 10 million GSF campus would emit 260,000 MT CO2 e yr-1.
Figure 5. Planned growth of space on the UA main campus.


Figure 6. GHG emissions based on the growth of space.


4 State and Federal policies and GHG emissions
There is little question that state and federal GHG emissions policy will influence the capability of the University of Arkansas Fayetteville campus in reaching its GHG management goals. Whether governed by the voluntary carbon markets found in the Chicago Carbon Exchange, the attraction of private treaties or the mandates of carbon cap and trade or carbon tax legislation, the landscape of carbon management decision-making is in a state of rapid change. Even without the advent of new legislation, the rules are changing for carbon markets. New scientific understanding changes the standards of quantity and permanence in carbon sequestration. New players in the marketplace bring different long term financial and environmental goals. International influence and markets bring worldwide GHG management goals home to impact the financial decision-making of United States and Arkansas based companies. Add to these policy uncertainties the changing technologies available to GHG managers and the management control of future emissions becomes even more uncertain.
This uncertainty is not particularly bad. Technological advances, in some ways driven by markets and public perception of need, give us traction. There is a continuing tension toward reducing or capturing GHG emissions. While GHG specific policy gets much of the public attention relative to GHG management, actions across a spectrum of policy arenas continues to reduce GHG emissions. Some examples include:
• Fuel standards legislation and incentives for alternative fuels development at both state and national levels
• Conservation easement tax credits and other land and water conservation incentives
• State and federal farm legislation focused on conservation of wetlands, riparian zone protection, wildlife habitat protection and reforestation
• Research incentives for bio-fuel and bio-energy development and systems deployment
• Increased fuel/mileage standards for cars and light trucks
• Urban stormwater management rules, financial incentives and penalties
• Carbon capture and storage, nuclear power and other alternative energy development incentives
• Policies that enable privately funded voluntary, incentive based sequestration strategies
Control of GHG emissions resultant from the day to day operation of the University of Arkansas Fayetteville campus is in large part determined by the energy sources available to the system. As the complex of energy production systems expands to include, wind, solar, bio-based fuels, advanced hydrokinetic, earth linked thermal, etc. and new mandates require reduction in GHG emissions from existing coal fired generation capacity this source based influence will decline, giving the University more finite control of the GHG emissions future.
Even as the discussion of alternative strategies for GHG emissions limitations continues at the federal level, states are taking charge. Three groups of states and Canadian territories spanning the width of the United States have organized or are in the process of organizing market based GHG emissions cap and trading systems. RGGI (the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative) is the product of cooperation between 10 Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states that are interested in creating new green jobs and spurring innovative developments in clean energy.
The Western Climate Initiative includes six western states and the provinces of British Columbia and Manitoba. The partnering entities have agreed to the common purpose of a cap and trade program designed to meet their long term GHG management objectives.
Five states are actively involved in a Midwestern Greenhouse Gas Reduction Accord and an additional three states are involved as observers. By the close of 2008 there were a total of 22 states committed to regional carbon markets with an additional eight states acting as observers. This initiative by states is a strong indicator of the changing GHG policy landscape in the United States. It also provides new incentive for investment in technologies that increase efficiencies and reduce emissions. This combination of policy and technology change paints a bright future for GHG emissions reductions, but leaves unanswered the questions of which alternatives will emerge as the policy or technology of choice.
A recent added impetus for the changing tension toward national GHG policy is an announcement by EPA. With White House backing, the Environmental Protection Agency announced in mid-April 2009 that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are a significant threat to human health and thus will be listed as pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
This combination of state-based policy development, technology advancement and new federal agency interpretation of existing policy means continued movement toward national consensus on GHG policy. As stated earlier, the state of carbon markets, and the extent to which they will affect UA’s option to pursue carbon reduction options and which policy alternative we will pursue. The experience of our state based policy “experiments” provides the laboratory from which our best practice solutions will come. We should remain diligent observers and in the tradition of our University heritage “take good notes.”

5 Actions to reduce and mitigate GHG emissions
To reduce GHG emissions and our institutional carbon footprint, the University of Arkansas will implement five types of projects and programs.
The University will create and take advantage of energy saving policies. We will assess federal and state energy conservation policies, and develop ways to take advantage of financial incentives that they provide. We will also develop campus water conservation and waste minimization policies.
We will install energy conservation and efficiency systems and devices on campus buildings and in our transportation systems. From 2005 through 2010, we have implemented three energy savings performance contracts that have resulted in installation of $40 million in energy conservation and efficiency measures on campus.
Facilities Management, Parking and Transit, and other relevant departments will purchase and install and/or otherwise acquire power from renewable energy systems. Solar energy, wind power, and biomass energy systems each have potential to power the buildings and transportation systems of our University.
We will offset and mitigate carbon debits with carbon sequestration projects. Forests and agricultural soils provide opportunities for carbon sequestration. The University will develop partnerships and other business relationships that will facilitate acquisition of carbon credits through lands that we purchase, lease, or otherwise manage for the primary purpose of carbon sequestration.
Finally, if projects and programs in the categories above do not fully offset our greenhouse gas inventory, we will purchase carbon credits through green tags (renewable energy credits), carbon credits from voluntary or regulated exchanges, and related financial tools.
Figure 7. Greenhouse gas emissions at the University of Arkansas, 2002 – 2008 actual, 2009 – 2021 projected.

5.1 Short-term actions (2009 – 2013)
Over the next four years, UA will implement projects that begin to reduce GHG emissions on campus and in transportation systems that bring workers and students to campus. Our initial actions will include:
• complete installation of ESPC III, which will result in avoidance of nearly 20,000 MT CO2 e yr-1 in emissions;
• development of additional energy savings performance contracts for Auxiliary facilities, including buildings managed by Housing, Athletics, the Arkansas Union, and Parking and Transit, for up to $10 million in additional energy improvements on campus;
• installation of one or more arrays of photovoltaic panels on campus, totaling 25 kWpeak capacity;
• doubling the number of bicycling commuters to and from campus, through improved services and incentives;
• doubling the amount of recycled materials on campus, through an improved Razorback Recycling program and a new campus recycling policy; and
• reduction of computer energy use by 30%, through innovative networking, server sharing, and software that controls networked displays and printers.
By implementing these measures, we will avoid emission of over 30,000 MT CO2 e yr-1 compared to business as usual. We therefore expect to emit 160,000 MT CO2 e or less by 2013.
Campus policies can also reduce CO2e emissions, by facilitating direct energy conservation in buildings and on the road, by allowing the direct purchase of green energy, by requiring green equipment purchases, and by increased recycling and water conservation.

5.2 Mid-term actions: reduce emissions to 1990 levels by 2021
About half of current GHG emissions can be avoided at an average cost of $30 ∙ MT CO2e-1, by carrying out twenty-one projects. A few of these projects are already underway, and several can be implemented without special funding. Although this plan reveals initial costs and annual costs for developing and managing carbon reduction projects, it does not identify specific sources of funding for individual projects. (There are a few exceptions to this, such as the funding mechanism that is automatically tied to energy savings performance contracts.)



Table 3. Short-term GHG emissions reduction strategy, 2010 - 2015
Initial cost Annual cost $/MT CO2e avoided MT CO2e avoided yr-1 timeline
Campus policies
1. Building energy and use policy $10,000 $0 $0 5,000 2011
2. Power management for electronic equipment $10,000 $0 $0 3,000 2011
3. Parking restrictions analysis pending

Conservation and efficiency
4. Replace diesel bus fuel with CNG $1,500,000 ($125,000) ($333) 150 2012 - 2014
5. Waste oil to space heat $20,000 ($1,500) ($17) 30 2011
6. Trayless dining $0 $0 $0 41 2008
7. Building energy dashboard $40,000 $4,000 $2 2,600 2011
8. Energy savings performance contracts (auxiliaries) $10,000,000 $0 $63 8,000 2010 - 2012
9. Energy savings performance contracts (general & educational) $40,000,000 $0 $106 18,813 2008 - 2010
10. Increased recycling $0 $38,000 $109 350 2011
11. Food waste to compost $10,000 $10,000 $256 41 2010

Renewable energy
12. Campus WVO to biodiesel $15,000 ($5,000) ($85) 50 2009
13. Area restaurants' WVO to biodiesel $10,000 $0 $5 100 2012
14. On-campus wind generators $36,000 $500 $128 18 2012
15. 25 kW photovoltaic array $150,000 $200 $197 39 2012

Sequestration
16. Improved forest management analysis pending 2012

Purchased offsets
17. Pay offsets for air travel $0 $145,303 $9 15,624 2011
18. Commuter offsets with parking permits $0 $151,869 $9 16,330 2011

Totals $51,801,000 $218,372 $40 70,186
Table 4.Mid-term GHG emissions reduction strategy, 2016 – 2021.
Initial cost Annual cost $/MT CO2e avoided MT CO2e avoided yr-1 Timeline
Campus policies
19. Parking restrictions analysis pending
20. Replace diesel bus fuel with CNG $500,000 ($125,000) ($667) 150 2015 - 2021

Conservation and efficiency
21. Transportation fuels conservation analysis pending

Renewable energy
22. 15% renewable energy from SWEPCO $93,000 $5 18,722 2015 - 2021
23. 250 kW photovoltaic array $1,000,000 $500 $131 386 2015
24. Replace gasoline with rapidly renewable fuels analysis pending 1,800 2020

Sequestration
25. Improved forest management analysis pending 2015 - 2021

Purchased offsets

Totals $1,500,000 -$31,500 $2 21,058

Notes to Table 3

1. Building energy and use policy. A policy that establishes uniform temperature set points and building use times for all general and educational use buildings will save up to 5,000 MT CO2e yr-1. About $10,000 in staff time will be required to draft and establish a campus energy use policy. After the initial effort, no further expenses will be required.
2. Power management for plug loads. A project implemented by the Walton College of Business IT department has reduced electrical loads by 600,000 kWh yr-1 or 60 MT CO2e yr-1. By expanding this program to be campus-wide, savings will be 300 MT CO2e yr-1. About $10,000 in staff time will be required to draft and establish a campus energy use policy. After the initial effort, no further expenses will be required.
3. Commuter, parking, .
4. Compressed natural gas (CNG) emits about 85% as much GHG as gasoline, and there are also energy security and energy supply benefits to conversion from gasoline and diesel. CNG currently costs $1.11 gal-1, but the comparative cost of CNG and diesel over a long term is very uncertain. Ten new buses @ $50,000 additional per bus by 2015 = $500,000 + $1,000,000 for UA's cost share of a fueling station = $1,500,000. See http://www.cleanairnet.org/infopool/1411/propertyvalue-17731.html for more information about the economics of CNG buses.
5. Transit accrues 3,000 gal yr-1 waste oil. Waste oil space heaters (120,000 Btu hr-1 units) cost $2,500 each, burn 0.5 gal hr-1. For a heating season of 750 hrs, 3,000 gal will fuel 8 heaters. Assumes that waste oil as a fuel is worth $0.50 gal-1.
6. Trayless dining , initiated by Chartwells in Fall 08, reduced food waste from 200,000 lbs yr-1 to 100,000 lbs yr-1. One MT food waste creates 0.82 MT CO2e (USEPA. 2002. Solid Waste Management and Greenhouse Gases: A Life-Cycle Assessment of Emissions and Sinks). 50 MT food scraps avoided ∙ 0.82 MT CO2e/MT food scraps = 41 MT CO2e yr-1.
7. University Housing operates 20 residence halls that cover 1.45 MM GSF or 18.9% of total campus space. A Lucid building energy dashboard costs $40,000 for 20 buildings, and has an annual M&O cost of $4,000. Five colleges and universities report average of 11% savings in dorm competitions (http://www.luciddesigngroup.com/energycompetitions.php). 11% savings ∙ 125,000 MT CO2e yr-1 for electricity emissions ∙ 0.189 (housing/total campus) = 2600 MT CO2e yr-1 avoided by installing dashboards in 20 campus residence halls.
8. Projected savings based on a guarantee by an engineering firm under an existing campus-wide energy savings performance contract.
9. Based on energy savings calculated by Energy Systems Group and Johnson Controls Inc (ESCOs), and on CO2 emissions calculated from central plant upgrades.
10. Double the current rate of diversion from landfills from 30% to 60%. Add one worker fully loaded.
11. The project will be a Chartwells/Facilities partnership. The installation cost of $8,000 includes delivery of an Earth Tub from Boston Mountain Solid Waste District and plumbing and electrical work on site. A 0.25 FTE worker, needed to collect food waste and maintain the tub, costs $10,000 yr-1 when fringe benefits and indirect costs are included.
12. Already in place; $15,000 initial installation cost. 100 gal week-1 processed; $1 gal-1 cost to refine saves $1 gal-1 or more below diesel costs. 5,000 gal yr-1 = 50,000 kg CO2e avoided yr-1.
13. Assumes an additional 200 gal week-1 WVO from area eateries. The incremental cost of installation would be lower than the original unit cost as the existing facility could be expanded. This assumes that purchase, pickup and project management would cost $1 gal-1.
14. Wind energy financial analysis details pending.
15. In northwest AR, 1 kWpeak of photovoltaic panel produces 126 kWh mo-1. 126 kWh ∙ kWpeak-1 ∙ mo-1 ∙ 25 kWpeak ∙ 12 mo yr-1 ∙ 1.02 kg CO2e kWh /1000 kg MT-1 = 39 MT CO2e avoided yr-1 ∙ kWpeak-1.
16. Improved forest management financial analysis pending.
17. Based on the prices published at http://www.naturalstrategies.com.au/transport/reduce-offset-air-travel-emissions, sequestration projects begin at $9.30 MT-1 from GreenFleet.
18. The same offset purchased for airline offsets can be purchased to neutralize commuter emissions.

Notes to Table 4

19. See note 3.
20. Ten new buses @ $50,000 additional per bus between 2015 and 2021 = $500,000 initial cost. $125,000 annual savings results from 100,000 gal (equivalent) per year; CNG is currently $1.11 gal-1 (equiv) compared to $2.50 for diesel.
21. Transportation fuels analysis pending.
22. SWEPCO will provide green power as required under a cap-and-trade program. 124MM kWh yr-1 emissions from electricity ∙ 0.10 of the portfolio ∙ $0.005 kWh additional cost = $62,000 yr-1 additional electricity cost.
23. This assumes that PV will cost $4/kWpeak installed by 2015, and will have efficiency similar to current technology.
24. The current GHG liability for fleet fuels is 1800 MT CO2e yr-1. The extent to which biodiesel, ethanol and other rapidly renewable transportation fuels will become viable for our fleet over the next decade is uncertain.
25. Detailed forest sequestration analysis, based on improved forest management, is pending.


5.3 Long-term actions: achieving climate neutrality by 2040

By 2021 the University will have reduced GHG emissions to half the level that would have been emitted under a business-as-usual scenario. Most of the practical strategies and technologies related to energy conservation and energy efficiency will be in place by then. Renewable energy applications will be available in the form of technologies that are not yet foreseeable. The technical viability, market prices, and policy supports for carbon sequestration in soils, on farms, and on forests will have costs and values that are currently not predictable. UA will certainly deploy a combination of purchased green energy, generated green energy (from on- and off-campus), sequestration projects and purchased offsets to become climate neutral by 2040. The mix of technologies, policy instruments and market mechanisms that we will use will be determined by future revisions of this plan.

6 Curriculum and education
The University of Arkansas offers several degree programs that provide knowledge and capacity to manage tomorrow’s world more sustainably, including a PhD in Environmental Dynamics and a PhD in agronomy with a specialization in Environmental Sciences.
UA operates at least fourteen centers and programs across colleges of engineering, architecture, arts & sciences, business and agriculture that carry out research, extension, and educational efforts related to sustainability. Several of these centers have been developed specifically to address sustainability topics.
The Center for Agricultural and Rural Sustainability (CARS) works to increase prosperity for rural Arkansas through sustainable practices. The Center provides leadership in Arkansas and the world in balancing the demands of community, agriculture and ecosystems in order to meet the needs of current generations while enhancing the opportunity for future generations to meet their needs.
The Applied Sustainability Center is translating Arkansas' legacy of conservation and the ingenious use and reuse of resources into best management practices for businesses that will increase their long-term profitability and at the same time benefit society through more judicious use of land, water, air, fossil fuels and other natural resources. The Applied Sustainability Center works with a wide range of partners to facilitate the rapid development of sustainable business practices and promote their application across the retail and consumer goods industries.

In the Fall of 2010, the University of Arkansas expects to offer a Professional Science Masters degree in Sustainability Analysis. The program proposal has submitted it to the Arkansas Department of Higher Education, and we expect to open the program to the first cohort of students in Fall 2010. A new course, Fundamentals of Sustainability, will focus on greenhouse gas management and climate action. Additional core courses are Sustainability and Ethics, Agricultural and Resource Economics, Environmental Politics and Life Cycle Assessment. Graduates of this program should be able to understand and appreciate the basic principles of economics, markets, ecosystem services, resource management, economic prosperity and related ethical issues; design and execute experiments with minimal supervision; participate effectively as members of interdisciplinary teams, prepare technical reports, project plans, and regulatory documents; prepare and present information to a wide variety of constituents, from customers to stockholders to the general public; and to apply their knowledge of sustainability and skills to various areas within an institutional framework, be that a company, non-governmental organization (NGO), community organization, or governmental organization.
A capstone project will focus on a locally relevant, applied problem in sustainability. Students will learn how to assess the impact that personal, professional and corporate activities have on global climate change. The program will train students to become sustainability officers in corporations and organizations, community leaders, entrepreneurs, and developers of green programs and organizations.

7 Monitoring and reporting
The American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment calls for annual GHG emissions inventories and bi-annual updates to climate action plans. This report is submitted in September, 2009, and progress reports on our institutional GHG emissions inventory and modifications to this plan will be submitted every two years beginning in September 2011. A comprehensive update of this plan will be undertaken as the short-term activities are successfully implemented, and this plan will likely be updated in 2013 or 2014. In the interim, specific strategies may be changed to facilitate more rapid progress, to lower overall costs of reducing carbon emissions, to respond to newly emerging technologies, and to improve financial and other benefits to the University community.
Copies of this report, including background materials, are available to the general public on the UA Sustainability Council’s website, http://sustainability.uark.edu. Members of the UA community can find this report, its supporting documents, and related work undertaken by the Sustainability Council at the Council’s SharePoint site, https://sharepoint.uark.edu/sites/UASustainabilityCouncil/default.aspx.

UA Climate Action Plan schedule, July 20 – September 15, 2009

July 20 -2 4 University Relations review
July 28 Sustainability Council meeting
July 29 CAP Committee
July 30 submit to Excom
August 3 Excom review
August 7 Excom feedback
August 18 Public input - Fayetteville Public Library, Walker Room, 12 noon – 1 and 6:30 – 7:45
August 19 new grad student orientation
August 20 ASG leadership review
August 25 Sustainability Council meeting
August 27 Campus input session
August 28 resubmit to Excom
August 31 Excom review
September 3 CAP Committee
September 15 Submission to ACUPCC

A faithful response to global warming

RE: National Council of Churches Renewable Energy Meeting - A Faithful Response to Global Warming‏
From: Gladys tiffany (gladystiffany@yahoo.com)
Sent: Thu 7/23/09 10:40 AM
To: Aubrey Shepherd (aubreyshepherd@hotmail.com)
It's at St. Thomas Episcopal in Springdale beginning at 2:00. Here's the agenda:



A Faithful Response to Global Warming:
A National Energy Policy Based upon the Values of Justice and Sustainability




St. Thomas Episcopal Church
Springdale, AR
Thursday, July 23, 2009
2:00 PM to 5:00 PM

AGENDA

2:00 pm to 2:10 pm - Welcome - Ellen McNulty

2:10 pm to 2:45 pm - Defining the Problem – Robert McAfee, Repower Arkansas

2:45 pm to 3:05 pm – Energy Efficiency Legislation – Eddy Moore, Arkansas Aububon

3:05 pm to 3:25 pm - Developing A Community Wind Farm– Nathan Wilson and Benton Anderson, Winds of Change

3:25 pm to 3:30 pm - Break

3:30 pm to 3:55 pm - St. Thomas Wind Turbines – Stephan Pollard, Arkansas Alternative Energy Commissioner and Trem Well Energy LLC

3:55 pm to 4:10 pm - U of A Applied Sustainability Center – Michele Halsell

4:10 pm to 4:25 pm - Interfaith Power and Light: Starting a State Affiliate Chapter, Scharmel Roussel, Pulaski Heights United Methodist Church

4:25 pm to 4:40 pm- A Theological Response to Sustainable Energy – Rev. Pamela Morgan

4:40 pm to 5:00 pm - Wrap Up Session
Taking Action – Ellen McNulty and Linda Sherman
Closing Prayer – Reverend Pamela Morgan

Sponsors:
National Council of Churches,
St. Thomas Episcopal Church,
Repower Arkansas
Arkansas Climate Campaign Coalition



Gladys Tiffany
www.omnicenter.org
Omni Center for Peace, Justice & Ecology
Fayetteville, Arkansas USA
479-973-9049 -- gladystiffany@yahoo.com

Owning land doesn't mean you control the mineral rights! Don't buy one without the other!

Fayetteville food drive and Washington County "stop the quarry" efforts touted on square on Saturday July 18, 2009

Please click on images to ENLARGE view of details. The finger points to the area where the red-dirt pit that owners want to convert to a limestone mine sits on the edge of Fayetteville. It is up to the Washington County Quorum Court to see that the proposal is not allowed. Residents of Fayetteville and the rest of Washington County must let their justices of the peace know their feelings about this project or it could become an even uglier disaster than shown on the poster. And the limestone pit is estimated to take 75 years to deplete!

Kucinich says clean energy sets targets that are too weak

Kucinich Says Climate Bill Might Make Things Worse

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/20090627_kucinich_says_climate_bill_might_make_things_worse/

Posted on Jun 27, 2009

Statement From Rep. Dennis Kucinich:

“I oppose H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. The reason is simple. It won’t address the problem. In fact, it might make the problem worse.

“It sets targets that are too weak, especially in the short term, and sets about meeting those targets through Enron-style accounting methods. It gives new life to one of the primary sources of the problem that should be on its way out– coal – by giving it record subsidies. And it is rounded out with massive corporate giveaways at taxpayer expense. There is $60 billion for a single technology which may or may not work, but which enables coal power plants to keep warming the planet at least another 20 years.

“Worse, the bill locks us into a framework that will fail. Science tells us that immediately is not soon enough to begin repairing the planet. Waiting another decade or more will virtually guarantee catastrophic levels of warming. But the bill does not require any greenhouse gas reductions beyond current levels until 2030.

“Today’s bill is a fragile compromise, which leads some to claim that we cannot do better. I respectfully submit that not only can we do better; we have no choice but to do better. Indeed, if we pass a bill that only creates the illusion of addressing the problem, we walk away with only an illusion. The price for that illusion is the opportunity to take substantive action.

“There are several aspects of the bill that are problematic.

1. Overall targets are too weak. The bill is predicated on a target atmospheric concentration of 450 parts per million, a target that is arguably justified in the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, but which is already out of date. Recent science suggests 350 parts per million is necessary to help us avoid the worst effects of global warming.

2. The offsets undercut the emission reductions. Offsets allow polluters to keep polluting; they are rife with fraudulent claims of emissions reduction; they create environmental, social, and economic unintended adverse consequences; and they codify and endorse the idea that polluters do not have to make sacrifices to solve the problem.

3. It kicks the can down the road. By requiring the bulk of the emissions to be carried out in the long term and requiring few reductions in the short term, we are not only failing to take the action when it is needed to address rapid global warming, but we are assuming the long term targets will remain intact.

4. EPA’s authority to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the short- to medium-term is rescinded. It is our best defense against a new generation of coal power plants. There is no room for coal as a major energy source in a future with a stable climate.

5. Nuclear power is given a lifeline instead of phasing it out. Nuclear power is far more expensive, has major safety issues including a near release in my own home state in 2002, and there is still no resolution to the waste problem. A recent study by Dr. Mark Cooper showed that it would cost $1.9 trillion to $4.1 trillion more over the life of 100 new nuclear reactors than to generate the same amount of electricity from energy efficiency and renewables.

6. Dirty Coal is given a lifeline instead of phasing it out. Coal-based energy destroys entire mountains, kills and injures workers at higher rates than most other occupations, decimates ecologically sensitive wetlands and streams, creates ponds of ash that are so toxic the Department of Homeland Security will not disclose their locations for fear of their potential to become a terrorist weapon, and fouls the air and water with sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, particulates, mercury, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and thousands of other toxic compounds that cause asthma, birth defects, learning disabilities, and pulmonary and cardiac problems for starters. In contrast, several times more jobs are yielded by renewable energy investments than comparable coal investments.

7. The $60 billion allocated for Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) is triple the amount of money for basic research and development in the bill. We should be pressuring China, India and Russia to slow and stop their power plants now instead of enabling their perpetuation. We cannot create that pressure while spending unprecedented amounts on a single technology that may or may not work. If it does not work on the necessary scale, we have then spent 10-20 years emitting more CO2, which we cannot afford to do. In addition, those who will profit from the technology will not be viable or able to stem any leaks from CCS facilities that may occur 50, 100, or 1000 years from now.

8. Carbon markets can and will be manipulated using the same Wall Street sleights of hand that brought us the financial crisis.

9. It is regressive. Free allocations doled out with the intent of blunting the effects on those of modest means will pale in comparison to the allocations that go to polluters and special interests. The financial benefits of offsets and unlimited banking also tend to accrue to large corporations. And of course, the trillion dollar carbon derivatives market will help Wall Street investors. Much of the benefits designed to assist consumers are passed through coal companies and other large corporations, on whom we will rely to pass on the savings.

10. The Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) is not an improvement. The 15% RES standard would be achieved even if we failed to act.

11. Dirty energy options qualify as “renewable”: The bill allows polluting industries to qualify as “renewable energy.” Trash incinerators not only emit greenhouse gases, but also emit highly toxic substances. These plants disproportionately expose communities of color and low-income to the toxics. Biomass burners that allow the use of trees as a fuel source are also defined as “renewable.” Under the bill, neither source of greenhouse gas emissions is counted as contributing to global warming.

12. It undermines our bargaining position in international negotiations in Copenhagen and beyond. As the biggest per capita polluter, we have a responsibility to take action that is disproportionately stronger than the actions of other countries. It is, in fact, the best way to preserve credibility in the international context.

13. International assistance is much less than demanded by developing countries. Given the level of climate change that is already in the pipeline, we are going to need to devote major resources toward adaptation. Developing countries will need it the most, which is why they are calling for much more resources for adaptation and technology transfer than is allocated in this bill. This will also undercut our position in Copenhagen.

“I offered eight amendments and cosponsored two more that collectively would have turned the bill into an acceptable starting point. All amendments were not allowed to be offered to the full House. Three amendments endeavored to minimize the damage that will be done by offsets, a method of achieving greenhouse gas reductions that has already racked up a history of failure to reduce emissions – increasing emissions in some cases – while displacing people in developing countries who rely on the land for their well being.

“Three other amendments would have made the federal government a force for change by requiring all federal energy to eventually come from renewable resources, by requiring the federal government to transition to electric and plug-in hybrid cars, and by requiring the installation of solar panels on government rooftops and parking lots. These provisions would accelerate the transition to a green economy.

“Another amendment would have moved up the year by which reductions of greenhouse gas emissions were required from 2030 to 2025. It would have encouraged the efficient use of allowances and would have reduced opportunities for speculation by reducing the emission value of an allowance by a third each year.

“The last amendment would have removed trash incineration from the definition of renewable energy. Trash incineration is one of the primary sources of environmental injustice in the country. It a primary source of compounds in the air known to cause cancer, asthma, and other chronic diseases. These facilities are disproportionately sited in communities of color and communities of low income. Furthermore, incinerators emit more carbon dioxide per unit of electricity produced than coal-fired power plants.

“Passing a weak bill today gives us weak environmental policy tomorrow,” said Kucinich.




--
Dick Bennett
jbennet@uark.edu

Agitate now, the way our founding fathers did!

This July 4th, Rebel and Agitate for Change
Saturday 04 July 2009
by: Jim Hightower | Visit article original @ AlterNet



John Hancock's defiance. (Artwork: 1776web.com)

Agitators created America, and it's their feisty spirit and outright rebelliousness that we celebrate on our national holiday.

Are you an agitator? You know, one of those people who won't leave well enough alone, who's always questioning authority and trying to stir things up.

If so, the Powers That Be detest you -- you ... you ... "agitator!" They spit the term out as a pejorative to brand anyone who dares to challenge the established order. "Oh," they scoff, "our people didn't mind living next to that toxic waste dump until those environmental agitators got them upset." Corporate chieftains routinely wail that "our workers were perfectly happy until those union agitators started messing with their minds."

In each case, the message is that America would be a fine country if only we could get rid of those pesky troublemakers who get the hoi polloi agitated about one thing or another.

Bovine excrement. Were it not for agitators, we wouldn't even have an America. The Fourth of July would be just another hot day, we'd be singing "God Save the Queen," and our government officials would be wearing white-powdered wigs.

Agitators created America, and it's their feisty spirit and outright rebelliousness that we celebrate on our national holiday. I don't merely refer to the Founders, either. Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, James Madison, Ben Franklin and the rest certainly were derring-do agitators when they wrote the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, creating the framework for a democratic republic. But they didn't actually create much democracy. In the first presidential election, only 4 percent of the people were even eligible to vote. No women allowed, no African Americans, no American Indians and no one who was landless.

So, on the Fourth, it's neither the documents of democracy that we celebrate nor the authors of the documents. Rather, it's the intervening two-plus centuries of ordinary American agitators who have struggled mightily against formidable odds to democratize those documents.

America's great rebellion didn't end with the British surrender at Yorktown. It was only getting started -- and the rebellion has moved through such great forces of agitation as the abolitionists and suffragists, Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass, the Populists and the Wobblies, Fighting Bob La Follette and Huey Long, the Square Deal and New Deal, Mother Jones and Woodie Guthrie, Rachel Carson and Ralph Nader, Martin Luther King Jr. and Cesar Chavez -- and on into today's continuing fight for economic fairness, social justice and equal opportunity for all.

Without agitators battling in politics, on the job, in the marketplace, for the environment, on Wall Street, in education, for civil liberties and rights, and all across our society, democratic progress doesn't just stall, it falls back.

The Powers That Be -- especially America's overarching corporate and political forces (often the same) -- give lip service to democracy, but tend toward plutocracy, autocracy and kleptocracy. They prefer (and often demand) that We the People be passive consumers of their economic and political policies. Don't rock the boat, stay in your place, go along to get along -- be quiet, they urge.

Be quiet? Holy Thomas Paine! How could freedom-loving, democratic citizens shrink into quietude, especially when the Powers That Be feel so entitled to run roughshod over us? Even a dead fish can go with the flow. We've got to be livelier than that.

July Fourth is a time to enjoy fireworks, flags, hotdogs, ballgames and such -- but it's also a time to remember who we are: agitators!

It's not easy to stand against powerful interests. Sometimes it's lonely, and you get to feeling like the guy B.B. King sings about: "No one likes you but your momma, and she might be jiving you, too." It's not easy, but having those who dare to stand up is essential if our country is ever to achieve our ideals of fairness, justice and opportunity for all.

And when the establishment derisively assails you as an agitator, remember this: The agitator is the center post in the washing machine that gets the dirt out.

------

Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the new book, "Swim Against the Current: Even a Dead Fish Can Go With the Flow." (Wiley, March 2008) He publishes the monthly "Hightower Lowdown," co-edited by Phillip Frazer.

Honeybee on butterfly milkweed on June 30, 2009

Please click on image to ENLARGE view of honeybee on milkweed on June 30, 2009, at World Peace Wetland Prairie.

Butterfly gardens easy to grow all over

Please click on image to ENlarge view of obedient plant on Pinnacle Foods Inc. Prairie west of World Peace Wetland Prairie on June 19, 2009, a big pink flower whose name I can't remember at the moment at the entry to the trail through Pinnacle Prairie and a butterfly milkweed near WPWP.




Butterfly gardens can be grown throughout the
United States. There is a wide variety of both butterfly
attracting (nectar) plants and host (food) plants cover-
ing climates zones throughout the country.
Creating a Garden
Gardens can range in size from containers to sever-
al acres. Butterflies like sunny sites and areas sheltered
from high winds and predators. Warm, sheltered sites
are most needed in the spring and fall. Butterflies are
cold-blooded insects that can only fly well when their
body temperatures are above 70oF. They are often seen
resting on rocks, which reflect the heat of the sun help-
ing to raise their body temperatures, so be sure to
include some rocks in your garden. It’s also beneficial
to have partly shady areas, like trees or shrubs, so they
can hide when it’s cloudy or cool off if it’s very hot.
Plants that attract butterflies are usually classified
as those that areafood source,anectar source or both.
Butterflies require food plants for their larval stages and
nectar plants for the adult stage. Some larvae feed on
specifichost plants, while others will feed on a variety
of plants. If possible, include both larval host plants
and adult nectar plants in your butterfly garden.
Butterflies also like puddles. Males of several
species congregate at small rain pools, forming “puddle
clubs”. Permanent puddles are very easy to make by
buryingabucket to therim, filling it with gravel or
sand, and then pouring in liquids such as stale beer,
sweet drinks or water. Overripe fruit, allowed to sit for
afew days is a very attractive substance to butterflies
as well!
Life Cycle of A Butterfly
Butterflies go through a four-stage developmental
process known as metamorphosis (egg, larva or caterpil-
lar, pupa or chrysalis and adult). Understanding a but-
terfly’s life cycle can make butterfly watching more
enjoyable, andthis knowledge is an important asset to
those who want to understand the principles of attract-
ingbutterflies to their gardens.
Butterflies begin their life as an egg, laid either
singly or in clusters depending on the species. A very
tiny caterpillar emerges and, after consuming its egg
shell, begins feeding on its host plant. Caterpillars must
crawl out of their skin or molt, usually around five times,
before changing into a pupa. Finally, an adult butterfly
emerges, spreads its wings and flies away.
Butterflies typically lay their eggs in late spring and
hatch 3 to 6 days after they are laid. It takes 3 to 4
weeks for a caterpillar to pupate and 9 to 14 days to
emerge as an adult.
Host Plants
Adult female butterflies spend time searching for
food plants required by the immature caterpillar stage.
Most butterflies have specific host plants on which they
develop. For example, caterpillars of the monarch but-
terfly develop only on milkweed, while the black swal-
lowtail feeds only on parsley, dill and closely related
plants. Planting an adequate supply of the proper host
plants gives butterflies a place to lay their eggs, which
will successfully hatch and result in butterflies that will
continue to visit thegarden. Providing the necessary
food plants for the developing caterpillars also allows
production of a “native” population that can be
observed in all stages ofdevelopment.
To enjoy adult butterflies, you have to be willing to
allow their caterpillars to feed on foliage in your garden.
Food source plants that support caterpillars include the
annual marigold, snapdragon and violet; the perennial
butterfly milkweed, daisy and various herbs; the ash,
birch, cherry, dogwood, poplar and willow trees; lilac
shrubs; juniper evergreens and more.
The weediness of some host plants makes them less
than desirable for a space within your more attractive
garden beds, but they serve the same function if you
place them away in a corner of the yard. To keep them
from becoming invasive, remember to remove their
spentblooms before they go to seed.
Plants to Attract Butterflies
To attract the most butterflies, design a garden
that provides a long season of flowers (nectar plants).
The time of flowering, duration of bloom, flower color
and plant size are all important considerations when
selecting plants to attract butterflies. A wide variety of
food plants will give the greatest diversity of visitors.
Choose a mixture of annuals and perennials.
Annuals bloom all summer but must be replanted every
spring (after the last frost). Perennials bloom year after
year from the same roots but their blooming periods are
typically limited to a few weeks or months. To ensure
the availability of nectar sources throughout the sum-
mer, long-blooming annuals should be planted between
the perennials.
Try staggering wild and cultivated plants, as well as
blooming times of the day and year. Planting in mass
(several plants of the same kind) will usually attract
more butterflies, as there is more nectar available to
them at a single stop. Plants with clusters of flowers
are often better than plants with small, single flowers
because it is easier for butterflies to landon clustered
and/or larger flowers.
Many plants which attract butterflies, especially
trees and shrubs, may already be present in a specific
area. Shrubs include azalea, spirea, butterfly bush and
lilacs. Although weeds andsomenative plants are gen-
erally not welcomein a garden, allowingthem to grow
under supervision may be an option, as these plants
help attract butterflies. Try to avoid plants that readily
reseed and may take over and dominate garden sites.
Perennials, such as chives, dianthus, beebalm, but-
terfly weed, mints, black-eyed susan and purple cone-
flower offer a succession of blooms, other perennials
include coreopsis, lavender, phlox, sedum and yarrow.
Add annuals that flower all season, such as cosmos, lan-
tana, pentas,petunias, phlox, salvia and zinnias. Select
flowers with manysmall tubular flowers or florets like
liatris, goldenrod and verbena. Or chose those with sin-
gle flowers, such as marigold, daisy and sunflower.
Butterflies are attracted to flowers with strong
scents and bright colors, where they drink sweet energy-
rich nectar. Planting a variety of nectar sources will
encourage more butterflies to visit the garden.
For better butterfly viewing, plant the tallest
plants in the rear of the garden and work smaller or
shorter towardthefront.
Butterfly
Gardens
Creating, Growing and Enjoying
EARLMAYSEED&NURSERY
www.earlmay.com
SHENANDOAH, IOWA51603
Butterfly Host Plants(continued)
Trees Herbs
Ash Dill
Birch Parsley
Cherry Sweet Fennel
Dogwood
Linden
Poplar
Willow
Butterfly Attracting Plants
Annuals Perennials
Ageratum Aster
Cosmos Beebalm
Gomphrena Blanket Flower
Heliotrope Butterfly Milkweed
Lantana Coreopsis
Marigold Daisy
Nasturtium Dame’s Rocket
Nicotiana Daylily
Pentas Dianthus
Petunia Liatris
Phlox Phlox
Salvia Purple Coneflower
Snapdragon Rudbeckia
Statice Russian Sage
Sunflower Salvia
Sweet Alyssum Scabiosa
Verbena Sedum
Zinnia Veronica
Yarrow
Shrubs Herbs
Azalea Catnip
Butterfly Bush Chives
Lilacs Lavender
Mock Orange Mint
Potentilla
Viburnun
Cut Back on Insecticides
It’s difficult to have a successful butterfly garden
inalocation where insecticides are used. Pesticides,
specifically insecticides, kill not only the insects you
want to get rid of – they also kill the insects you want
tokeep, such as monarch caterpillars. Even biological
controls such as Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) will kill but-
terfly larvae. When treating for insect pests, always
consider non-chemical methods of pest control before
turning to pesticides.
Let Your Garden Grow
Most butterfly species over-winter nearby. This
means that their eggs, chrysalises, or larvae are likely to
be in or near your yard during the non-gardening
months. Some will even hibernate as adults. Do not
mow weed sites, cut down dead plants or dismantle
woodpiles which provide them safe shelter in the off-
season until the weather warms up.
Enjoying Your Butterfly Garden
Butterfly gardens are a great source of enjoyment
for everyone. Visiting butterflies include a variety of
different species and names, depending upon the region
of the country in which you live. To learn more about
which plants help in attracting butterflies get your copy
of National Wildlife Federation Attracting Birds,
Butterflies and Other Backyard Wildlife by David
Mizejewski or the Earl May Perennial Guideavailable at
your local Earl May Nursery & Garden Center.
Butterfly Host Plants
Annuals Perennials
Marigold Butterfly Milkweed
Snapdragon Daisy
Violet
Shrubs Evergreens
Lilacs Juniper
IBM# 912600 750 4/08
Copyright Earl May Seed & Nursery L.C. ©

Raingardens demonstrate how watershed works. Save the soil, catch water where it falls

Please click on start arrow to watch video of raingarden and prairie wetland at Seven Hills Shelter in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in May 2009.

Arkansas officials say 'Don't Do Fescue'

Arkansas “Don't Do Fescue" is theme of AGFC public campaign
JONESBORO - Tall fescue is a widely used forage crop. It is insect resistant, tolerates poor soil and climatic conditions well and has a long growing season. Unfortunately, tall fescue also has a downside.

With approximately four million acres of pasturelands planted in tall fescue, Arkansas has a great deal of this crop. According to David Long, agricultural liaison with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, the agency is working diligently to help the public understand the shortcomings of this type of grass.

"The AGFC has developed a new tool in its effort to educate landowners about the toxic and negative effects of Kentucky 31 Tall Fescue to farm wildlife. A new bumper sticker entitled 'Don't Do Fescue' is now being distributed to agency employees and others interested in spreading the word," Long said. Tall fescue is a common forage grass that has been planted across Arkansas for over 40 years.

Estimates are that about 70 percent-95 percent or 4 million acres of the pasturelands planted with tall fescue in Arkansas are infected with an endophyte fungus. The fungus causes declines in bobwhite quail, cottontail rabbits, grassland songbirds and also limited other game populations such as white-tailed deer and wild turkey.

"The fact that the plant is actually toxic to both domestic livestock and farm wildlife species is accepted by agriculture extension specialists and wildlife biologists alike," Long said. "The plant produces chemicals causing the fescue to have very toxic qualities. The alkaloids are found throughout the plant, but are especially concentrated in the seeds and leaves," he explained.

In cattle, the fungus causes excessive body temperatures, elevated respiratory rates, loss of appetite, body weight loss, lowered fertility rates and abortion of fetuses. Dairy cows often show sharp declines in milk production. Horses are affected also with more aborted fetuses, foaling problems, weak foals and reduced or no milk production. The CES estimates that this endopytic toxin cost American beef producers up to $1 billion a year in lost profits.

"It's very important for private landowners who desire viable wildlife populations on their property to know the effects of planting fescue," Long noted. "Many species of wildlife would directly suffer these same negative effects if they were confined to the pasturelands as are livestock. However, since they are free ranging, they simply avoid the fungus infected fescue pastures, but nevertheless, this results in loss of farm wildlife habitat on these acres. You may have deer and turkey travel through tall-fescue pastures, but they rarely find food sources available they can utilize, since the aggressiveness of the fescue usually results in solid stands of the plant," Long concluded.

The grass is a sod-forming turf with thick matted growth that also limits movement of young bobwhite quail, turkey and cottontail rabbits, provides no nesting habitat for wild turkey or quail, and is extremely poor habitat for many declining grassland species of songbirds. "Bottom line, fungus infected tall-fescue pastures offer little food, cover or nesting habitat to a broad range of farm wildlife," he said.

"Tall fescue has been planted in an estimated 4 million acres of the 5.4 million acres of pasture scattered over the state and for all practical purposes is of no value to farm wildlife. With the widespread establishment of tall fescue pastures, a great loss of wildlife habitat for deer, turkey, quail, cottontails and grassland songbirds has occurred.

Many landowners now recognize this problem and are interested in eliminating tall-fescue on some or all of their acreage. However, many landowners continue to plant tall-fescue, not knowing the detrimental effects it will have to wildlife. (There is an endophyte-free variety of tall fescue available for planting but it is less viable and hardy, and still provides very limited habitat for wildlife.)

We want to educate all landowners regarding this fact because there are other planting options to providing livestock forage and wildlife habitat on their farms," Long explained.

Please help spread the word to landowners "Don't Do Fescue!" by requesting a bumper sticker to place on your vehicle. Especially if they have an interest in managing for wildlife on their farm. For more information contact David Long at 877-972-5438 or dlong@agfc.state.ar.us.

New York Times article on a true watershed warrior

RONALD GATTO is an unlikely environmental hero. A former power-lifter, he once bench-pressed 595 pounds and his left biceps bears a tattoo of a police bulldog with handcuffs and a nightstick. He loves cars, and has two vintage Chevrolets in his garage, a green 1960 Impala and a bright red 1971 Chevelle Supersport.

But to many environmentalists, Mr. Gatto is a prophet crying out in the wilderness of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, where he works as a police captain, charged with protecting the reservoirs that serve New York City and Westchester.

For the rest of the story, please click on
New York Times article on a true watershed warrior
and follow the links at the bottom of each page online to read the next one.

A few words about the value of Pinnacle Prairie with night sounds for background

Click on start arrow to view night scene at Pinnacle Prairie and hear a few words about the value of Pinnacle Prairie and similar areas.

Global warming and salmon

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/67402.html

idahostatesman.com

May 03, 2009
All we do now to save salmon could mean nothing
Fish that spawn in the south and in the summer will die first as the world warms. Idaho's high-elevation runs may offer one of the best chances the species has.
The Pacific Northwest has spent two decades retooling dams, rebuilding damaged watersheds and restoring stream flows to keep salmon from disappearing.
The United States has invested billions in the effort - $350 million in 2004 alone - by far the most money spent on any endangered species.
But a new threat is more devastating than the gill nets that sent dozens of salmon runs into extinction. It is more deadly than the hydroelectric turbines that still kill millions of migrating smolts. In fact, it raises doubts about whether salmon will survive in the Northern Pacific at all.
Climate change already has made rivers warmer and spring runoff earlier, disrupting the life cycle of the fish that are an icon of the region.
No matter what actions the world takes to reduce greenhouse gases, river temperatures in more than half of the lower-elevation watersheds may exceed 70 degrees by 2040 - too hot for salmon.
"The only salmon that are going to survive the century mark are the ones in the large populations in the higher elevations that are still going to have snow and cold water," said Jim Martin, a former chief of fisheries for the state of Oregon.
But even these runs and those as far north as Alaska would be threatened if the world does not reduce gases like carbon dioxide over the next 50 years.
This means the hydroelectric dams that provide more than half of the electricity in the region - without emitting carbon dioxide - are more valuable than ever.
That presents an ethical challenge to the environmentalists, Indian tribes and commercial and sport fishermen who have fought for years to reduce the impacts of dams on the fish. The dams are no longer just economic drivers in the region. They could be - at least for the short term - critical tools for reversing the most dramatic environmental peril of our time.
The dilemma is another for environmentalists who are slowly recognizing that they will have to reconcile their decades-old efforts to "save all the parts" of the environment with the increasingly urgent need they see to stop or reverse climate change.
Environmentalists can't simply try to stop what they consider harmful activities, said Pat Ford, executive director of Save our Wild Salmon. They need to offer solutions.
"If you are not working both, you are setting up a blind spot you cannot sustain," he said.
"We are no longer in the time when these are economic versus environmental arguments," said Steve Wright, administrator of the Bonneville Power Administration, which markets the power from the dams and uses some of the proceeds to pay for fish recovery. "Increasingly these are environmental versus environmental arguments."
Scientists expect climate change to force an ecological bottleneck. Even in a best-case scenario, a period of maximum impacts from climate change will affect living conditions for all species - including humans - before human efforts can reverse climate change.
That means making painful choices about priorities - choices being faced by environmentalists worldwide.
"I think global warming demands leadership from conservationists in a way we haven't consistently done yet," Ford said.
ARE WE WASTING MONEY ON SOME FISH?
Idaho's Snake River sockeye were listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1991, requiring that the federal government take no action that will jeopardize the existence of the species. That has driven the management of the dams, farming, logging and residential development in salmon-spawning habitat across a Columbia watershed about the size of France.
In many ways, this has focused the attention on the weakest salmon runs - often in the most degraded habitat with the most dams blocking migration.
Now the threat of climate change has brought another approach to the forefront: preserving the strongholds of salmon populations not just here but across the Pacific.
Some scientists say salmon in places like Kamchatka in Russia's Far East, Bristol Bay in Alaska and many Northwest watersheds are the most healthy and genetically fit and have the best chance of surviving growing population pressures and climate change.
Guido Rahr, president of the Wild Salmon Center in Portland, said protecting these strongholds is the most cost-effective way to make sure salmon survive.
"Look at salmon populations as a stock portfolio," Rahr said. "Most of our stocks are the most expensive and the highest risk."
He is careful politically to say protecting strongholds and recovering all endangered salmon shouldn't be an either/or proposition. But the growing realities of climate change may force society to make those choices down the road.
"If our goal is to have healthy salmon runs on some part of the Pacific Northwest in 50 to 100 years, we have to do something different," Rahr said. "The Endangered Species Act is not enough."
SAVING SPECIES FOR THE FUTURE, NOT TODAY
Imagine the Pacific Northwest of 2109, where the salmon of the future will have to survive:
Portland and Seattle have quadrupled in size.
Temperatures have risen and the Northwest's climate resembles that of San Francisco and Sacramento today. Despite the world's efforts to stem global warming, temperatures have increased enough that many rivers once red with fish are now uninhabitable for salmon.
California runs - troubled enough in 2009 that coastal fishing was called off for the second year in a row - have become only a memory. In fact, many of the stocks we are spending the most money on today may be extinct no matter what we do.
"Those populations whose life cycles put them in the river in the summertime either for their spawning migration or juvenile rearing are likely to see the biggest negative impacts from climate change," said Nate Mantua, University of Washington assistant professor of atmospheric sciences and a researcher focused on the impacts of climate change on the Pacific and its ecosystems. "From southern British Columbia down to California, many of the southern stocks are already seriously compromised."
Salmon in and among the Northwest's cities will face vastly different hurdles than they do today, said Martin, the former Oregon fisheries chief.
"Right now we're trying to save salmon in these little suburbia streams on the edge of the city," he said. "But in the longer term, we understand the population development and climate change are going to overwhelm the salmon in those streams."
The federal salmon recovery plan now before U.S. District Judge James Redden emphasizes an ambitious program of habitat restoration, hatchery improvements and dam modifications instead of removing the four dams.
BPA cut a deal in 2008 with all Northwest Indian tribes except the Nez Perce that increases spending on salmon by another billion dollars over the next decade. Most of the money would go to expensive habitat restoration programs in low-elevation watersheds long altered by human activities. Another big chunk of money goes to hatcheries to meet harvest demands and treaty rights or to augment severely depressed wild stocks.
"What we have now is a strategy that emphasizes the number of salmon that survive the decade," Martin said. "This strategy will actually reduce the number of salmon that will survive the century."
POWER CONSERVATION COULD BE KEY
So far, Ford and other fish advocates aren't ready to give up on any salmon stocks. Preventing society from making "Noah's choice" - deciding which species survive - is one of their core values.
Instead, they seek to keep open as many options as possible, such as the nearly $30 million captive breeding program that seeks to preserve Redfish Lake's sockeye and their genetic fitness that scientists see as so precious.
And still, their first priority - even for protecting the salmon they hope will survive a climate change bottleneck - is the same as always: Remove four dams on the Snake River in Washington that present major barriers to the salmon of Idaho and eastern Washington.
Idaho shares some key attributes with the salmon strongholds of Alaska's Bristol Bay and Russia's Kamchatka: pristine undeveloped habitat and diverse and potentially productive genetically fit stocks of salmon, said Jack Williams, a fisheries biologist with Trout Unlimited.
The region once accounted for 50 percent of the 8 million to 16 million salmon that historically spawned in the Columbia Basin.
Williams and many other fisheries biologists believe that potential can be tapped again, if we can remove four of the eight dams standing between the Pacific and more than 22 million acres of wild and roadless high-elevation watersheds in central Idaho and eastern Oregon.
If the dams were removed, they believe that among all the southern runs, these salmon and steelhead have the best chance to survive climate change.
But the four dams generate about 1,000 megawatts of electricity a year - close to what Idahoans use now - without spouting the nearly 4 million tons of greenhouse gases that coal plants would produce to make that power.
With the right plan, the Pacific Northwest doesn't need to make this choice, said Sara Patton, executive director of the Northwest Energy Coalition, which promotes energy efficiency and low costs for consumers.
A coalition study shows that energy-efficiency programs - along with wind, solar, geothermal and biomass generation plants - can boost power generation by 6,500 megawatts by 2020, enough new electricity to power 845,000 of today's homes for less than a penny a kilowatt.
It would also be enough to meet the electric demand as the region's population doubles, while retiring 1,000 megawatts of coal-produced power and removing the four dams.
Patton said the trade-off to keep prices down was to plan for coal plants - many of which serve Idaho Power customers - to generate power through the life of the plants instead of shutting them down immediately. When they do close, it will reduce 80 percent of the region's greenhouse gases, the coalition predicts.
And even as the price of energy rises, customers' light bills will drop because they will individually use less power.
Wright, the BPA administrator, doesn't support removing the four dams, but he agrees that much of the region's demand could be met through energy-efficiency - though he is doubtful it can be done so cheaply.
He thinks it is too soon to talk about triage.
"It's way too early to say we understand how microclimates will change, to be able to write off species," Wright said.
Save Our Wild Salmon's Ford agrees. He figures Martin is right, but he acknowledges how little is known about how climate change will affect the Columbia Basin.
He wants to give salmon and the interconnected ecosystems on which they depend every chance he can. Ultimately their future - and ours - depends on the ability to adapt.
"Salmon are going to bring themselves through global warming," Ford said. "We aren't."
Rocky Barker: 377-6484

FarmToTable theme of today's program in the Rose Garden of the Walton Art Center with renewable-energy lecture at Night Bird bookstore at 2 p.m.

Please click on image to ENLARGE view of OMNI Springfest poster.

Please click on image to ENLARGE view of poster.

Solar Power Struggle
Professor Richard Hutchinson of Louisiana Tech University in Ruston will speak on "The Struggle for the Solar Future" at 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 2, at Nightbird Books on Dickson Street in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
An inquiry into environmental change and the obstacles and opportunities in the path of the renewable energy transition.
Sponsored by OMNI Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology.

The struggle for the solar future subject of program Saturday afternoon at Nightbird Books on Dickson Street.

Please click on image to ENLARGE view of poster.

Solar Power Struggle
Professor Richard Hutchinson of Louisiana Tech University in Ruston will speak on "The Struggle for the Solar Future" at 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 2, at Nightbird Books on Dickson Street in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
An inquiry into environmental change and the obstacles and opportunities in the path of the renewable energy transition.
Sponsored by OMNI Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology.

Fran Alexander says DUH to ADEQ's weak-kneed response to polluters

ADEQ Study: Drilling Fluid Disposal Done Improperly by Many
By Arkansas Business Staff - 4/20/2009 4:21:00 PM

The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality Monday announced that a recent study it conducted determined that fluids used in natural gas drilling have been "improperly applied by landfarms operating in the state, thus endangering the environment."

Drilling fluids are used in the fracturing process that breaks apart shale, allowing trapped natural gas to seep out. The practice is used in the Fayetteville Shale Play in north-central Arkansas.

Of 11 sites studied, all had improperly discharged the fluids, according to a department release. The department has taken actions against the 11 sites and has sought to revoke permits for two sites. The discharges resulted in improper runoff and chloride concentrations in soil that were abnormally high. The department began the study in November, after halting consideration for new landfarm permits.

"With the increase in the number of landfarms and applications for landfarms due to expanded drilling activity in the state, concerns about the resulting environmental impact warranted a closer look at these operations," Marks said.

The study supports new enforcement standards, including that routine soil and water sampling be conducted in front of an ADEQ inspector and fencing be erected around all on-site ponds.

Scientists in the department's environmental preservation and water divisions prepared the report and visited the 11 landfarms between November and January.

During several visits, inspectors discovered chloride concentrations downstream and other contaminants in higher concentration downstream than were present upstream. Four facilities also had chloride levels in fluids above the acceptable limit - 3,000 milligrams per liter.


Copyright © 2009, Arkansas Business Limited Partnership. All Rights Reserved.

Earth Day Every Day, says Fran Alexander

CROSS CURRENTS : Earth Day every day
Fran Alexander frana@nwarktimes.com
Posted on Monday, April 20, 2009
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/Editorial/75828/
"We are like butterflies that flutter for a day and think it's forever." - Carl Sagan There are as many ways to acknowledge or celebrate Earth Day as there are people on the planet, so I hope everyone will commit to at least one activity or one action or one thought to this big ball on which we're whirling through space and consider your personal impact upon it. There are usually a variety of organized events to choose from on both sides of April 22, so hopefully sometime this week you'll give the old globe a personal nod of recognition. Fleas should not ignore the health of the dog, after all.

There is no subject, creation, object or idea we humans have ever come up with that does not in some way relate back to the Earth, yet we tend to behave as if people are somehow separate, like we can stop and get off when things get bad. Earth Day is a time to think hard about finding our personal niche in untangling some of the messes we all find ourselves in environmentally, both locally and globally.

A good place to start fixing problems is in learning a thing or two about the Earth's reaction to us. As part of their ongoing commitment to study, the League of Women Voters (which is having their state convention in Fayetteville on Saturday, April 25) is inviting the community to the Fayetteville Public Library's Walker Room for a couple free presentations on environmental issues by top-notch speakers.

A program from 10 until 11:30 a.m. will be given by Dr. Marty Matlock, who is with the university's Center for Agriculture and Rural Sustainability Ecological Engineering Group. He also works in ecosystem restoration projects and serves as an advisor for five national organizations as well as providing technical support for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service in the Mid-East Peace Process.

Matlock's talk, titled "The Ethics of Sustainability," connects the dots as he weaves us with others across the globe in our competition for "ecological services." Those services range from provisions like food, water, fiber and fuel to what constitutes feelings of "well-being" for living things such as security, adequate resources and shelter, health, and good social conditions. These fundamentals really have to be in place before we as individuals or as nations can achieve freedoms of choice and action.

In a time when "sustainability" is on everyone's lips in discussing the economy, jobs, investments, quality of life and every other thing imaginable, it is important we learn exactly what we are talking about and the cost and ethics in sustaining varying levels of existence. Matlock is a very energetic speaker, who can convey concepts and information very clearly, and I can highly recommend his programs.

Later that day from 2 until 3:15 p.m., there will be a phone connection with and video program of Dr. Theo Colborn, founder of the Endocrine Disrupter Exchange (TEDX), "the only organization that focuses primarily on the human health and environmental problems caused by low-dose and/or ambient exposure to chemicals that interfere with development and function."

Right off you may say to yourself, as I did, "Well that's over my head for sure!" But think again. We all learned about the endocrine system in school, that group of little organs in our bodies (pituitary, thyroid, thymus, adrenal, pancreas, pineal, ovaries, testes) that pretty well control everything the brain doesn't bother with directly. These regulate vital functions like "body growth, response to stress, sexual development and behavior, production of insulin, rate of metabolism, intelligence and the ability to reproduce."

SEX! Do I have your attention now?

And what does this have to do with Earth Day? Well, quite a lot actually. Dr. Colborn and others are studying the effects on humans of industrially produced chemicals in the environment. One of their major studies is on gas drilling's chemical contamination of land, water and air. Natural gas extraction is expanding rapidly, and the Fayetteville Shale gas fields in central Arkansas are no exception in experiencing the same problems felt all over the country, yet we are hearing very little about what is actually going on environmentally. Frankly, there is a lot of head-in-the-sand denial about the impact of the poisoned water and toxins that are regurgitated out of these wells, and our governor and state Legislature are so smitten with the millions in taxes from gas production that they are "doe-in-the-headlights" blind and deaf to the consequences. There was not even a percentage of money set aside for fixing major environmental problems, if they even are fixable, especially before they harm or destroy lives.

As I have written before regarding oil and gas production, even as unbelievable as it is to the public, "all meaningful environmental oversight and regulation of ... natural gas production was removed by the executive branch and Congress in the 1995 Federal Energy Appropriations Bill. Without restraints from the Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, Clean Air Act, [etc.], the gas industry is steamrolling over vast land segments." This quote is from Dr. Colburn's TEDX Web site on chemicals (http://www.endocrinedisruption.com/home.php).

Our state Legislature has just in this session allowed only people with industry connections to serve on the Oil and Gas Commission and also sustained these private industries' power of eminent domain to extract and transport resources. We need to clearly understand what these powers mean in light of our health and rights now and in the future, and what helplessness they impose on the citizenry to protect itself.

Earth Day is about now and about every day to come. And, as Dr. Matlock says, "Everything is connected, everything is changing, and we're all in this together." I hope you will connect too in looking for solutions.

Fran Alexander is a local resident and an active environmentalist.

Copyright © 2001-2009 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved. Contact: webmaster@nwanews.com

Brown thrashers among the many species to be seen on World Peace Wetland Prairie during Sunday's Earth Day celebration

Please click on image to Enlarge view of one of the many species of birds feeding and picking nesting sites on World Peace Wetland Prairie on April 17, 2009. The elusive brown thrasher is often able to slip into the thickets before a camera can capture its image. But the attraction of scattered brush piles and the excitement of mating season can make them a bit careless.

Lust for agricultural land growing worldwide

Not a day goes by without new acreage being signed over. "For Sale" ads for agricultural property are now featured in the international financial press. And there's no dearth of clients. "At the end of 2008," Jean-Yves Carfantan, author of "Choc alimentaire mondial, ce qui nous attend demain" ["Global Food Shock: What's in Store for Us Tomorrow"] (Albin Michel, 2009), observes, "five countries stood out for the extent of their foreign arable land acquisitions: China, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, Japan, and Saudi Arabia. Together, they control over 7.6 million cultivable hectares outside their national territory, or the equivalent of 5.6 times the utilizable agricultural surface of Belgium." The phenomenon of land grabs is certainly not new, as it goes back to the first colonizations. However, in the opinion of many observers, economists and NGOs, it is now accelerating.

The explosion of agricultural commodity prices in 2007 and 2008, following the example of the same phenomenon in the 1970's, made many investors decide to turn to land. The fall in prices has not made them run away. As GRAIN - an international NGO which seeks to promote agricultural biodiversity - notes in a report published in October 2008 and entitled, "Seized: The 2008 landgrab for food and financial security," given the present financial debacle, all kinds of actors from the financial and agribusiness sectors - pension funds, hedge funds, etc. - have abandoned derivative markets and consider that agricultural land has become a new strategic asset."

They are not alone. Many countries have made the same analysis, not to find sources of surplus value, but for reasons of food security. "The objective is clearly to parry the consequences of stagnation in their domestic production, induced by unrestrained urbanization and the reduction of water resources," Mr. Carfantan explains. Arable land is becoming ever more rare in the Middle East, for example. So, the petro-monarchies have been investing the last three years in the creation of extraterritorial annexes. Qatar controls lands in Indonesia; Bahrain in the Philippines; Kuwait in Burma, etc.

"Agricultural Outsourcing"

It's not at all surprising that the Chinese government should, for its part, make a policy of agricultural land acquisition abroad one of its priorities: the country represents 40 percent of the global active agricultural population, but possesses only nine percent of Earth's arable land, Mr. Carfantan remarks. As for Japan and South Korea, they already import 60 percent of their food from abroad.

The canvassing of Southern countries' political officials is intensifying. At the end of 2008, Moammar Kaddafi, Libya's head of state, came to the Ukraine to propose an exchange of oil and gas for (local) fertile land. The business is about to be concluded. Thursday, April 16, a Jordanian delegation will go to Sudan to strengthen its agricultural presence there somewhat - a presence initiated already ten years ago. But the movement also concerns Europe. According to the weekly, La France agricole [Agricultural France], 15 percent of the total surface of Romania - or over 15 million hectares - is in the hands of owners from other European countries.

This strategy of "agricultural outsourcing" is not without consequences. What about local populations directly threatened by this commoditization of the land they live from? Today, the planet contains 2.8 billion farmers (out of a population of 6.7 billion people) and three-quarters of those who are hungry live in the countryside. Land registries are often nonexistent. How are and how will those who till and live from the land be indemnified if they have no property titles?

"Producers' organizations are alerting us more all the time about the question of land concentration and about conflicts between small peasants and agribusiness that cultivates for export," explains Benjamin Peyrot des Gachons, from the NGO, Peuples solidaires, which has chosen to organize an international forum on land access (in Montreuil, April 18 and 19) to celebrate the World Day for Peasant Struggle April 17. Farmers from India, Ecuador, Brazil, Burkina Faso and the Philippines will come to bear witness.

The NGO militates for the development of usage rights - with land remaining in the government's hands - not for property rights, which the World Bank favors. Although the attribution of property titles may allow the coexistence of family agriculture and the presence of foreign investors to occur, Peuples solidaires "deems that peasants will not have the means to acquire land." And even if land is attributed to them, "they will rapidly be forced to sell it, should they get in trouble." According to the NGO, property rights will consequently benefit big operators, whether foreign or not.

Another problem provoked by this race for arable land: cohabitation between investing countries and the local population. "Look at what happened in Madagascar after the announcement of the rental of 1.3 million hectares to the South Korean Daewoo Group," resumes Mr. Carfantan. "It was an explosion. I believe tensions will be inevitable wherever this occurs, making foreign agricultural enclaves veritable besieged fortresses." Unless, he argues, harvest sharing and technology transfers are organized so that all may bank on the long term.

A Million Chinese Peasants in Africa by 2010

In 2006, Beijing signed agricultural cooperation agreements with several African countries that allowed the installation of 14 experimental farms in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Uganda and Tanzania. "We believe that between now and 2010, a million Chinese peasants could be installed on these lands," explains economist and agricultural consultant to Brazil, Jean-Yves Carfantan. Candidates for expatriation are found among the peasants affected by the present crisis.

The Official Objective: to help the receiving countries increase their production, thanks to Chinese technologies: "The hybrid rice varieties created by Beijing allow improvements in yield of 60 percent compared to the global average," Mr. Carfantan notes. However, also according to him, it's clear that a good part of the harvests will be exported to China, in order to guarantee that market's long-term supplies.

--------

This article is the first of a series on the rush for arable land, which has led Le Monde to investigate in Mali, the Maldives, Saudi Arabia and Kazakhstan.

Translation: Truthout French language editor Leslie Thatcher.
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"VIEW SOURCE ARTICLE" LINKS ARE PROVIDED AS A CONVENIENCE TO OUR READERS AND ALLOW FOR VERIFICATION OF AUTHENTICITY. HOWEVER, AS ORIGINATING PAGES ARE OFTEN UPDATED BY THEIR ORIGINATING HOST SITES, THE VERSIONS POSTED ON TO MAY NOT MATCH THE VERSIONS OUR READERS VIEW WHEN CLICKING THE "VIEW SOURCE ARTICLE" LINKS.

Fayetteville Natural Heritage Association's green-infrastructure project offers first major report online

Green-infrastructure report from Fayetteville Natural Heritage Association project

Earth Day celebration on April 19, 2009, at World Peace Wetland Prairie

Please click on image to ENLARGE to read details of the poster.

Bird-watchers welcome every day from dawn to dusk!

Reagan family farm north of Arkansas 16 exemplifies the kind of land that must be protected in the cities of Northwest Arkansas to save Beaver Lake

Please click on image to ENLARGE view of Bill Reagan pointing to the line of trees along the fence on the south edge of his family farm along the north edge of East Fifteenth Street.


The Reagan family has owned the land for many years and Bill said that he has bought it from his mother and will keep it in the family. The farm is prairie that has been used for cattle grazing and other agriculture over the decades. It is an example of a heritage farm of the sort identified in the Fayetteville Natural Heritage Association's Green Infrastructure plan. Its rich soil captures water where falls and does not cause flooding downstream with its limited stormwater runoff entering the Town Branch of the West Fork of the White River without causing siltation or pollution. See Google map with view of Fifteenth Street area in a preceding post on this subject.
Democrat-Gazette on widening of Arkansas 16


View Larger Map
Please use controls and cursor to move the image, zoom in or out and trace the whole route discussed at the meeting yesterday. The Reagan property is near the middle left part of the image above.
If you use your cursor to travel north of the open Reagan property between Washington Avenue and Wood Avenue from 11th Street up to near 9th Street you can see the 7 wooded wetland acres that the Partners for Better housing board is trying to buy to dredge and fill for a low-income housing development. Water drains from north of Jefferson School, all the way from north of MLK Boulevard (former 6th St.) down to 15th St. and into the Town Branch of the West Fork of the White River and is slowed and purified by the moist-soil area where the tiny branch overflows.
This portion of the Beaver Lake watershed is under extreme threat. Thanks to the Reagan family and others for keeping a bit of green infrastructure intact and allowing a small part of the rainwater to stay it falls.

Thomas Friedman on the Dow and Nature

Mother Nature’s Dow
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
While I’m convinced that our current financial crisis is the product of both The Market and Mother Nature hitting the wall at once — telling us we need to grow in more sustainable ways — some might ask this: We know when the market hits a wall. It shows up in red numbers on the Dow. But Mother Nature doesn’t have a Dow. What makes you think she’s hitting a wall, too? And even if she is: Who cares? When my 401(k) is collapsing, it’s hard to worry about my sea level rising.

It’s true, Mother Nature doesn’t tell us with one simple number how she’s feeling. But if you follow climate science, what has been striking is how insistently some of the world’s best scientists have been warning — in just the past few months — that climate change is happening faster and will bring bigger changes quicker than we anticipated just a few years ago. Indeed, if Mother Nature had a Dow, you could say that it, too, has been breaking into new (scientific) lows.

Consider just two recent articles:

The Washington Post reported on Feb. 1, that “the pace of global warming is likely to be much faster than recent predictions, because industrial greenhouse gas emissions have increased more quickly than expected and higher temperatures are triggering self-reinforcing feedback mechanisms in global ecosystems, scientists said. ‘We are basically looking now at a future climate that’s beyond anything we’ve considered seriously in climate model simulations,’ Christopher Field, director of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University, said.”

The physicist and climate expert Joe Romm recently noted on his blog, climateprogress.org, that in January, M.I.T.’s Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change quietly updated its Integrated Global System Model that tracks and predicts climate change from 1861 to 2100. Its revised projection indicates that if we stick with business as usual, in terms of carbon-dioxide emissions, average surface temperatures on Earth by 2100 will hit levels far beyond anything humans have ever experienced.

“In our more recent global model simulations,” explained M.I.T., “the ocean heat-uptake is slower than previously estimated, the ocean uptake of carbon is weaker, feedbacks from the land system as temperature rises are stronger, cumulative emissions of greenhouse gases over the century are higher, and offsetting cooling from aerosol emissions is lower. Not one of these effects is very strong on its own, and even adding each separately together would not fully explain the higher temperatures. [But,] rather than interacting additively, these different effects appear to interact multiplicatively, with feedbacks among the contributing factors, leading to the surprisingly large increase in the chance of much higher temperatures.”

What to do? It would be nice to say, “Hey, Mother Nature, we’re having a credit crisis, could you take a couple years off?” But as the environmental consultant Rob Watson likes to say, “Mother Nature is just chemistry, biology and physics,” and she is going to do whatever they dictate. You can’t sweet talk Mother Nature or the market. You have to change the economics to affect the Dow and the chemistry, biology and physics to affect Mother Nature.

That’s why we need a climate bailout along with our economic bailout. Hal Harvey is the C.E.O. of a new $1 billion foundation, ClimateWorks, set up to accelerate the policy changes that can avoid climate catastrophe by taking climate policies from where they are working the best to the places where they are needed the most.

“There are five policies that can help us win the energy-climate battle, and each has been proven somewhere,” Harvey explained. First, building codes: California’s energy-efficient building and appliance codes now save Californians $6 billion per year,” he said. Second, better vehicle fuel-efficiency standards: “The European Union’s fuel-efficiency fleet average for new cars now stands at 41 miles per gallon, and is rising steadily,” he added.

Third, we need a national renewable portfolio standard, mandating that power utilities produce 15 or 20 percent of their energy from renewables by 2020. Right now, only about half our states have these. “Whenever utilities are required to purchase electricity from renewable sources,” said Harvey, “clean energy booms.” (See Germany’s solar business or Texas’s wind power.)

The fourth is decoupling — the program begun in California that turns the utility business on its head. Under decoupling, power utilities make money by helping homeowners save energy rather than by encouraging them to consume it. “Finally,” said Harvey, “we need a price on carbon.” Polluting the atmosphere can’t be free.

These are the pillars of a climate bailout. Yes, some have upfront costs. But all of them would pay long-term dividends, because they would foster massive U.S. innovation in new clean technologies that would stimulate the real Dow and much lower emissions that would stimulate the Climate Dow.

Turn off your lights at 8:30 tonight and save energy for an EARTH HOUR

Event aiming to turn spotlight on climate by turning off lights
BY KRISTIN NETTERSTROM
Posted on Saturday, March 28, 2009
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/255910/
Organizations and residents across the state are flipping the switch tonight, turning their lights and other electrical gadgets off for an hour to raise awareness about climate change as part of the 2009 global Earth Hour effort.

Nearly 200 U.S. cities are expected to participate, with the lights going out at hundreds of McDonald's restaurants across the Midwest and at popular tourist attractions, such as Broadway marquees in New York and the spotlights that shine on Chicago's Sears Tower's twin spires. Cities in 84 countries are expected to participate at 8:30 p.m., their local times, The Associated Press reported.

Severed limb budding at end. Birds and squirrels and rabbits may eat them

Here is the caption with the photo of limbs burning in Benton County:
Up in smoke:
Benton County employee Harvey Johnson watched a fire at 10791 Stoney Point Road near Lowell on Thursday. The county is burning limbs and trees broken by this winter’s ice storm. Other burn sites are at 9900 Marchant Road in Elm Springs, 21447 Waukesha Road in Siloam Springs and 19941 Bettis Hill Road near War Eagle. Washington County is also burning ice-storm debris on North 40th Street in Springdale. DAVID FRANK DEMPSEY / Benton County Daily Record

If no one in either county had a fireplace or a wood stove, this might seem slightly less ridiculous.
I hope a lot of people who can use firewood or who would collect it and sell will be at those sites before more is burned and load it up and take it away.
This wood would save people money, reduce air pollution now and save the carbon in these limbs for actual home heating and reduce global climate change (because people with wood stoves and fire places will be buying wood next fall and reducing the tree cover even more in Northwest Arkansas.
Additionally, birds and squirrels are eating buds on those limbs where they are lying. In fact, many large limbs or trunks lying separated from the main trunk nearly months are budding right now! So wildlife are having too search a bit more for food, which is tough for birds facing nesting season.
Burning material with this much value is WRONG.
It is even worse than chipping it all. This is incredibly wasteful and inconsiderate of people and other living things.

Benton County Daily Record shares photo of downed limbs burning near Lowell in Friday March 27, 2009, edition

Here is the caption:
Up in smoke:
Benton County employee Harvey Johnson watched a fire at 10791 Stoney Point Road near Lowell on Thursday. The county is burning limbs and trees broken by this winter’s ice storm. Other burn sites are at 9900 Marchant Road in Elm Springs, 21447 Waukesha Road in Siloam Springs and 19941 Bettis Hill Road near War Eagle. Washington County is also burning ice-storm debris on North 40th Street in Springdale. DAVID FRANK DEMPSEY / Benton County Daily Record

If no one in either county had a fireplace or a wood stove, this might seem slightly less ridiculous.
I hope a lot of people who can use firewood or who would collect it and sell will be at those sites before more is burned and load it up and take it away.
This wood would save people money, reduce air pollution now and save the carbon in these limbs for actual home heating and reduce global climate change (because people with wood stoves and fire places will be buying wood next fall and reducing the tree cover even more in Northwest Arkansas.
Additionally, birds and squirrels are eating buds on those limbs where they are lying. In fact, many large limbs or trunks lying separated from the main trunk nearly months are budding right now! So wildlife are having too search a bit more for food, which is tough for birds facing nesting season.
Burning material with this much value is WRONG.
It is even worse than chipping it all. This is completely wasteful.

The population bomb keeps getting more powerful but naysayers continue to ignore itl

March 21, 1974
The new Population Bomb?
Professor Sir John Beddington, Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Government and Professor at Imperial College in London has given a speech to the Sustainable Development UK conference calling for immediate action in addressing food, energy, and water concerns. He believes that these three human needs will culminate in a "perfect storm" capable of disrupting much of life as we know it. If we do not move to handle the increasing demands, growing population and increasing poverty will come to a head by 2030, causing a crisis which could result in conflict, political upheaval, and mass migration.

This call for action reminds me of Paul Ehrlich, who in 1968 wrote The Population Bomb "...in which he foresaw the end of life on earth by famine, plague, or thermonuclear destruction unless drastic measures were taken -- first and foremost, a halt to the spiraling population growth" according to the News Journal (March 31, 1970). Ehrlich's population bomb did not come to pass, and the world has more-or-less kept up food production in coordination with population growth. But Beddington's predictions are not as dire, and are backed by more solid facts. Will his foresight become fact?


2003: Invasion of Iraq
The Iraq War, still ongoing, began today with the invasion of Iraq by the United States backed by British, Australian, Polish, and Danish troops. “U.S. forces launched their long-awaited war against Saddam Hussein, targeting him personally with a barrage of cruise missiles and bombs as a prelude to invasion,” reported the Logansport Pharos-Tribune on March 20, 2003. “Iraq responded hours later, firing missiles today toward American troops positioned just across its border with Kuwait.”



Links to the Past
War Commences
Logansport Pharos-Tribune, March 20, 2003

U.S. forces unleash first salvos against Saddam
Daily Globe, March 20, 2003

1st missiles strike
Daily Herald, March 20, 2003


Logansport Pharos-Tribune
March 20, 2003


1988: Plane carries 8-year-old on kite
Eight-year-old DeAndra Anrig was flying her kite in a California park today when it was snagged by an airplane, lifting the young girl 10 feet off the ground and carrying her for more than 100 feet before she let go to avoid hitting a tree. "Little DeAndra Anrig was flying her kite when it suddenly started to fly her, her parents say," explained the Daily Herald on March 24, 1988. "She let go, but said she was still sore after two days' rest. The plane, meanwhile, is grounded because of damage apparently caused by getting tangled in the kite string."



Links to the Past
And Away She Went!
The Chronicle Telegram, March 23, 1988

What Goes Up…
The Post Standard, March 23, 1988

She Holds on to Kite String for a Wild Ride
Daily Herald, March 24, 1988


1976: Patty Hearst found guilty
Patricia Hearst, granddaughter of newspaper giant William Randolph Hearst, was convicted today of taking part in a terrorist bank robbery conducted by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). "With their verdict, the jurors accepted the theory posed by many government witnesses that Miss. Hearst was a willing and eager bank robber, 'a rebel in search of a cause' – who identified fully with the terrorists who kidnapped her on Feb. 4, 1974," reported The Lincoln Star on March 21, 1976. NOTE: President Jimmy Carter later commuted her sentence and Hearst was released from prison in 1979. President Bill Clinton granted her an official pardon 22 years later.



Links to the Past
Patty Hearst Found Guilt of Holdup
Bucks County Courier Times, March 21, 1976

Continued: Patricia Hearst is Found Guilty


Jury Rejects Patty Hearst's Story
The Lincoln Star, March 21, 1976

Continued: Jury Finds Tania Portrait More Believable



Bucks County Courier Times
March 21, 1976


1966: World Cup is stolen
Soccer's top trophy, the World Cup, was stolen today while on display at Westminster Hall in London. "The trophy, a solid gold statuette of a winged figure insured for £30,000 ($90,000), went on exhibition Friday in connection with the World Cup finals in England in July. Raiders forced their way into the exhibition room in Central Hall, Westminster, shortly before noon," explained the Winnipeg Free Press on March 21, 1966. NOTE: Seven days after it was stolen, a dog discovered the trophy in a garden, wrapped in newspapers.



Links to the Past
Famous World Cup Stolen
Winnipeg Free Press, March 21, 1966

World Cup Caper
Winnipeg Free Press, March 22, 1966

Dog Finds World Cup in Garden
The Daily Intelligencer, March 28, 1966


1899: First woman is electrocuted
Today, Martha M. Place became the first woman to die in the electric chair. Place was sentenced to death after being found guilty of smothering her stepdaughter, Ida, to death. "Mrs. Martha Place was successfully electrocuted in the prison (Sing Sing) here at 11:01 a.m. today. It was pronounced the best execution that ever occurred here, and Dr. Harvey the prison physician, said death was instantaneous," informed The Marion Daily Star on March 20, 1899.



Links to the Past
"God Help Me," She Cried
The Mansfield News, March 20, 1899

Executed
The Marion Daily Star, March 20, 1899

Went Calmly to Her Death
The Portsmouth Herald, March 21, 1899


The Mansfield News
March 20, 1899


1852: Uncle Tom's Cabin is published
Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was published today. The book quickly became a bestseller in the United States and England. "'Uncle Tom' is one of those led off to the far south, and then disposed of. Time passes, and he becomes a Christian, endures all manner of abuse and inhumanity, till finally the story closes with his death under the lash of a brutal overseer, or by his direction," reported the Milwaukee Daily Sentinel on June 2, 1852. NOTE: The novel, which focused on the life of a slave named Uncle Tom, made many of its readers re-think society's view of African–Americans and slavery.

Arkansas Senators aren't helping the fight against coal-burning power plants

King Coal
— By Kevin Drum | Fri March 13, 2009 11:26 AM PST
Barack Obama has promised to push cap-and-trade legislation this year, and one way of getting it approved in the Senate is to push it through via the budget reconciliation process, where it would require only 50 votes to pass. Elana Schor reports that this has run into a roadblock:


In a letter delivered to the Senate Budget Committee yesterday, eight Democratic senators joined 25 Republicans to defend the GOP's right to set a 60-vote margin for passing emissions limits.

"We oppose using the budget process to expedite passage of climate legislation," the senators, including eight centrist Democrats, wrote in their missive.

...Late Update: The eight Democratic senators who signed on to the letter are Robert Byrd (WV), Blanche Lincoln (AR), Ben Nelson (NE), Evan Bayh (IN), Mark Pryor (AR), Bob Casey (PA), Carl Levin (MI), and Mary Landrieu (LA).
Take a look at those names: six are from the midwest and the south, joined by Casey and Byrd. In other words, coal country senators. Nearly all the electricity generated in these regions comes from coal, and a lot of that coal comes from West Virginia and Pennsylvania, the #2 and #4 coal-producing states in the country.

This is a dynamic to watch. The battle over cap-and-trade isn't just between liberals and conservatives, it's also between regions. You'll find coal-fired electric plants all around the country, but the midwest and the south rely on it much more heavily than the west and the northeast, which generate a lot of their electricity via hydro and natural gas. Cap-and-trade will raise the price of coal-fired electricity more than any other kind, which means the price increases will hit the south and midwest especially hard.
This letter, then, isn't just a sign that there are some Democratic senators who feel strongly about not bending Senate rules. It's a sign that Democrats from the south and midwest are probably going to have to bribed to support cap-and-trade. The big question is, how? Can they be bought off in fairly benign, traditional ways, or will their price effectively mean the gutting of the legislation? Stay tuned.
Mother Jones story click here
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/03/king-coal

What name would make people understand climate change and global warming?

Time to Change "Climate Change"
Thursday 12 March 2009
by: George Monbiot | Visit article original @ The Guardian UK

What's clear from Copenhagen is that policymakers have fallen behind the scientists: global warming is already catastrophic.
The more we know, the grimmer it gets.
Presentations by climate scientists at this week's conference in Copenhagen show that we might have underplayed the impacts of global warming in three important respects:
• Partly because the estimates by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) took no account of meltwater from Greenland's glaciers, the rise in sea levels this century could be twice or three times as great as it forecast, with grave implications for coastal cities, farmland and freshwater reserves.
• Two degrees of warming in the Arctic (which is heating up much more quickly than the rest of the planet) could trigger a massive bacterial response in the soils there. As the permafrost melts, bacteria are able to start breaking down organic material that was previously locked up in ice, producing billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide and methane. This could catalyse one of the world's most powerful positive feedback loops: warming causing more warming.
• Four degrees of warming could almost eliminate the Amazon rainforests, with appalling implications for biodiversity and regional weather patterns, and with the result that a massive new pulse of carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere. Trees are basically sticks of wet carbon. As they rot or burn, the carbon oxidises. This is another way in which climate feedbacks appear to have been underestimated in the last IPCC report.
Apart from the sheer animal panic I felt on reading these reports, two things jumped out at me. The first is that governments are relying on IPCC assessments that are years out of date even before they are published, as a result of the IPCC's extremely careful and laborious review and consensus process. This lends its reports great scientific weight, but it also means that the politicians using them as a guide to the cuts in greenhouse gases required are always well behind the curve. There is surely a strong case for the IPCC to publish interim reports every year, consisting of a summary of the latest science and its implications for global policy.
The second is that we have to stop calling it climate change. Using "climate change" to describe events like this, with their devastating implications for global food security, water supplies and human settlements, is like describing a foreign invasion as an unexpected visit, or bombs as unwanted deliveries. It's a ridiculously neutral term for the biggest potential catastrophe humankind has ever encountered.

I think we should call it "climate breakdown." Does anyone out there have a better idea?
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The National Wildlife Federation reports on environmental success and coming action

National Wildlife Federation news on environmental efforts

Stand against coal

From: Bill McKibben, 350.org
Dear Friends,
There are moments in a nation's--and a planet's--history when it may be necessary for some to break the law in order to bear witness to an evil, bring it to wider attention, and push for its correction.
Today is one of those days.
In a few hours, the first big protest of the Obama era -- and the largest-ever civil disobedience against global warming in this country -- will take place against the not-very-scenic backdrop of the coal-fired Capitol Hill Power Plant in Washington DC.
Myself and people of every stripe will be risking arrest today, and I'm asking you to stand with me as it unfolds.
Please stand with the thousands gathering today in DC, and show the world that people everywhere are uniting behind a future free of coal--a future safe from the ravages of climate change.
Click here to stand in solidarity with this action: http://www.350.org/Coal-Free/

Here's the statement you'll be signing onto:
I share your vision of a coal-free future and a safe climate, not only in Washington DC--but all over the world. I stand in solidarity with the coalition of citizens working for a clean energy future for the entire planet.
You also have the option to add your personal statements of solidarity with the activists on the ground. We're trying to show as much support as possible in the next few hours--can you sign on now? http://www.350.org/Coal-Free/
With President Obama and a new US Congress, there is more possibility for climate action than ever before. It really feels like the U.S. is close to a breakthrough--and this protest can help create the political space a breakthrough requires.
Here's the backstory: Washington DC has seen its share of big protests over the years, and most of them center on the White House, the Mall or the Capitol.
But today's event is just a few blocks a way from the White House at the the Capitol Power Plant--a dirty symbol of the dirtiest business on Earth, the combustion of coal.
In that one plant -- owned and operated by our senators and representatives -- you can see all the filth that comes with coal. There are the particulates it spews into the air and hence the lungs of those Washington residents who enjoy breathing. There are the profits it hands to the coal industry, which is literally willing to level mountains across West Virginia and Kentucky to increase its fat margins. And most of all there is the invisible carbon dioxide it spews each day into the atmosphere, drying our forests, melting our glaciers and acidifying our oceans.
The power plant is only a symbol, of course -- a lunch counter or a bus station in the fight for environmental justice. We'll sit down at its gates for a single afternoon, but the message is much larger: it's time to start figuring out how to shut down every coal-fired plant on the planet. Success won't come right away because we're up against some of the world's richest corporations, but we have to start turning this tanker around someday, and tomorrow is that day.
Again, our efforts will be greatly helped if you stand in solidarity with this action: http://www.350.org/Coal-Free/
This may seem like an odd time to take to the streets -- after all, the new administration has done more in a month to fight global warming than all the presidents of the past 20 years. But in fact, it's the perfect moment. For one thing, our leaders may actually listen -- in the anti-science years of the Bush administration, global warming activists concentrated their work on state capitols, knowing that the federal government would never budge. Now, if we demonstrate that there's real public pressure, we may give the Democratic Congress and the White House some room to act.
More to the point, the time not to act is running out. Climate science has grown steadily darker in the past 18 months, ever since the rapid melt of Arctic sea ice in the summer of 2007 showed scientists that change was coming faster than they'd reckoned.
That message was underlined recently at the Washington meetings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, when Stanford researcher Christopher Field said: "We are basically looking now at a future climate that's beyond anything we've considered seriously in climate model simulations." Our foremost climatologist, NASA's James Hansen, has given that future a number -- any level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere beyond 350 parts per million, his team has demonstrated, is "incompatible with the planet on which civilization developed."
Since we're already past that number -- the carbon dioxide level is at 387 parts per million -- the fight is on. Indeed, by Hansen's calculation, the world will need to be out of the coal-burning business by 2030, and the West much sooner than that, if we're ever going to get back to 350. It's no accident that NASA's James Hansen announced he'll be on hand to get arrested. So will Gus Speth, who ran the United Nations Development Programme, and the farmer and author Wendell Berry who has seen the devastation of his native Kentucky.
And maybe most heartening, I'll be joined by over a thousand college students who will have just come from lobbying in the halls of Congress for clean energy. They'll have just wrapped up PowerShift '09--an climate convergence organized by a separate coaltion that promises to be a historic catalyst in this movement. These two complimentary tactics are a very good sign: a healthy movement is like a healthy ecosystem--marked by spectacular diversity. There are many ways to be a climate activist--lobbying, rallying, educating, and on and on and on. For me--today at least--being a climate activist means risking arrest with civil disobedience.
Getting the planet off coal -- getting the planet back to 350 -- will be the main political and economic challenge for the lifetimes of those college students. Those of us who are older won't live long enough to see the final victory, but we can help get it started, by lobbying, by writing e-mails -- and by sitting down in the street on an afternoon in March.
Please join me,
Bill McKibben
P.S. Please forward this message far and wide. If your friends and family share a vision for coal-free, clean energy future safe from climate change--and I'm quite sure at least some of them do--ask them to sign our solidarity statement by clicking here: http://www.350.org/coal-free/
----------------------------------------

350.org is an international grassroots campaign that aims to mobilize a global climate movement united by a common call to action. By spreading an understanding of the science and a shared vision for a fair policy, we will ensure that the world creates bold and equitable solutions to the climate crisis. 350.org is an independent and not-for-profit project.

350.org needs your help! To support our work, donate securely online at http://www.350.org/donate


To subscribe, visit http://www.350.org/signup.

Join us on Facebook by becoming a fan of our page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/350org/12185972707





Gladys Tiffany
Omni Center for Peace, Justice & Ecology
Fayetteville, Arkansas USA
479-973-9049 -- gladystiffany@yahoo.com

Coal just ain't a good energy source

Racism is a serious problem in our country, and hate groups are exploiting a poor economy and the election of a black president to grow and thrive.
Is there a hate group near you?

You can make a difference.

Take a Stand Against Hate.



WASHINGTON WATCH REPORT


* GWB personal memoir will confess alcohol relapses, marital woes, says national weekly. Read.

* President’s Therapist revelations of secret intervention to treat George W. Bush a bestseller. Read.

* President’s Therapist surely not fiction, says NY lit prof to special TV inquiry. See video/ Read


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Coal Action Heats Up Capitol Hill
By Harry Hanbury, American News Project. Posted February 27, 2009.

This weekend thousands of students will come to D.C. to rally, lobby, and get arrested for a clean energy economy. Tools

Global warming is lighting a fire on today's campuses, and this weekend thousands of students will come to D.C. to rally, lobby, and get arrested for a clean energy economy. ANP talks with young activists about why this issue inspires their generation, and we hear from Congressman Jim Moran about why the time is right for civil disobedience.

STOP THE BOMBING IN APPALACHIA.
[
We can't stand anymore of THE CLEAN COAL TECHNOLOGY, Appalachia has been bombed, blasted and bulldozed right into 3rd world America !!! www.wisecountyissues.com

Practically ALL solutions to our sorry enviornmental state involve finding something new to BURN, cleaning (or petending to) clean existing fuel like coal, or scams like synfuels and biofuels. Burning stuff is what got us into the mess we're in, now. The same old crap isn't going to work; it's time to begin the research into energy production which doesn't add to the CO2 in the air, or more HEAT, either.

Don't let the contractors take all your brushpiles; the birds won't forgive you

Please click on image to ENLARGE view of mockingbird on brushpile at World Peace Wetland Prairie on February 25, 2009,


The more buds you spot on the ends of small limbs the more likely these limbs are the ones to keep on your property if you want plenty of song birds to be in your neighborhood when spring comes. You might also try to convince your neighbors to preserve some similar brushpiles on their property. And urging neighbors to preserve ice-damaged trees on their property also will help.
Many won't understand. But every property owner who keeps a brush pile or resists pressure to cut down a damaged tree can make a difference in the reproductive success of song birds in the coming spring.

Climate Fears Are Driving 'Ecomigration' Across Globe

Adam Fier, wife Misbah Sadat and daughters Maya and Maha moved to New Zealand partly out of climate concerns. (By Leah L. Jones For The Washington Post)


By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 23, 2009; Page A01
Adam Fier recently sold his home, got rid of his car and pulled his twin 6-year-old girls out of elementary school in Montgomery County. He and his wife packed the family's belongings and moved to New Zealand -- a place they had never visited or seen before, and where they have no family or professional connections. Among the top reasons: global warming.

THIS STORY
Climate Fears Are Driving 'Ecomigration' Across Globe
Weather Gang: MIT Group Increases Global Warming Projections
Full Coverage: Environmental News
Halfway around the world, the president of Kiribati, a Pacific nation of low-lying islands, said last week that his country is exploring ways to move all its 100,000 citizens to a new homeland because of fears that a steadily rising ocean will make the islands uninhabitable.

The two men are at contrasting poles of a phenomenon that threatens to reshape economies, politics and cultures across the planet. By choice or necessity, millions of "ecomigrants" -- most of them poor and desperate -- are on the move in search of more habitable living space.

There were about 25 million ecomigrants in the world a little more than a decade ago, said Norman Myers, a respected British environmental researcher at Oxford University. That number is now "a good deal higher," he added. "It's plain that sea-level rise in the wake of climate change will inundate the homelands of huge numbers of people."



In Bangladesh, about 12 million to 17 million people have fled their homes in recent decades because of environmental disasters -- and the low-lying country is likely to experience more intense flooding in the future. In several countries in Africa's Sahel region, bordering the Sahara, about 10 million people have been driven to move by droughts and famines.

In the Philippines, upwards of 4 million people have moved from lowlands to highlands as a result of deforestation. And in an earlier era, about 2.5 million Americans became ecomigrants after droughts and land degradation during the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s.

President Anote Tong of Kiribati asked the international community this month to start thinking of ways to help entire nations relocate to higher ground. He called for an international fund to buy land for such mass migrations and said his nation's citizens are prepared to pay for a new homeland. Many citizens of Kiribati are attempting to migrate to New Zealand, and Tong said he is arming his people with skills in vocations such as plumbing that would be valuable in other countries.

A variety of forecasts suggest that environmental disasters are likely to grow in number and intensity in coming decades. Conflicts and war often follow migrations of large numbers of people across international borders. But as the Fier family shows, ecomigration is not just the province of the desperate -- or a phenomenon that involves only people in faraway lands.

"The guy who moves from here to New Zealand is no different than the guy who moves from the lowland in the Philippines to the highland, or from El Salvador to Honduras," said Rafael Reuveny, a political economist who studies ecomigration at Indiana University at Bloomington. "Down the road, probably sooner than we think, we are facing major environmental changes. These changes have started to occur and are moving relatively slowly, but the pace of change will accelerate in our lifetime."

Fier, 38, a computer security professional who used to work at NASA, said he thought hard about the risks of global climate change. He knew moving to a new country would be difficult but thought that the dangers of staying in the United States were worse. Several years ago, he drew up a list of countries and studied how they might fare over the next century. He examined their environmental policies, access to natural resources and whether they would be safe from conflict. He decided that New Zealand would offer a comparable quality of life, has an excellent environmental record and is isolated from global conflicts by large tracts of the Pacific Ocean. Its tropical, subtropical, temperate and arctic zones also offer a variety of "bioenvironments" as a hedge against the vagaries of climate change.

New Zealand's environmental credentials are no secret: Nearly half of all skilled migrants to the country cite its "climate or the clean, green environment to be a main reason" for moving there, according to a survey conducted by the nation's Department of Labor.

Although the nation of 4.3 million produces only one-fifth of 1 percent of the world's greenhouse gases, it is ramping up production of energy from renewable sources, said Roy Ferguson, New Zealand's ambassador to the United States.

Sierra Club to meet at 7 p.m. Tuesday Feb. 24, 2009, for presentation on environmental bills in legislature

The Ozark Headwaters Group of the Sierra Club will be meeting
tomorrow, Tuesday Feb. 24th, at 7 pm at U.S. Pizza Company on Dixon
Street in Fayetteville. The Bicycle Coalition of the Ozarks has a fun
and informative presentation planned. Also Bill Kopsky of the Arkansas
Public Policy Panel will be discussing the environmental bills that
will be coming before the Arkansas Legislature this year and the
upcoming rally day at the Capitol building. You do not have to be a
member to attend!
For more information contact Molly at mollyrawn@gmail.com or at 479 527 9499

Cost

Study: New Regulations Could Cost Turk Coal Plant $2.8 Billion 
By The Associated Press - 2/19/2009 5:08:01 PM
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - A proposed coal-fired power plant being built in southwestern Arkansas could end up paying $2.8 billion over 40 years because of new federal carbon penalties, a study by opponents released Thursday claims.
New figures from the Southwestern Electric Power Co. put the cost of building the plant at about $2 billion, counting the costs of upgrading power lines and substations and obtaining an air permit. But opponents say a tougher stance by the Environmental Protection Agency on greenhouse gases will drive costs even higher for the project - which will be funded by ratepayers.
"The main thing that the utility was not willing to admit ... was that the future costs of containing or controlling the (carbon dioxide) from this plant will be vastly greater than they ever anticipated or were willing to admit at the time," said Jim Metzger, the study's author, told reporters Thursday.Metzger estimated the John W. Turk Jr. plant being built in Hempstead County would likely have to spend more than $163 million annually - or $2.8 billion over 40 years - just to contain or abate carbon dioxide emissions.The 60-page study, done on behalf of the Sierra Club and Audubon Arkansas, comes after the EPA announced it was reviewing a Bush policy on new coal-fired power plants. The old policy prohibits using the federal permit process to require new coal-fired power plants to install equipment to reduce carbon dioxide.Because of moves like that, at least 59 proposed coal-fired projects nationwide have been canceled or delayed, according to anti-coal groups.SWEPCO officials dismissed the study as speculative."It's another delay tactic," SWEPCO spokesman Scott McCloud said. "All their purpose is, is to derail the Turk project."Opponents are challenging an air permit for the plant granted by the state environmental regulators. Meanwhile, the utility asked the state for a $53.9 million rate increase Thursday, in part to cover financing costs for the power plant.\SWEPCO, based in Shreveport, La., is a subsidiary of Columbus, Ohio-based American Electric Power, among the largest electric utilities in the country.(Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

Loss of Louise Russert Kraemer will be felt by many environmental and social-justice organizations

Please click on image to ENLARGE view of Louise Kraemer on June 30, 2009, after a Ward 4 meeting in Fayetteville, Arkansas.


http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/obits/74105
Louise "Weez" Rothmund Russert-Kraemer, 85, professor emeritus of zoology at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, died Friday, Feb. 13, 2009, at Hillcrest Hospital in Cleveland.
She was born Dec. 17, 1923, to John W. and Wilhelmina Rothmund Russert in Milwaukee.
Weezie, as she was known to her friends, attended the Milwaukee University School and began her college education at Wellesley College, finishing a B.S. in biology at Marquette University. She went to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor for her graduate studies. On completing her M.S. and graduate course work, she accepted a tenure-track position as assistant professor of zoology at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville in 1948, where she met William S. Kraemer, professor of philosophy. They married in the spring of 1949. Due to a nepotism rule preventing married couples from teaching in the same college, Louise lost her academic position.
While being the devoted mother to her four children, Weez returned to adjunct teaching in the department of zoology at the University of Arkansas in the mid-1950s. With her four, young children in tow, she revived her graduate studies and completed her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1966 with a specialization in malacology, the study of mollusks (clams and snails). She regained a full-time position in the U of A zoology department where, as a dynamic teacher and innovative researcher, she quickly rose to the rank of full professor. Nationally and internationally recognized for pioneering research combining malacology and animal behavior, she was elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and served as president of the American Malacological Union and of the American Microscopical Society. She was a cofounder of the Society for the History and Philosophy of Biology. In the school year 1987-1988, she was a visiting fellow at Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge University. Retiring in 1993, she founded Bionomia, a U of A biology department newsletter that highlights activities of faculty and graduates. By the time of her death, she had produced 13 issues.
In her community and on the U of A campus, Weez was a tireless force for social change. As a young mother, she worked through the League of Women Voters for the desegregation of Fayetteville's public schools. At the U of A she was involved in many important causes, but her most lasting contribution was her work to improve the situation for women, fighting sexist regulations, mentoring young faculty and students, and helping to raise the consciousness of the campus on many important issues. In her retirement she still worked on campus to redefine the role of emeritus faculty. She was actively involved in the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, organizing lay services, serving as chairwoman of the Aesthetics Committee for many years and working in numerous ways to improve the organization. Late in life she still energetically engaged in local environmental and political matters, serving as League of Women Voters local chapter president and as chairwoman of the Washington County Democratic Women.
Preceded in death by her beloved husband, William; sisters, Audrey Lowe and Joan Russert-Haber; and brother, Roger Russert-Malakoff, she is survived by her four children, Eric Russert Kraemer and his wife Francine Klein, Robert Russert Kraemer and his wife Ginger, Lisa Russert Kraemer and her husband Richard Lang and Soren Russert Kraemer and his wife Karen; Weez's 12 grandchildren, Jonathan Lang and his wife Deborah, Ryan Kraemer and his wife Marion, Alexander Kraemer and his wife Jennifer, Katherine Lang, Sarah Kraemer, Bradley Kraemer, William Lang, Michael Kraemer, Daniel Lang, Kevin Kraemer, Kyle Kraemer and Anna Kraemer; and a greatgranddaughter, Madeleine Kraemer.
A service will be held at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 901 W. Cleveland St., Fayetteville, which will be followed by a reception.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Louise Russert-Kraemer memorial fund, University of Arkansas Foundation Inc., University House, Fayetteville, AR 72701.

Coal-powered power plants take a hit

February 17, 2009
Contact: Harlan Hentges, 1-405-808-7669 or Robert Huston, 1-479-629-1073

Today’s decision by AES to cancel plans to build a second coal-fired generating plant in Panama is proof the handwriting is on the wall for burning coal to produce electricity.
Robert Huston of the Center for Energy Matters, the citizen-based group fighting the proposed expansion, says public outcry for newer, cleaner technologies is forcing companies to take a second look at how they generate electricity.
Combined with today’s Obama Administration action to begin regulating carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants, according to Huston, “It’s no wonder AES pulled their application.”
“With today’s EPA ruling, the cost to AES to clean up carbon emissions from their existing Panama plant, much less a new plant twice the size, would make any company’s shareholders think twice about using coal to generate electricity, especially when cleaner technologies exist.” Huston said.
The Center for Energy Matters contends the six coal-fired generating plants in eastern Oklahoma creates smog, contaminates rivers, steams and water supplies with mercury and arsenic and creates a loss of economic viability to the region.
“This also proves that the people of eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas don’t just accept things at face value. The people from Leflore and Sequoyah Counties who voiced their concerns about the health and economic ramifications prove they aren’t going believe everything a large, multi-national corporation tells them.” Huston said
“Adding another dirty coal-fired generating plant to our area could potentially force Tulsa, Fort Smith, Fayetteville and Bentonville out of attainment for air quality standards under the Clean Air Act. That could limit the entire region in attracting new industries to the area.” Huston said.
The Environmental Protection Agency, under the new leadership of Administrator Lisa Jackson, granted a petition from the Sierra Club and other groups calling for reconsideration of an unlawful, midnight memo issued by former EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson which sought to prohibit controls on global warming pollution from coal plants.
Today's decision is consistent with a previous ruling by the EPA's Environmental Appeals Board (EAB) in the Utah Bonanza case, which found that there was no valid reason for the Bush administration's refusal to limit carbon dioxide emissions from new coal-fired power plants. The so-called Johnson Memo sought to unlawfully overturn that decision.

-30-


Gladys Tiffany
Omni Center for Peace, Justice & Ecology
Fayetteville, Arkansas USA
479-973-9049 -- gladystiffany@yahoo.com

Endless battle against coal-mining pollution

Appeals Court Overturns New Mountaintop Mine Rules
Friday 13 February 2009
by: Tim Huber, The Associated Press

Charleston, West Virginia - A federal appeals court Friday overturned a ruling requiring more extensive environmental reviews of mountaintop removal, a form of coal mining in Appalachia that blasts away whole peaks.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., ruled the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has the authority to issue Clean Water Act permits for mountaintop removal coal mines without more extensive reviews.

The ruling is a blow to environmentalists and coalfield neighbors who oppose the highly efficient but destructive practice that exposes thin, shallow coal seams. Rocks, dirt and other debris typically are dumped into valleys containing intermittent streams, which is how clean water rules become involved.

The decision is a big win for mine operators. The coal industry says most of the nearly 130 million tons of coal produced at mountaintop mines in Appalachia goes to generate electricity for 24.7 million U.S. customers. Moreover, mountaintop mines employ some 14,000 people across West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee.

Mountaintop permits have slowed to a trickle since March 2007, when the Corps was ordered by U.S. District Judge Chuck Chambers to rescind several permits. It was Chambers' ruling that the appeals court overturned.

"It's Friday the 13th, what do you expect?" said Janet Keating, executive director of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition.

"We are deeply disappointed," Keating said. Her coalition plans to get together with two other environmental groups involved in the case to determine their next step.

The Corps is reviewing the decision to determine how it affects the agency's process, spokeswoman Peggy Noel said.

"We'll follow the guidance that the court tells us to do," Noel said. "Public health and safety is a top priority of the Corps."

West Virginia Coal Association President Bill Raney praised the decision, saying it brings stability to the industry at a time when it faces sluggish demand due to the weak economy.

"It's so reassuring to have the stability of the appeals court that recognizes the professionalism of the Corps of Engineers," Raney said. "They really protected the jobs of the miners."

Appalachian mining giant Massey Energy Co. also praised the ruling, which directly involved several permits issued for the Richmond, Va.-based company's mines.

"Even though we have not had an opportunity to fully review the 4th Circuit's decision, we are pleased with the fact it has rejected Judge Chambers' previous ruling," Massey spokesman Jeff Gillenwater said in an e-mail. "This should put an end to much of the uncertainty regarding the issuance of surface mine permits."

Massey, the nation's fourth-largest coal producer, and other mine operators have been bracing for the better part of two years for potential production cuts stemming from an inability to get permits.

"Naturally people will be looking at what it says for environmental policy going forward. I think it's also potentially very significant economic news and very good news for the region," National Mining Association spokesman Luke Popovich said.

Coal companies have been cutting production, closing mines and laying off workers across the country amid anemic demand, particularly for utility coal overseas and coking coal used to fire steel mill blast furnaces. At least 1,310 jobs have been trimmed at various Appalachian mines in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, American consumers are facing higher electric rates as 2009 coal delivery contracts take effect that were signed last year, at a time when prices had risen as much as double from the year before.

"We think this could easily free up more supply," Popovich said. That could help bring down fuel costs for electricity.
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Wind power industry growing and employs more people than coal industry

Wind Now Employs More Than Coal In U.S.
The wind industry now employs more people than coal mining in the United States. Wind industry jobs jumped 70 percent in 2008 from the previous year, according to a new report by theAmerican Wind Energy Association.

The wind energy sector now employs 85,000 people in the country, up from 50,000 one year ago. Wind sector jobs are varied and include turbine component manufacturing, construction and installation of wind turbines, wind turbine operations and maintenance, legal and marketing services, and more.

In contrast, coal mining employs about 81,000 workers, according to a 2007 U.S. Department of Energy report.

The new wind projects completed in 2008 account for 42 percent of new power-producing capacity added nationally last year, and will avoid nearly 44 million tons of carbon emissions, the equivalent of taking over 7 million cars off of the road.

February 3, 2009 | Permalink
(National Wildlife Federation)
Posted by Global Warming Staff in Energy and Economics