Category Archives: Environment

Solid Waste, Developer Favors, Dollar General, Library, and Alcohol: Agenda @ LCC 2012-12-10

Updates 9 Dec 2012: Marked with *.

Will the Lowndes County Commission Tuesday evening finish railroading through their non-solution to solid waste disposal, without shouldering its legal responsibility to protect the environment and the public health, safety, and well-being from solid waste, and what’s this about a vendor change? Will the Chairman once again invite a developer to speak in Monday morning’s Work Session without letting anyone else speak? Will the Commission change the zoning code and rezone inside and against the Moody Exclusion Zone for that same developer they already provided $130,000 in road construction labor to back in 2007? Does Naylor need the area’s nineteenth Dollar General, and who’s behind it, anyway? How come the Five Points library is still on the agenda even though SPLOST VII failed? And what are they doing to the Alcoholic Beverage Ordinance this time? Come Monday morning at 8:30 AM and Tuesday evening at 5:30 PM and see! Better yet, also call or write your Commissioner before then.

Trash

6.b. Solid Waste Ordinance

Will the Commissioners finish railroading through their already-failing non-solution to solid waste disposal in the last session of this Chairman? The plan for which they held zero public hearings while any of the Commissioners who voted on it this October were on the Commission, yet someone down there feels free to anonymously ridicule concerns about that plan failing? Two citizens spoke up anyway, even though Citizens Wishing to Be Heard was after the scheduled vote last time, and another on this blog, all willing to state their names, unlike the anonymous pro-trash-railroad ridiculer. What was that unspecified new information that caused them to table it last time, anyway?

8.b. Exclusive Franchise Agreement for Residential Solid Waste Collection Services with Advanced Disposal Services of Central Alabama, Inc.

What happened to Veolia; Continue reading →

Georgia statehouse and the anti-sustainability astroturf talking points (aka “Agenda 21”)

Somebody wrote me a week or two ago:

I saw in todays paper Chip Rogers and other Senate leadership was changed yesterday. Thank goodness!

Well, don't cheer too soon. According to Jim Galloway in the AJC 15 November 2012,

"Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers of Woodstock withdrew his re-election bid and endorsed Ronnie Chance of Tyrone, the governor's floor leader, for the position."

Ronnie Chance is not only also ALEC, Chance is the other ALEC state Senator who put both the charter school amendment and the multi-year amendment on the ballot. Is this leadership "change" improvement? Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.

Why must we get fooled again? When will the people of the state of Georgia get tired of government by astroturf and elect some legislators who will represent the people?

-jsq

Arctic sea ice melting faster than expected —WMO

A major source of the water for the sea level rise already affecting Savannah and Jacksonville is melting Arctic Ocean sea ice. WMO Press Release No. 966: 2012: Record Arctic Sea Ice Melt, Multiple Extremes and High Temperatures,

“Naturally occurring climate variability due to phenomena such as El Niño and La Niña impact on temperatures and precipitation on a seasonal to annual scale. But they do not alter the underlying long-term trend of rising temperatures due to climate change as a result of human activities,” said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud.

“The extent of Arctic sea ice reached a new record low. The alarming rate of its melt this year highlighted the far-reaching changes taking place on Earth’s oceans and biosphere. Climate change is taking place before our eyes and will continue to do so as a result of the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which have risen constantly and again reached new records,” added Mr Jarraud.

30 years of Arctic sea ice 15 September 1982 vs 16 September 2012

The Arctic reached its lowest annual sea ice extent since the start of satellite records on 16 September at 3.41 million square kilometers. This was 18% less than the previous record low of 18 September, 2007. The 2012 minimum extent was 49 percent or nearly 3.3 million square kilometers (nearly the size of India) below the 1979—2000 average minimum. Some 11.83 million square kilometers of Arctic ice melted between March and September 2012.

WMO noted other effects of climate change outside the arctic, including:

Continue reading →

Savannah and Jacksonville most vulnerable to rising sea level

Savannah and Jacksonville are among the east coast cities most vulnerable to rising sea levels due to climate change, a study finds. Savannah, Georgia’s main seaport, with storm surges, hurricanes, and waves on top: what will that look like?

Suzanne Goldenberg wrote for the Guardian today, US coastal cities in danger as sea levels rise faster than expected, study warns: Satellite measurements show flooding from storms like Sandy will put low-lying population centres at risk sooner than projected,

A study published last March by Climate Central found sea-level rise due to global warming had already doubled the risk of extreme flood events — so-called once in a century floods — for dozens of locations up and down the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

It singled out the California cities of Los Angeles and San Diego on the Pacific coast and Jacksonville, Florida, and Savannah, Georgia, on the Atlantic, as the most vulnerable to historic flooding due to sea-level rise.

Sandy, which produced a 9ft storm surge at Battery Park in New York City, produced one example of the dangerous combination of storm surges and rising sea level. In New York, each additional foot of water puts up to 100,000 additional people at risk, according to a map published with the study.

That study projected 6 inches rise at Fort Pulaski by 2030 (minimum 3 inches) and 13 inches by 2050 (maximum 24 inches). But projections have gotten worse since then:

Sea level changes measured and projected The latest research, published on Wednesday in Environmental Research Letters, found global sea-levels rising at a rate of 3.2mm a year, compared to the best estimates by the IPCC of 2mm a year, or 60% faster.

So that would be more like 9 inches by 2030 and 20 inches by 2050.

Add to a higher base sea level bigger storms like Hurricane Sandy, and Savannah and Jacksonville have a problem. Sure, Savannah is Continue reading →

Who’s behind the anti-sustainability astroturf talking points (aka “Agenda 21”)

ALEC’s “our state legislators” are promoting the anti-sustainability astroturf talking points at the Georgia state capitol. But ALEC doesn’t seem to be the source of those talking points. Who is? Follow the money: who stands to benefit the most by obstructing public transportation, fuel efficiency, and renewable energy? The fossil fuel companies, especially big oil.

Lloyd Alter wrote for Treehugger 29 June 2012, Exposing the Influence Behind the Anti-Agenda 21 Anti-Sustainability Agenda, first pointing out that most people never even heard of Agenda 21:

…a recent survey showed that most people never heard of it and Few have heard of Agenda 21 and only 6% oppose it only 6% say they are against it. so why are politicians from State governments up to the National Republican Party and Presidential candidates like Newt Gingrich make such a big deal of it?

“People don’t wake up in the morning sweating bullets about the United Nations.”-Robin Rather

Robin Rather of Collective Strength, who commissioned the survey, says “I genuinely believe the Agenda 21 phenomenon is highly manufactured. It’s not out there in the mainstream.”

There are a number of leads back to big oil, starting with one of the main conduits of the talking points, the John Birch Society, one of whose founders was Fred Koch, founder of Koch industries, a diversified multinational that has large fossil fuel components. His sons David and Charles founded Americans for Prosperity.

When he is not out on the public speaking circuit, Tom DeWeese is President of the American Policy Center, the loudest mouthpiece of the anti-Agenda 21 crowd.

Alter digs into APC board connects to big oil, Continue reading →

Grant funding opportunities: deadlines very soon

Received today from Bryan Zulko of USDA. -jsq

Community Food Projects Competitive Grants Program – Application deadline: Nov 28, 2012
Grants to plan or implement food projects designed to meet the needs of low-income individuals and increase community self-reliance concerning food and nutrition.

Great American Main Street Awards (GAMSA) – Application deadline: Dec 3, 2012
Grants to recognize exemplary and innovative revitalization achievements in revitalization of historic and older neighborhood commercial districts using a community-driven, historic-preservation based approach.

Continue reading →

How to stop climate change: divest from fossil fuel companies

In response to a very downbeat diatribe by Bill McKibben in Rolling Stone on the occasion of the U.N.’s Rio+20 conference being some sound and less fury accomplishing not much about stopping climate change, [Bill McKibben, Rolling Stone, 19 July 2012, “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math: Three simple numbers that add up to global catastrophe – and that make clear who the real enemy is”] Chloe Maxmin, Divest Harvard Harvard student Chloe Maxmin followed up McKibben’s problem statement with a plan for what to do: divest from fossil fuel companies. [“In Honor of Kalamazoo: An Open Letter to Bill McKibben,” NextGenJournal, 25 July 2012, no longer online, referred to in a post the same day by Chloe Maxmin on First Here, Then Everywhere.] Maxmin didn’t just wish, either, she joined up with McKibben’s 350.org and helped organize Harvard students to do something about it: persuade Harvard to divest its shares of fossil fuel companies. Students at the University of Georgia, or at Valdosta State University, for that matter, could do the same.

Alli Welton wrote for 350.org 18 November 2012, 72% of Harvard Students Vote to Divest from Fossil Fuels,

Last Friday night, the Harvard College Undergraduate Council announced that the student body had voted 72% in favor of Harvard University divesting its $30.7 billion endowment from fossil fuels.

Members of the Harvard chapter of Students for a Just and Stable Future have been campaigning since September to divest Harvard’s endowment from the top 200 publicly-traded fossil fuel corporations that own the majority of the world’s oil, coal, and gas reserves.

Harvard actually already has divested its shares of one fossil fuel company due to public pressure. Continue reading →

ALEC and the anti-sustainability astroturf talking points (aka “Agenda 21”)

Why do I keep associating the anti-sustainability astroturf talking points with ALEC? Because ALEC's "our state legislators" were promoting them at Georgia's Capitol.

ALEC logo Chip Rogers Two out of three of the Georgia legislators Jim Galloway named in Georgia's own 52-minute video on the ‘Agenda 21’ conspiracy, namely Chip Rogers and Barry Loudermilk, are associated with ALEC.

Senate Majority Leader (now former) Chip Rogers (R-21) has been ALEC's State Chaimran for Georgia and received ALEC's 2011 State Chair of the year Award. Surely you remember him! Rogers sponsored both misleading amendment 1 ("charter schools") and misleading amendment 2 ("multi-year contracts") on this year's ballot.

Barry Loudermilk Rep. Barry D. Loudermilk (R-14) is on ALEC's Telecommunications and Information Technology Task Force. How convenient that Loudermilk is the Secretary of the Georgia Energy, Utilities & Telecommunications Committee!

So there is at least a convergence of ALEC's "our state legislators" and those pushing this anti-sustainability agenda. This is not surprising, since ALEC is opposed to clean, sustainable energy, as confirmed by ALEC's own attempt to rebut that point. A rebuttal that brought to light ALEC's phrase "our state legislators".

I see Loudermilk is a sponsor of a bill called the Georgia Government Accountability Act,

Continue reading →

GaSU wins at GA PSC, but will GaSU help all of us win in the legislature?

GA PSC Stan Wise’s 2009 nuclear CWIP lobbying points eerily matched Southern Company’s, but suddenly he’s got separation-of-powers religion about Georgia Solar Utilities (GaSU). The PSC recommended GaSU’s utility bid anyway. When the legislature takes that up in a month or so, will GaSU CEO Robert Green, unlike SO or Georgia Power or Stan Wise, help the rest of us little people fix the 1973 Territoriality law so we can sell our solar electricity on a free market?

Dave Williams wrote for the Atlanta Business Chronicle yesterday, Georgia Public Service Commission moves ahead on solar energy,

Georgia Power logo The Georgia Public Service Commission approved a plan by Georgia Power Co. Tuesday to acquire an additional 210 megawatts of solar generating capacity, more than tripling its investment in solar energy.

GA PSC PR about 20 November 2012 decisions But a sharply divided PSC also gave a potential competitor to Georgia Power its blessing to appeal to the General Assembly to amend a 39-year-old law that gives the Atlanta-based utility the exclusive right to continue serving existing customers.

Under Georgia Power’s Advanced Solar Initiative, the company will buy solar power produced by both large “utility-scale” solar farms and from smaller projects operated by residential and commercial property owners.

Right, that’s actually only 10 Megawatts from “smaller projects”, maintaining Georgia Power’s monopoly while throwing throwing a bone to the rest of us.

While the PSC supported Georgia Power’s plan unanimously, a subsequent motion by McDonald encouraging other solar utilities interested in serving Georgia to pursue their plans with the legislature passed by the narrow margin of 3-2.

Georgia Solar Utilities Inc., a company launched in Macon, Ga., earlier this year, filed an application with the PSC in September for authority to generate solar energy in Georgia on a utility scale.

The two Nay votes were from the two recently-reelected PSC members, apparently now thoroughly in the pocket of the incumbent utilities. Here’s one of them now:

Continue reading →

The real U.N. Agenda 21

What is this Agenda 21 referred to by the anti-sustainability astroturf talking points movie shown at the Georgia statehouse?

The real Agenda 21 is a typical U.N. set of do-good wishful thinking documents adopted at a U.N. conference in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. If you think it’s been successful in actually implementing sustainability, you haven’t paid attention this summer to the U.N. Rio+20 successor conference from activists actually interested in a sustainable economy. Such pro-sustainability activists generally bemoaned the lack of effective action in the intervening twenty years: the climate continues to warm as almost every nation continues to burn more fossil fuels. The U.N.’s own Rio+20 document pretty much relegates such concerns to a sideline to an expanding economy.

The U.N.’s intentions are good: this is a small planet with Continue reading →