Their main question was about the impending Sept. 21st execution of Troy Anthony Davis, about whom Amnesty International says there is too much doubt.
Student protesters greet Governor Nathan Deal at Valdosta State University, 16 Sep 2011.
Pictures by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
The press had already noticed: Continue reading
It’s not on VSU’s facebook page, either.
The VDT doesn’t have it listed in its Community Calendar.
Even Jane Osborn doesn’t have it in her Community Calendar.
Well, I hear that it’s elevenish to threeish. I hope somebody told the students.
-jsq
Kalland said transparency is key.
Other speakers had said you could have too much transparency, but Kalland pointed out that it was only through a hearing that North Carolina found out a major power company was going to use up its solar energy credits years ahead of schedule, and without transparency there couldn’t be real competition because the customers wouldn’t know who had which prices.
What else does it take to make a state competitive in solar? Kalland discussed this table (reformatted here from the copy of his presentation he gave me):
He said a lot more, but that’s a very interesting table to consider not only for a state, but for a region, like south Georgia, or a small metro area, like Valdosta MSA.Foundational Steps to Focus on Solar
Installed Capacity Manufacturing Interconnection Standards
Base Resources (economic or voices)
Early Adopters
Military or Large Federal
High Tech Firms
Corporate GreensUniversity Partnership Opportunities
Existing presence of businesses in multiple fields (diversification)
I know some people will react with: “but VSU is not a research university!” Nope, but this could be a way to add some research capacity to VSU.
-jsq
Congratulations to all who worked against the biomass plant:
today was the deadline on its most recent extension,
so it’s gone for now.
Congratulations to WACE and SAVE and NAACP and New Life Ministries
and everyone else who was involved, especially Natasha Fast, Seth Gunning,
and Brad Bergstrom, who were working against it before almost anyone else.
Congratulations to those who were instrumental even though they were not exactly or originally biomass opponents, especially Ashley Paulk, who came out and said what needed to be said, and George Bennett, who was willing to admit in public that he was one of the earliest proponents of the biomass plant but new knowledge caused him to think differently.
A big shoutout to the VSU Faculty Senate, the only traditional non-activist body that went on record as opposing the biomass plant with an actual vote before the extension deadline. The VSU Faculty Senate did what the Valdosta City Council, the Lowndes County Commission and the Industrial Authority Board would not. Go Blazers!
A special strategic mention to Kay Harris and David Rodock of the
Valdosta Daily Times, who came to realize they were not being told the
whole truth by the Industrial Authority.
The VDT even
gave a civics lesson on how to stop the biomass plant.
And a very special mention to the people who did the most to make the
name of biomass mud in the public’s eye:
Brad Lofton, Col. Ricketts, and the VLCIA board.
Without their indoctrination sessions and paid “forum” and stonewalling,
people wouldn’t have been turned against that thing nearly as fast!
Yet it ain’t over until it’s over.
According to David Rodock in the VDT today: Continue reading
Why? Because leading medical associations have identified woody biomass incineration as increasing risks of “a variety of illnesses, some life-threatening”, because biomass incineration produces more CO2, NOX, and fine particulates than existing coal plants, and because it “may lead to unsustainable forestry practices and a net increase in global greenhouse gas emissions”.
Who proposed this? Continue reading
Come out and enjoy your evening to celebrate the Earth! There will be food, games, live bands, speakers, and fun! Bring your friends and family and enjoy an evening in the park!The usual LAKE photographers can’t make it, so please take pictures and videos and post them to the Internet. Send links to information@l-a-k-e.org and we’ll post some on the blog, or you can post them directly on the LAKE facebook page.We are also collecting canned for to donate to those in need!
-jsq
Molly Duet
writes in the VSU newspaper today:
Protestors wearing respirator masks held signs reading “Biomass? No!” in front of the Valdosta City Hall building on Thursday. Members of the Wiregrass Activists for Clean Energy, the VSU student organization Students Against Violating the Environment, and other concerned Valdosta citizens showed up to protest the construction of the Wiregrass Power: Biomass Electric Generating Plant.The Spectator article quotes from two speakers for whom LAKE happens to have video, linked below. Continue reading“We already have solar power resources in place that we could be using and I feel like money should be directed towards that,” Ivey Roubique, vice-president of the Student Geological Society, said. “It wouldn’t be good for the community and even though I’m in college here it still matters.”
Here’s the video:I’m the president of Students Against Violating the Environment at VSU. I’m here representing 200+ members of SAVE, that consists of students, faculty, community members. We are deeply concerned with environmental issues and we are networking together to make this city a more humane and sustainable community for future generations.
As a student, I feel I have the right to be able to breathe clean air at the college I attend. With this biomass plant possibly being built here, the future for generations to come are in jeopardy, and we want to protect our fellow and future students’ health.
Please take into consideration the future health of this university and its community, and don’t sell grey water to the proposed biomass plant.
Erin Hurley, President of
SAVE, Students Against Violating the Environment, speaking at
Regular meeting of the Valdosta City Council, 24 March 2011,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
She said who she was, who she represented, how many, what they were for, what they wanted, quickly enough that attention didn’t waver, slowly and loudly enough to be heard, and briefly enough to transcribe, with pathos, logic, and politic. Even the mayor looked up at “As a student….”
-jsq
Continue readingSAVE says Biomass spells bad news for Valdosta and VSU
By: Erin Hurley
How many of y’all have heard of the Biomass Plant that has been proposed for Valdosta? Many of ya’ll probably don’t know what Biomass is; I know I didn’t until about two years ago when this project first started. The Biomass plant is an incinerator that will burn sewage, sludge and tree “debris” in order to create energy. What’s the big deal, right?
Some people compare LAKE to Wikileaks, so let’s go there.
Julian Assange, like
Wendell Berry,
links the civil rights movement and the environmental movement.
He
then says:
“For the Internet generation this is our challenge and this is our time. We support a cause that is no more radical a proposition than that the citizenry has a right to scrutinise the state. The state has asserted its authority by surveilling, monitoring and regimenting all of us, all the while hiding behind cloaks of security and opaqueness. Surely it was only a matter of time before citizens pushed back and we asserted our rights.”
LAKE’s motto is:
Citizen dialog for transparent processThat makes Assange’s proposition
“the citizenry has a right to scrutinise the state”sound very familiar to us.
Locally it’s more a matter of elected and appointed bodies ignoring their chartered responsibilities to the public good and the general welfare. Well, many people are also tired of the permit inspection brigade, but that’s another story.
Assange also adds: Continue reading