Health and Global Warming Halt Georgia Coal Plant!

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thelma Wyatt Cummings today issued a decision to halt construction of Georgia’s first proposed Coal-Fired power plant in twenty years. Judge Thelma Wyatt has charged the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) with failing to REGULATE CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS from the plant, a decision that will have NATIONWIDE APPLICATION. This is the first time since the April 2, 2007 Supreme Court Decision which required the EPA to regulate Carbon Dioxide Emissions, that the ruling has been applied to emissions from industrial sources like Coal Fired Power Plants.

Students with the Southern Energy Network, community members, and concerned citizens from around the state have been fighting Dyengy’s LongLeaf Proposal in the courts, in shareholder meetings, and in the streets for nearly Seven years.

Yet, today’s ruling is significant far beyond the borders of Georgia, as it puts up yet another economic, political, and beauricratic hurtle for those attempting to develop new Coal-fired power plants in the country. (including the 5 other Coal Plants Dyengy is attempting to build across the country). As one plant falls, we can use these victories to hault the horrors of similar proposals across the country.

Plaintiffs in the Georgia Dynegy case argued that a look into best available control technologies for carbon dioxide were not included when the Longleaf Air Quality permit was issued. Dyengy now has the option of re-completing the air-quality permit application process (which they began 5 1/2 years ago) or appealing the case and risk taking their arguments to the supreme court. The Judge also ruled on several other accounts, including Fine Particulate matter control, that the Georgia Environmental Protection Division was out of compliance with regulations required in writing air quality permits.

Today’s ruling will act as a landmark decision in the fight to transform America’s energy economy away from the dirty grip of our coal affliction and onto a renewable energy and energy efficiency fueled future.

Party Invitations Coming Soon.

Keep Up the Good Fight!

Southeast Convergence for Climate Action!

This summer, join people from throughout the southeast and beyond for the second annual Southeast Convergence for Climate Action.

After the resounding success of last year’s convergence we are excited to continue the struggle for climate justice in the southeast with an engaging week of workshops, strategizing, and direct action! This year’s convergence will be hosted in Virginia, where communities are fighting uranium mining, nuclear power, mountaintop removal coal mining, and new (as well as old) coal plants. Once again we will unite to fight the coal industry’s stranglehold on our region while rejecting the deadly nuke industry’s attempt to position themselves as the solution to the climate crisis.

The convergence is a place to strengthen our movement, network with new allies, and take action against dirty energy while working to build a more community-based, sustainable world. Workshops will include: community organizing, direct action 101, debunking false solutions to climate change, blockades, sustainable living systems, media, anti-oppression, disaster response, fighting nukes and coal, and much more. The convergence will culminate in an empowering action to show that the southeast is serious about tackling climate change.

For more information check out: www.climateconvergence.org

Email: risingtide@mountainrebel.net

PO Box 7586, Asheville NC 28802

Dave Freeman in Knoxville

KNOXVILLE, Tennessee (13 June 200 - Legendary energy advisor S. David Freeman, “The Green Cowboy”, joined professional climate advocates and grassroots community organizers for an evening of discussion and reflection on the future of American energy policy.  Mr. Freeman has fought for renewable energy at the highest level of politics for decades, and his years of experience have recently been brought to bear on an ambitious new policy reader, Winning Our Energy Independence: An Energy Insider Shows How.  Anyone interested in a new direction for US energy policy could gain a wealth of insight from Dave’s historic perspective.

Video from a lunch conversation at Barley’s Taproom in Knoxville will be posted in the next few days.

The Fight to Stop Cliffside is Not Over!

On March 25, 2008 Duke Energy broke ground and began construction on Cliffside, an 800 MW coal-fired power plant located in Cliffside, NC.

Months prior to this, a team of non-profit grassroots agencies, activists, students, lawyers, grandmothers, and outraged citizens had formed a coalition dedicated to stopping this travesty. We were, and are, committed to stopping Duke Energy’s construction of a coal-fired plant that will release six million tons of CO2 per year and lock us into another fifty years of fossil fuel dependence. This disregard for our precarious climatic state is criminal, and our state and federal legislature is simply not taking the necessary steps to slow imminent climate chaos. Instead, our elected officials are permitting the expansion of the fossil fuel industry and, like NC state representative Tim Moore, spouting nonsense such as:

“Coal may not be the best thing in the world but it’s probably the most efficient that we have.”

Extreme Weather & Global Warming

from DemocracyNow.org

Extreme Weather & Global Warming: Floods in Iowa & China, Wildfires in California, Heat Waves on the East Coast, Tornadoes Across the Midwest

Ride for a Sustainable Tennessee

Ride for a Sustainable Tennessee

Like bikes? Want to raise money for the TN network of student activists? At the end of the summer, in the first two weeks of August, there is a bike ride through Eastern and Middle Tennessee. The ride is a fundraiser and outreach tool for Tennessee Alumni and Students for Sustainable Campuses (TASSC). This is the most awesome state network of student environmental groups this side of the Mississippi, and this is the perfect opportunity for you to get involved and ride your bike for a week. As we pass through major cities (Nashville, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Johnson City, and more) the riders will meet on a central campus with student activists from the area. My goal is to end the ride critical mass style up to the legislature and lobby for clean energy legislation and alternative forms of transportation. If you are interested in joining the adventure in its entirety, spots are limited. However, we need as many people as possible on bikes for rides through major cities and especially through Nashville. There is the possibility of organizing a one day fundraising ride that can join up with the main group as we ride through, if you are interested. If you have any desire to make Tennessee more sustainable and ride bicycles, email me at sjorda10@utk.edu. This ride could be the best experience of your summer! Yours truly, Sam Jordan

Climate protestors hijack coal train

from The Guardian (<<check out the video)

13 June 2008

NORTH YORKSHIRE, England - A team of activists, dubbed “raiders” by The Guardian’s Martin Wainwright, stalled a coal train headed to Drax power station, the largest coal-fired power plant in Britain, last Friday. The activists came equipped with climbing gear, food and water, and a portable toilet for an open-ended siege against Gordon Brown’s pollution-based economy. The strategy began with agents dressed as maintenance flagging down the train using official safety methods with orange vests and caution flags, then a larger team climbing into the traincars stalled over a bridge, making removal by law enforcement high-risk, resource-intensive, and time-consuming.

Media agents on site were dressed as canaries, orange beaks and yellow feather jackets, delivering the action’s message. The messaging linked the action to the recent series of direct action against Britain’s heaviest polluters, including Heathrow Airport at last year’s Climate Convergence. The action coincides with the international movement for climate justice represented by the worldwide Convergences for Climate Action, with this year’s Southeast Convergence falling on August 5 in Louisa County, Virginia.

National Conference for Media Reform Reclaims the Airwaves

The National Conference for Media Reform 2008 kicks off this weekend in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with over 3,000 activists, journalists, scholars, and community organizers gathering to make media democracy a key issue in public discourse and the upcoming elections. The conference features many well-known names in American grassroots movements, including Ella Baker Center for Human Rights executive director Van Jones, Ruckus Society executive director Adrienne Maree Brown, and Democracy Now! executive producer Amy Goodman. Videos of the addresses delivered at the conference are available on the website of the Free Press and the Free Press Action Fund, presenters of the conference.

Grassroots Summit on Nuclear Waste Sparks Debate

Activists and Experts Gather to Resist the U.S. “Nuclear Relapse”

COLUMBIA, SC — Grassroots organizers from around the country gathered at U.South Carolina-Columbia this weekend to plan a nationwide movement of resistance to the “nuclear relapse” proposed by the United States Government. Activists shared stories of their victories and challenges in their connected campaigns against the nuclear industry, with participants at the summit ranging from students new to the cause and veteran demonstrators imparting the wisdom of decades in the field. The key areas of focus at the summit included bridging the gap between campaigns against nuclear energy and nuclear weapons, synthesizing climate and nuclear issues within an organization’s policy, and comparing the advantages of large-scale programs sponsored by private industry and government to grassroots initiatives organized by concerned citizens.

Mountain Justice Summer Action Camp 2008

Mountain Justice Activists Hold Fourth Annual Gathering

Action Camp equips Appalachian citizens to resist mountaintop removal

Blanton Forest, KENTUCKY - Last week, citizens young and old from coalfield communities across Appalachia flocked by the dozens to historic Harlan County, Kentucky, for the fourth annual Mountain Justice Summer Action Camp. Folks came together to prepare for action, share their stories, and teach each other important skills in the fight against mountaintop removal, all while camping out in Kentucky’s beautiful Blanton Forest. The Action Camp is a full week of events organized each year by a coalition of civil society groups that have been working together across state lines for over four years, each member passionately dedicated to social and environmental justice in the Appalachian region.