Environmental Prize Winners Call on Administration to Reject Keystone Pipeline

20 Winners of Prestigious Heinz and Goldman Awards Sign Joint Letter

Today a group of 20 winners of the prestigious Heinz and Goldman environmental prizes delivered a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry asking him to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. The controversial pipeline has become a lightning rod for climate activists, including the signatories, who point at Kerry's very positive record on climate in the US Senate. Here is the letter:

 

May 8, 2013

The Honorable John Kerry
Secretary of State
 U.S. Department of State
2201 C St., NW
Washington, DC 20520

Dear Mr. Secretary,

As recipients of Heinz Awards for our work in environment, energy, and public policy, and the Goldman Environmental Prize for grassroots environmental activism, we write to you with an urgent appeal to affirm America's commitment to climate solutions by rejecting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.
 
We are deeply honored and humbled to have been recognized for our achievements. But we are acutely aware that despite your best efforts and ours, the climate crisis is now upon us. After a year of unprecedented weather extremes and disruption, this is no longer only about impacts in the future. It's about social, economic, environmental, and moral consequences, now.

We do not lack for viable solutions. Public and private leaders in America are demonstrating that energy efficiency, clean energy, transportation choices, and a range of other strategies are practical and economic. We are using them to build healthier communities and stronger local economies. We can say this with confidence: sustainable, broadly-shared economic opportunity is possible as we make the necessary transition from fossil fuels to clean energy and efficient energy systems.

But we cannot make the transition overnight. It will take many decades of patient commitment and investment to complete it. And while "winning" a safe climate future is a long game, we can lose it very quickly — within President Obama's second term. Continued investment in capital-intensive, long-lived fossil fuel infrastructure like Keystone XL will "lock in" emission trajectories that make catastrophic climate disruption inevitable. This is the hard bottom line of the International Energy Agency's 2012 World Energy Outlook, which starkly warned that without an immediate shift in energy infrastructure investment, humanity would "lose forever" the chance to avert climate catastrophe.

Killing of Bison in Wildlife Area Prompts Sierra Club Response

The Montana Department of Livestock's recent killing of a bull bison, pictured above, in a designated wildlife area has raised questions about how migrating bison are managed by state agencies. In response to the killing, Montana-based Sierra Club organizer Zack Waterman co-authored this editorial, reprinted here courtesy of the Bozeman Daily Chronicle:

Bison management out of touch with reality
     
On the morning of Friday, April 12th, 2013, a bull bison was spotted several miles north of Yellowstone National Park on the remote Dome Mountain Wildlife Management Area. Unfortunately, the MT Department of Livestock (DOL), with assistance from MT Fish, Wildlife, & Parks responded to this situation by aggressively pursuing this lone bull and killing him.

After laying waste to the bull under the auspices of disease control, the MT DOL left the carcass to rot. This situation is particularly troubling given the DOL knows bull bison pose no risk of transmission of brucellosis to domestic cattle, not to mention the fact the Dome Mountain "Wildlife Management Area" was purchased specifically to provide habitat for migrating wildlife in an area that is completely free of cattle. Furthermore, there were no conflicts with private property as the adjacent Dome Mountain Ranch has already made it clear that bison are welcome to use their land just like elk, mule deer, grizzly bears, and other wildlife that live in Greater Yellowstone.

In an effort to justify this extreme response, Department of Livestock Chief Executive Officer, Christian MacKay explained the bull had to be lethally removed because he was outside of the bison "tolerance zone".

When government agencies slaughter a bison in a remote area that was posing no threat whatsoever to livestock, private property, or public safety, it's time to revisit how we manage migrating bison in Montana.

Let's begin by abandoning the assumption that all bison that leave the state's negligibly small "bison tolerance zone" are de facto problems that must be immediately removed.  We agree that we do not want cattle to contract brucellosis. But can we also agree to manage bison as valued native Montana wildlife, at least on some public lands owned by all Americans?

The good news is there are many public lands like the Dome Mountain Wildlife Management Area that are located outside of the state's arbitrary "bison tolerance zone" that provide critical winter habitat for elk -- and they can do the same for bison without harming private property. Each year approximately $3 million of tax-payer dollars are spent to remove migrating bison from public lands in Montana. In an era when Americans are tightening their belts and national debt continues to grow, it's nonsensical to waste limited taxpayer resources.
 
Elk from Yellowstone National Park have migrated and wintered in this same area for years. Grizzly bears and wolves also use the same area. Now a lone bull bison found this conflict-free habitat near Dome Mountain and the DOL needlessly intervened and killed it. What gives? It's time for a new approach that takes meaningful steps towards managing bison as valued native wildlife while respecting both public and private property rights. Let these animals show us the way to a habitat solution rather than continue to harass and slaughter them for crossing an imaginary government line.

Unfortunately, we lost a valuable opportunity to learn from the April 13th Dome Mountain bull bison. Such an opportunity will arise again. If we seize that chance to learn, and begin to explore what it means to consider bison-on-public-lands as an asset rather than a catastrophe for the state of Montana, ranchers, hunters, tourists and all Montana citizens will reap the benefits  Overwhelming public support exists for managing bison as wildlife on appropriate landscapes in Montana. If we adopt a learn-as-you-go approach and tailor bison management as needed, including public hunting, it will become clear the sky is not falling.

Zack Waterman represents the Sierra Club; Glenn Hockett is volunteer president of the Gallatin Wildlife Association; Sabina Strauss is owner of the Yellowstone Basin Inn in Gardiner, MT; and Becky Weed is owner of the Thirteen Mile Lamb & Wool Company. The authors are members of the bison citizens working group, which formed to develop consensus recommendations to improve the management of Greater Yellowstone bison.

North Minneapolis Earth Day Event Brings Together Environmental Justice Coalition

On Earth Day two weeks ago, Sierra Club Minnesota held a great community event in North Minneapolis with coalition partner Environmental Justice Advocates of Minnesota.

Sierra Club Environmental Justice Organizer Karen Monahan has longed worked with the North Minneapolis community to address the disproportionate pollution and health impacts the community faces.

The Earth Day event was meant for celebration and education for the neighborhood, and it included some amazing activities. Here is Karen's recap from the Sierra Club MN website:

Sierra Club's Environmental Justice and EJAM’s 2013 Earth Day Event
by Karen Monahan, Sierra Club Environmental Justice Organizer. Photos by Les Barry.

The Sierra Club North Star Chapter's Environmental Justice program and EJAM (Environmental Justice Advocates of Minnesota) came together to create an amazing earth day event. It was a success on many levels.

Kwanzaa community church opened their doors and provided space for the community to celebrate mother earth. We had Congressman Keith Ellison (seen below on the left) keynote and give history on EJAM and Sierra Club's long standing relationship along with valuable information on environmental justice issues and our community. Three State Representatives (Rep. Bobby Joe Champion, Rep. Raymond Dehn, and Rep. Joe Mullery) who are working on environmental justice legislation joined the event and supported the work we are doing.

Slaying the Dirty-Energy Dragon in Austin

Texas Sierra Club organizer Lydia Avila reports that the Austin Earth Day Festival -- co-sponsored by the Sierra Club -- included a street theater-type rally called "The Story of Energy in Texas." Staged by Austin Beyond Coal volunteers, the satirical performance featured a clean-energy knight and a dirty-energy dragon. [Watch the video here.]

"Our narrator talked about the havoc fossil fuels have wreaked on the Texas landscape, and emphasized the climate disruption that is happening as a result," Avila says. "Then the clean-energy knight appeared and saved the day! Adults enjoyed it and the kids really got into it, even kicking the dragon and booing the dragon's henchmen/lobbyist."

At the end of the performance, Sierra Club volunteers asked the crowd of several hundred people to make a call to Austin City Council and the Mayor Lee Leffingwell and ask them to phase out the Fayette coal-fired power plant, located about 60 miles southeast of Austin. Austin Energy owns a 50 percent stake in two of the plant's three units.

"It was a fun way to get a message across and get people to take action," Avila says. "Meanwhile, at our Sierra Club table, we got kids and adults to sign a huge "Earth: Get Well Soon" card that will be sent to President Obama, as well as Austin Beyond Coal petitions to the mayor."

Avila gives a shout-out to Austin Group volunteer leader Jeff Crunk, "who made this happen," and Texas Beyond Coal interns Avery Thompson, Diego Atencio, Mike Ray, Morgan Faulkner, Tansy Stobart, and Yuval Edrey for helping organize the Club's Earth Day activities.

"Austin's Earth Day this year showed that we've gone a long way since last year, but we still have a lot of work to do," says Avila, below at right. "It reminded people why we're doing the work that we're doing."

The Sierra Club and Citizen Action are advocating that the Fayette plant, which emits some 12 million tons of global-warming emissions annually, to cease burning coal as soon as possible and no later than 2017.

Austin-based Environment Texas, the Texas Campaign for the Environment, and the Environmental Integrity Project have filed a federal lawsuit against the Lower Colorado River Authority, which owns and operates the 1,641-megawatt plant, on the grounds that it has violated the Clean Air Act thousands of times.

Lone Star Chapter organizer Jerome Collins reports that in 2010 a pecan farmer in Fayette County came to the Sierra Club and reported that his pecan trees were dying, and he was convinced it was because of the Fayette coal plant. The previous year, a pecan farmer in Tennessee received a settlement from the Tennessee Valley Authority after it was determined that TVA pollution had destroyed his trees.

Learn more about what the Beyond Coal Campaign is doing to move Texas and the nation off coal.

Steelhead in Santa Clara: Loma Prieta Chapter Wins Legal Clean-Water Victory

Aerial view of the western end of Lehigh Southwest Cement's Permanente Quarry in Cupertino, Ca. The run-off channel at the top of the slope, which flows north into Hale Creek and Permanente Creek, can be clearly seen. Photo courtesy of Jeff Couperus.

By Rachele Huennekens

Nothing fishy about it: last week, the Sierra Club's Loma Prieta Chapter negotiated a milestone agreement for clean water and healthy fish habitat in Santa Clara County, California. 

The Sierra Club reached a multi-million dollar legal settlement with two California-based subsidiaries of Lehigh Heidelburg Cement Group, Lehigh Southwest Cement Co. and Hanson Permanente Cement, Inc., that will curb selenium pollution and restore a waterway called Permanente Creek for fish and wildlife.

Permanente Creek flows for 13 miles through the hills above Cupertino, California, into the San Francisco Bay, and is habitat for red-legged frogs, deer, birds and other wildlife. Steelhead trout -- a popular species with anglers -- once made Permanente Creek their home.

Yet tests by the Sierra Club and the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board had revealed levels of selenium more than ten times the allowable standard in Permanente Creek and Rancho San Antonio County Park, downstream from Lehigh's quarry pit discharges. At elevated levels, selenium is a toxic pollutant that can cause reproductive failure and deformities in fish and other forms of aquatic life. California and federal regulators have listed Permanente Creek as an "impaired water body."

"Today's settlement is a great victory for this beleaguered creek," said Loma Prieta Chapter Chair Melissa Hippard. "The Sierra Club looks forward to working with Lehigh to make the water safe again for fish and wildlife, and for Santa Clara County residents to enjoy."

Sierra Club attorney Reed Zars taking a water sample from Pond 13. Photo courtesy of Reed Zars.

After an intense period of litigation, followed by months of negotiation. Sierra Club attorneys Reed Zars and George Hays filed a consent decree with the United State District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose Division, requiring the Lehigh cement companies to cut their discharges of selenium and other toxic water pollutants into Permanente Creek within the next two and a half years, and to restore approximately 3.5 miles of Permanente Creek degraded by quarry mining overburden and wastes. As part of its restoration, the company will provide for fish migration by constructing step pools, removing mining-related sediments and stabilizing landslide-prone hillsides. 

"We commend Lehigh for taking the high road and agreeing to restore Permanente Creek," said Zars.

The clean-up comes with a big price tag: the Santa Clara County Planning Department estimated that selenium reduction technology for Lehigh's quarry pit discharge will cost $31-127 million, and Lehigh estimates that the stream restoration work will cost $10-12 million.

The settlement between Lehigh and the Sierra Club awaits federal court approval, after a 45-day review and comment period by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 

As Loma Prieta Chapter members celebrate their victory, they look forward to the next opportunity to restore and protect watersheds in the southern San Francisco Bay Area.

Huge Showing at Minnesota Capitol to Push Beyond Coal

Ignoring snow storm warnings, more than 700 people participated in a day of action, contacting their state representatives and gathering in the Capitol building in St. Paul to push for more clean energy and the jobs it generates.

One legislator called the day of action "one of the best and most energetic at the Capitol all year," said Michelle Rosier, a Sierra Club Minnesota Senior Campaign and Organizing Manager.

The Minnesota Beyond Coal team is one of 62 groups -- environmental, faith, labor, youth, and business -- pushing for legislation that would commit the state to 50 percent renewables by 2030, increase energy efficiency standards, and enable more local power generation.

SEIU union leader Javier Morillo-Alicea said: "For too long we have thought about the environmental movement and the goals of the labor movement as somehow being at odds," reported KARE 11, a local TV station. "We thought that good jobs and clean environment are at odds, and that is simply not true!"

"There was a strong showing of hundreds of youth marching in the snow and rain to join the rally," Rosier said. "Nearly a dozen electric vehicles and solar panels were on display on the mall in front of the Capitol as well."

Governor Mark Dayton, who told rally-goers that Minnesota should move beyond coal, made a picture of the rally the cover photo of his Facebook page. Speaker of the House Paul Thissen told the rally he supports a bill that would establish a clean-energy goal, and several more representatives appeared in solidarity.

The rally couldn't have been as successful as it was without the more than 50 volunteers who contacted nearly 5,000 supporters to mobilize the grassroots.

"All in all, this was a very strong showing by people who support clean-energy solutions," Rosier said.

Javier Sierra Named Among Top 100 Green Latino Leaders in U.S.

Javier Sierra, a nationally syndicated columnist and Latino media consultant for the Sierra Club, has been named by PODER magazine as one of the Top 100 Latino Green Leaders in the United States.

Sierra's monthly column about Latinos and the environment, Sierra & Tierra, is regularly published by the country's leading bilingual publications, including Los Angeles' La Opinion and New York City's El Diario-La Prensa.

PODER, a leading Latino business-and-lifestyle publication based in Miami, says "Sierra has played an essential role in putting the environmental movement on the Latino map by helping the Hispanic community engage with environmental issues such as toxic pollution and climate change."

"It's a wonderful thing that I'm being recognized, but the Sierra Club is also being recognized," Sierra says with characteristic modesty. "The Club was the pioneer in bringing Latinos into the environmental community, so this is really a recognition for the organization as well as myself."

Sierra is a former Deputy Director of Associated Press Television News, where he ran the Latin American desk's day-to-day operations, and prior to that he served as Senior Producer and reporter at CNN en Español, of which he was a founding member. He began his journalistic career at United Press International's Latin American Desk as an editor and reporter. This April was his 11th anniversary with the Sierra Club.

"The Club was the first environmental organization to establish a dialog with the Latino community," he says, "and at the same time they established a presence with Latino media. Blogs were not that big when I started in 2002, and Latinos were mostly focused on TV and radio. But shortly after I started writing my column, La Opinion, the largest Spanish-language newspaper in the country, picked it up, and since then they've run 90 percent of my columns."

Writes PODER in the introduction to its Top 100 list: "Two of the hottest issues in the United States today are the significant growth in the Hispanic population and the increased emphasis on green issues. Less publicized is what is happening at their confluence: more Latinos are playing important roles in environmental issues than ever."

"I do see exponentially greater engagement on environmental issues," says Sierra. "Ninety-two percent of Latinos believe something serious must be done about climate disruption -- a much higher percentage than in the American population at large."

The first national survey on Latinos and the environment, which Sierra helped conduct and promote, was taken in 2008. "It confirmed that Latinos are committed to a clean environment and are for clean energy instead of dirty energy," he says. "In 2012 another national survey confirmed those findings and additionally showed that awareness of climate disruption is much higher now, and that Latinos are disproportionately affected by environmental degradation. They've identified the daily bombardment from toxic pollution as the problem and connected the dots."

"Latinos have skin in the game," writes PODER. "According to a Sierra Club poll … 83 percent of Latinos favor moving from coal plants to clean sources of energy. In California, according to Tulchin Research, two-thirds of Latino voters considered themselves 'conservationists,' while 90 percent believe we could 'protect the environment and create green jobs at the same time.'"

Asked about his influence on these numbers, Sierra allows that his column has helped get Latinos involved with the environmental community.

"At first there was an awareness of environmental degradation and the health impacts of environmental problems, and over the years we've been able to demonstrate that Latinos suffer disproportionately from environmental pollution. At first the connection wasn't clear, and the community didn't know who or what to blame. 'Why are my kids getting nose bleeds? Why are my kids getting asthma?' It turns out that in most cases a major polluter was right down the street spewing poisons on a daily basis. We have now made so many Latinos aware of environmental degradation and that it's the polluters' fault."

Latinos and the Sierra Club are natural allies, Sierra says. "Their commitment to a healthy environment and a clean energy future is extraordinary. We need to strive even harder to make them feel at home here at the Club and at any other environmental organization."

Sierra & Tierra is distributed to 500 bilingual publications throughout the U.S., and is regularly published in English by the Huffington Post, Alternet, and many others. Sierra is regularly featured on the national and international newscasts of Univision, Telemundo, and Voice of America networks (to name just three), as well as several national and regional radio networks in the United States, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and elsewhere. During the nuclear catastrophe in Japan in 2011, the BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Sierra became one of the country's most visible bilingual environmental experts both here and abroad.

The Key to Sustainable Development in 2015 and Beyond

A health extension worker outside Delhi, India teaches a group of villagers about the benefits of birth spacing. (Photo: Kim Lovell, Sierra Club)

By Kim Lovell, Program Director, Sierra Club Global Population & the Environment Program

As Earth Month comes to a close and we send off the last few packets of activist swag, it’s fitting that our stack of factsheets on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is rapidly dwindling. We are fast approaching the 2015 deadline to achieve these eight indicators of global poverty reduction and development gains, and the D.C. and international communities are looking back to gauge our success.

It's encouraging to see enormous progress in meeting some of these goals: we've halved the number of people living on less than $1.25 a day, bolstered enrollment in primary education in the developing world, and increased access to lifesaving HIV/AIDS treatment worldwide. Yet the goal of achieving universal access to reproductive health (MDG 5a) has seen the smallest amount of progress.

Sierra & Tierra: 11 Million Reasons to Reform Our Broken Immigration System

By Javier Sierra

During an interview with a Florida radio station about the dangerous working conditions for undocumented Latino workers, the story of one of the listeners who called in got us all on the edge of our seats.

He told us his job consisted of being lowered into a huge hospital waste collector to unclog the drain, which fills with syringes, hypodermic needles, used dressings and a long list of other medical waste. He added his only protections were rubber boots, a paper mask and a helmet with a flashlight to light up the belly of the monster where he worked.

Asked why he did not look for a less dangerous job, he answered, “I can’t. I don’t have papers. And if I don’t work, my family back home won’t eat.”

In the US, there are at least 11 million undocumented workers who —contrary to the myth that they come to America to live off welfare— are willing to work in whatever job to escape the abject poverty that expelled them from their countries in the first place. And that “whatever job” all too often constitutes a clear and present danger to their health and security.

According to a national survey conducted by NCLR and the Sierra Club last year, 43 percent of Latino voters live or work dangerously close to a toxic site, whether it is a refinery, an incinerator, a coal-burning plant, a major freeway or a farm field.

If Latino voters suffer the consequences of pollution and environmental degradation in such disproportionate numbers, it’s obvious that for those 11 million undocumented workers quietly living in the shadows of society, that percentage will be much higher.

Yet these people are the target of another bombardment, a more subtle but not less pernicious one. They are the recipients of the rage and rejection of an intense anti-immigrant movement that dehumanizes and demonizes them by calling them “illegals” and “criminals.”

Which begs the question: Who wants to abandon family, friends and culture, then risk their lives to travel to a hostile country with the almost certainty that, once there, they will be considered criminals?

America’s history, however, has been written by people who, just like these 11 million undocumented workers, risked everything to escape persecution, poverty or both in search for a dignified life and a future for their children. We immigrants have been the force that has fueled the optimism, hard work and progress that have made America such a great country.

But that crucial cycle is as broken as the immigration system that is supposed to regulate it. That’s why the Sierra Club’s board of directors has unanimously approved supporting an equitable path to citizenship for those 11 million people.

“By establishing an equitable path to citizenship, we can empower those in our society who are most vulnerable to toxic pollution to fully participate in our democracy, fight back against polluters and demand public health protections and clean energy solutions,” said Allison Chin, Sierra Club president.
 
The Sierra Club thinks these people have been denied their civil rights to protect themselves not only from a daily toxic bombardment but also from the effects of climate disruption, to which we Latinos are especially vulnerable, regardless of our immigration status.

If we are to keep the vitality and vibrancy of the American Dream alive, we have 11 million reasons to reform our immigration system and open up a just path to citizenship.

Javier Sierra is a Sierra Club columnist. Follow him on Twitter at @javier_SC

Solar: If We Invest In It, Jobs Will Come (...and They're Already Here)

By Stephen Dworkin, Sierra Club media intern

Job-seekers take note: clean, renewable, solar energy is quickly growing into one of the hottest industries in which to work.

According to the National Solar Foundation's new comprehensive state-by-state solar jobs map, solar energy already provides the United States with 120,000 jobs, and is expected to add another 20,000 in 2013. The industry is expected to grow by more than 17 percent this year, with 44 percent of solar companies adding new employees.

These booming numbers are just a sliver of a broader success story: the amount of solar energy powering homes, businesses, and federal buildings has increased by a whopping 600 percent since 2008. And in March, all (that's right, ALL) new utility energy capacity came from solar. The facts are clear: solar power is a key producer of jobs and clean energy today.

It's essential that the amount of energy the United States gets from solar and other renewables continues to grow, especially as we work to transition beyond dirty fossil fuels. Every kilowatt hour of solar power produced in the United States is sparing us from toxic, climate-disrupting emissions from coal, oil, and gas. Americans know how important this is: according to a recent Gallup poll, 76 percent of Americans want more emphasis placed on solar energy production. The poll found solar and wind to be the most popular forms of energy in the U.S., with coal and other fossil fuels stuck floundering at the bottom.

Other polling has shown that Americans favor expanding solar power at even higher levels -- as much as 92 percent in a Solar Energy Industries Association poll from last November. The popularity of solar energy, as well as its growing contribution to the U.S. economy and its growing share of American energy use, indicates the clean-energy revolution is already underway.

Meanwhile, a solar revolution is exploding on the state level. On April 23, the New York State Senate unanimously passed an extension to the NY-Sun Initiative, a program that drives growth in the solar industry and lowers solar energy costs for homes and businesses in the state. Many states, including California, Maryland, and even northeastern states like Connecticut, have policies in place incentivizing solar energy production and purchase. But in states like Colorado and Arizona, cuts to solar initiatives are threatening the industry and good clean-energy jobs.

The Obama administration and state governments should listen to the large majority of Americans who want clean energy and double down on solar while protecting important renewable energy incentives. Programs in New York and other states are a positive step, but there are still strong headwinds to overcome. As forces clash over budgets in Washington, D.C., and state capitols across the country, our elected leaders must take solar jobs, and their potential to grow, to heart. If we invest in solar, even more jobs will come.