Big Enviro

Some years back Paul Watson, a hard-hitting Greenpeace activist, bitterly denounced the group and left in protest. He said that Greenpeace and the other big environmental groups were no longer part of the solution but rather were part of the problem. He went on to start Sea Shepherd, and is still busy patrolling the oceans on behalf of whales and other sea creatures. Many have felt over the ensuing years that he was on to something. Recent actions by the Sierra Club lend some credence to his claim.

The Sierra Club recently entered into an endorsement and licensing agreement with Clorox and their new GreenWorks line of products. Clorox has quite a laundry list of products under their name, some of which are quite nasty. This looks like little more than their attempt to cash in on the green marketing craze that is currently so popular. It looks too like they found a willing player in the Sierra Club. GreenWorks products will wear the Sierra Club logo, and the club will get an undisclosed percentage of the profits from sales. Fundraising comes first, I guess. Protect that comfortable position. Join the corporados. The club justifies it's decision like this:

Johanna O'Kelley, the Club's director of Licensing & Cause-
Related Marketing, will say only that the amount of money involved is
"substantial." Carl Pope, the Club's executive director, has said that
money was not the driving factor behind the deal: "Our focus was on
consumers who otherwise would not migrate to a safer product because
they wouldn't be sure it wasn't green scamming," Mr. Pope has written.
The idea is that the Clorox logo will convince people the products
will work, and the Sierra Club logo will convince people the products
are environmentally preferable.

Uhh...Mr. Pope? If you think the products are so good and would encourage your members to use them, why not just say that? Why the licensing agreements?

That's not all though. Sierra Club's Florida Chapter, 35,000 members strong, dared to voice their opposition to this deal and were booted out of the Sierra Club for four years. The chapter leadership was thrown out for good for their dissent. Hardly the actions of a club that prides itself on it's 1.3 million members and it's grassroots democracy. Maybe even a little decidedly un-democratic, heavy-handed, top-down rule, no? You think? There is considerable outrage throughout the general membership, and the club might just see that 1.3 million dwindle.

I'm not a Sierra Club member, nor am I a member of any part of 'Big Enviro'. I don't join clubs. I do link to them, and I get the Sierra Club email alerts regularly and will continue to do so. They do keep me up on what is happening. They are involved in many campaigns, and are a strong voice. I hope they can yank their heads out of their asses and realize this isn't the direction they should go.

If not, if they persist , I can only say this. Captain Watson, wherever you may be, it looks like maybe you were right. Earth first.

Update: Here's another version of the article I originally linked to about the suspension of the Florida chapter and a response to it from the Sierra Club board.

A Reply From Max And An Action Alert

I recently emailed Senator Baucus regarding the efforts he put into stopping BP's proposed coal-bed methane project in the Canadian Flathead. I received a reply today along with an update on where the Cline Mining coal issue stands. Looks like it's at least two years out with a few hurdles to clear before it can fly. Here's an excerpt from the email:

While one threat has been taken off the table, others remain, specifically the Cline Mine proposal. The Cline Mine would be located 25 miles from Glacier National Park. The mine could discharge significant amounts of nitrates and selenium into the Flathead watershed, endangering drinking water and fish habitats. Truck traffic required to transport the coal would have a negative effect on the endangered species living in the area.

The Canadian government in Ottawa has agreed, at my urging, to do a 2-3 year federal assessment of the environmental impact of the Cline Mine. And, I will work to ensure that the assessment takes into account cumulative effects, and is reviewed by an international panel before any action is taken.

Also in the inbox was this action alert from the Sierra Club urging us all to call our senators asking them to support clean energy tax incentives. I'm posting it in full with links:

Your Senators are home for spring recess for just a few more days. After they return to Washington DC on March 31, they'll be voting on a bill that could dramatically expand clean, affordable, renewable energy in our country by extending tax incentives for industries such as wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal.

NOW is the perfect time to ask them to support these clean-energy tax incentives -- otherwise they'll expire at the end of this year! Studies predict that a delay in extending these incentives risks more than 100,000 jobs and $19 billion in U.S. investment¹.

Please, place a quick call to your Senator's District office urging them to support the clean-energy industry and America's clean-energy economy. It's easy -- we'll give you the phone number and some simple talking points.

Use our Call Center to get in touch with your Senator's District office today and keep us moving toward clean energy.

Sincerely,


Director of Conservation

¹ "Delay in Extending Renewable Energy Incentives Risks Loss of Over 116,000 American Jobs"

Now is the time we should be doing everything we can to encourage research and development of renewable energy sources and working ourselves away from fossil fuels. To do anything less, to even consider letting the incentives to do that lapse, is insane.

Goose Watch

Mama's on her nest. I'm going to do something a little different, at least for me, over the summer and follow the growth and progress of this years brood of geese with pictures.

I mentioned a week or so back that the nesting pair of Canada geese arrived back here at the duck pond. The female has been on her nesting platform for a couple of days now. There should be young ones hatching in about 3 or 4 weeks. The first day they're about the size of tennis balls, but they grow fast. It's a fascinating part of nature's cycle to watch.

Dirty Deeds

The 11 million acre Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska is up for grabs in a massive land swap that would open the refuge to oil and gas exploration. It's an area roughly twice the size of Massachusetts, and is one of the greatest breeding grounds for migratory waterfowl in North America. But hey, there are a few barrels of oil under it's surface, and BushCo wants it. Now.

“Interior is trying to accomplish on the Yukon what Congress denied them on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,” stated Grady Hocutt, a former long-time refuge manager who directs the PEER refuge program. “The net result will sweep a vital wildlife refuge into an oil rush, crisscrossed with pipelines and roads.”

[snip]

“This deal is a pig in a poke and it is one darned big pig,” Hocutt added, noting that Interior is refusing numerous requests to extend the comment period on the exchange. “There is a rush to complete this exchange before anyone realizes what has been given away.”

Yet another dirty deed from an administration that has a sordid history of pulling them, often when no one is looking. Public comment ends on Tuesday the 25th.

Gone For Awhile

I'll be gone for a while, so until I get back here's a fine thought from Cactus Ed.

I come more and more to the conclusion that wilderness, in America or anywhere else, is the only thing that is worth saving. -- Edward Abbey

Welcome Back

Every year there are a few sure signs that spring is returning. Longer hours of daylight. The first robin. Trees start budding out. We turn our clocks ahead. And there's my favorite, the return of the geese.

I live across the street from a small wetland park known locally as "The Duck Pond'. I don't even remember right now what it's true name is. It's just 'The Duck Pond'. Every spring a nesting pair of Canada geese returns to the pond for the summer, hatches a gaggle of young, trains them in the ways of goose life, and then they all fly south in the fall. This will be the fourth summer that I've watched them. It's fascinating. I always marvel at how fast they grow, and how the adults round the youngsters up and train them, in a few short months, in what they'll need to know for their migration journey. It's much like a classroom. Come the middle of March or so I start to keep a lookout to see if they've shown up yet. I haven't really watched too closely yet thinking it may be a bit early.

Well, by god, this morning I got to watch them arrive. I was sitting on my step having a smoke before I left for work, when I heard a faint honking. Geese? Naw. Too early. It got louder and there was no mistaking that sound, one of the wildest in all of nature. Sure enough, here came two geese flying in from the south, honking away and swinging their heads back and forth checking things out. They made a small circle of the pond and then set down to inspect the changes from last year. I of course was tempted to call in and say I couldn't come to work today, that the geese are back and I had better things to do, but necessity prevailed and off I went.

So the geese are back. Big news? No. Of course not. A major event? Hell yes, at least to me. Things like this are important to me. Always have been. All in all two geese returning to their annual nesting site may be small doings, but it made my day nonetheless.

I guess for the next few months I'll just have to continue to ignore campaigns and candidates and endless electioneering. I'll be too busy watching geese.

Quite A Response

There was quite a public response to BushCo's proposed plan to lift roadless protection from 4.4 million acres of public land in Colorado. Over 80,000 comments opposed to the plan in less than 60 days. We'll see what comes of it.

It Ain't Over Yet

As I wrote elsewhere, plans for a coal bed methane project by BP in the Flathead drainage in Canada has been put on hold, largely due to pressure from Max Baucus and a number of concerned citizens' groups. While reports of the death of the project may have been a bit premature, it is on the shelf for now, and hopefully it will sit there and collect dust for good.

Not so with Cline Mining's plans for the upper Flathead. They are aggressively pursuing a permit to begin a 20-year project within 25 miles of the US/Canada border. This would be a mountaintop removal mine that would extract roughly 40 million tons of low-grade metallurgical coal over 20 years. Cline plans to sell this coal to Asia, primarily China, to fuel their steel mills. Impacts on the entire Flathead drainage here in Montana, and who knows how far downstream, would be enormous and long-term. There is much at stake. Cline and their investors would likely pocket a few billion dollars, and in return turn the trans-border Flathead into an international sacrifice area. Cline's CEO Ken Bates had this to say:

"We are active in the process for permitting," Mr. Bates said.

"We're trying very hard to progress this as quickly as we can because it's a really valuable piece of coal. This is the time to be developing mines, not sitting watching prices go up."

In other words, there's a lot of money just sitting there in the ground and we can't just sit here and watch it go to waste. We're going after it and damn the environmental consequences.

It's not a done deal yet, but plans to mine coal in Canada's Flathead region aren't simply going to disappear either. A long and contentious fight will be in store for years to come. Here's hoping that wisdom and the public interest will prevail, but I'm not counting on that. There's much here to keep an eye on, much work to do, and above all too much at stake to turn a blind eye to this.

Again, you can follow the action here at the North Fork Preservation Association. These folks are doing a fine job of gathering information on this issue from regional newspapers. Give 'em a read.