Greed and Expediency

By Tanya Wagner
Sierra Club Member, Hampden Township

*Below is testimony presented at the public hearing of the Environmental Quality Board (EQB) in Mechanicsburg on January 16, 2014. The testimony is in response to the EQB's proposed oil and gas regulations. Sierra Club talking points can be found here.*

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Good evening, I’m Tanya Wagner from Hampden Township.

I assumed that most testimony given tonight would be empirical in nature. So, I choose to speak more philosophically, because actions are guided by values, and legislation is crafted not just from knowledge, but influenced by attitude and moral integrity. That said, I believe it’s time we undertake bolder efforts to put tougher, more specific language in these proposed regulations. If we can’t balance public health and land stewardship concerns with economic growth and the search for new energy sources, Pennsylvanians will pay a price that we and our offspring will sorely regret.

I speak with confidence because, as 300,000 West Virginians were learning of a chemical spill that rendered their water virtually untouchable, the U.S. House of Representatives was hard at work gutting the Federal Hazardous-waste Cleanup Act. How ironic! If their bill becomes law, it will seriously erode the federal government’s ability to help PA residents if a similar disaster were to happen here. We could be in dire straits unless we get our own house in order, and fast.

The Elk River spill in WVA, while not due to fracking, is a cautionary tale, because the CEO of the company responsible is considering bankruptcy. Consequently, he won’t be paying for cleanup, and just like WVA, PA has not required mine and related company owners to establish a remediation fund for accidents that may well devastate our water supply. Yes, they pay an impact fee, but that’s simply for mitigating day-to-day wear and tear on a community’s infrastructure.

It’s reported that a legislative plan is evolving to entice drillers to substitute “mine-influenced water” (better known as acid mine drainage) for their fracking process in place of clean water. While that sounds like a tantalizing concept on its face, a tricky use of the term “beneficial” in the plan’s text, and a proposal to exempt companies who would agree to use this stuff from liability clearly doesn’t.

Much is promised by operators and legislators, and agency spokesmen assure us that all is well; however, I suffer cognitive dissonance when reviewing information that contradicts the pro-fracking message, such as countless violations, token penalties, inadequate rules for safe use and disposal of hazardous substances, danger from orphan and abandoned wells, methane migration, and wording in laws that smacks of bias favoring mine operators over public health and environmental safety. Just one issue I shudder to think about is: what happens if we permit long-term burial of waste pits and toxic or radioactive materials like drill cuttings? Why, we could create sites like the infamous Love Canal, which, quoting NY’s health commissioner, “remains as a national symbol of failure to exercise concern for future generations” Is that how we want to be remembered? 

I’m no expert, but distance and location limits listed in these proposed regulations seem uncomfortably close to areas they’re designed to protect, and they’re accompanied by vague enforcement language. Won’t such a laissez-faire approach just invite less safety and more risk?

I’m troubled, too, when many people (including elected officials) willingly accept drillers’ assurances of safety. For me, their credibility sank after hearing that the industry hired the same public relations firm tobacco executives employed back in 1994: yes, the very ones who raised their hands at a congressional hearing, and under oath, stated “I believe that nicotine is not addictive”.

On that note, I’ll close by sharing 2 wise and very relevant proverbs: first, it seems the only thing we’ve learned from history is that we don’t learn from history at all, and second, humans come to their moment of clarity only through pain and humiliation. Sadly, their own, and not someone else’s. My hope is that these tendencies can be reversed in this crucial matter; and that wisdom, foresight, and courage will prevail over greed and expediency. Our land, our citizens…and…even mine operators, will be the better for it. Thank you.

Leave Carbon in the Ground or Humans Won't Be Around

By Richard Whiteford
Sierra Club Member & Environmental Communications Consultant

Congressional legislators who deny climate change typically focus on free market economics and fail to acknowledge the destructive impacts and associated costs that we experience now from climate driven extreme weather events.

They grouse about the Obama Administration’s request for a 2014 climate change budget of $11.6 billion and the expansion of government agencies to combat climate change. 

While realizing that the Republican party’s platform rests on smaller government and cutting government expenses to the bone, you can’t help wondering why their budget fetish ignores the fact that, according to  the U.S. Treasury Department, between 2011 and the first quarter of 2013 extreme weather events cost us more than $136 billion and that doesn’t count the endless numbers of flood, sand storm, drought, and wild fire damages that happened since then.

They claim that while the President stated a willingness to work with Congress toward enacting a bipartisan, market-based scheme to reduce GHG emissions, the Administration has also taken steps to move ahead with Executive Branch actions to address climate change concerns without Congressional support. 

They express outrage that President Barack Obama has advanced a series of unilateral regulations without appropriate legislative review – including a proper assessment of the cumulative influence, regional effects, and distributional impact of such actions on states and localities – would do more harm than good. 

The Republican Party, while vehemently denying the existence of global warming, ditched every proposed climate bill leaving the Obama no other choice.

At a time when our economy is struggling to recover, increasing the cost of energy and cutting more American jobs is not the right way to move forward.”

Here again, like so many people, these legislators fail to recognize the real issue because their only measure is money, revenues in particular.

The critical issue is: in the past 150 years humans increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere by 117 parts-per-million by burning fossil fuels. For over 800,000 years before that CO2 levels hovered around 280 parts-per-miliion. 

Now because we pump 90 million tons of CO2 up there every 24 hours, CO2 has risen to an average of 397 parts-per-million and actually spiked into the 400 parts-per-million level twice in early 2013. It won’t be long until that will become the average as it continues upward.

Burning fossil fuels has already raised the global temperature from preindustrial levels by 0.8 degrees Celsius (1.4 degrees Fahrenheit) and we are already experiencing sea level rise, extreme storms, droughts and wildfires around the planet. Even more alarming, 80 percent of the Arctic ice cap melted in the summer of 2012.

Scientist believe that we can’t allow the preindustrial global temperature to rise higher than 2 degrees Celsius or human survival will be very challenging. We are almost half way there now.

The oil, gas and coal industries and their paid henchmen like the Heartland Institute and bought politicians distract the public with red herring issues like claiming that switching to clean energy will hurt the economy, kill jobs, and cause energy shortages while overlooking the job creation that clean energy creates.

What is tragically overlooked by them and the media is that if humans want to survive on this planet we have to stop burning fossil fuels as soon as possible. Scientists say that we can’t put much more than another 565 gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere without disastrous results. At this time, financial analysts calculate that there is already 2,795 gigatons of CO2 contained in readily available oil, gas and coal reserves. 

That’s five times more CO2 than we can afford to burn and expect to survive yet the plan remains drill baby drill; burn baby burn.

There is enough carbon just in the Canadian Tar Sands oil deposits to send the global temperature above the 2 degree limit. That is the reason environmentalists are protesting the Keystone XL Pipe Line. We just can’t afford to burn that carbon and expect to survive.

Again, the critical issue is carbon output. If we keep pumping CO2 into the atmosphere jobs and the economy will be a moot point. What good will money be if we don’t live to spend it? 

Our first step should be to tax all carbon at its source of extraction and give that money directly to our tax-paying citizens to cover the increase in price that fossil fuels will go through until we are 100% clean energy and stop burning them. This points to another blind spot. Legislators want to cut subsidies to clean energy but they vote in lock-step to support the $90 billion in tax subsidies that the oil companies get from taxpayers each year in the name of “leveling the playing field.”

The bottom line is, leave carbon in the ground or humans won’t be around.

Originally published in the Patriot News Op-Ed on December 16, 2013. 

American Style Consumerism

By Jack Miller, Chapter Vice Chair

One of the greatest threats to our planet is American style consumerism. While the resources of the planet are limited, our appetite for more, newer, and bigger stuff has no limits. This consumer virus is spreading throughout the world. To meet our appetite for stuff we will need several more planet earths.

The corporations and their propagandist advertisers spend billions of dollars each year to keep us spending in search of that "new smell". They have so indoctrinated us that we equate life satisfaction with the acquiring of new stuff. It matters little if we have no need for these items or they replace perfectly good items. Through artificial devices like "style" the corporations create massive waste. Perfectly usable items now must be discarded. We seem to be unable to distinguish between real needs and the artificial "needs" that advertisers create. It seems that shopping is our greatest form of recreation. 

The basic economic measure of health used in this country is the Gross Domestic Product. It purports to measure the total of goods and services in a given time period. It is not a measure of our growth as a society. It gives equal measure to dollars spent on items that will shortly end up in the trash as to dollars spent on preventive immunizations. It gives equal value to money spent on insulation as it does for money spent for wasted heat and energy. It is a measure that the corporations love because it like them only cares about money spent and their profits.

American's desire for more stuff is nothing new. It was a major criticism of Henry Thoreau more than 150 years ago. He could not understand why the Christian Churches did not preach against their congregations' desire to accumulate stuff, when Jesus preached against the laying up of treasure's on earth where moth and rust corrupt. We hear virtually nothing from religious leaders today on American consumerism and its destructive results. Our blind consumerism is as emotionally destructive as it is environmentally destructive.

Before you go to purchase something, consider what all is involved. Probably the item was made from some natural resource that had to be destructively ripped from the earth. Then the factory had to use energy and cause pollution it its production. Then it was shipped to the retailer where the item is bought. Within 6 months 99% of all that went through this stream of production, sale, and use will end up in a landfill or incinerator. Pretty sober to consider before we buy. We can't forget the presence of so many toxic chemicals in the production and waste of these products.

We Americans seem to think that we are entitled to the resources of the world; none more than oil. One of the reasons we have over 700 military bases around the world is to have access to so many raw materials. We remain blind to the social and environmental damage we cause to so many people around the world including people in the sacrifice zones of this country. Most of these people are poor people who we exploit for our comfort.

We can never find real satisfaction by becoming part of the consumer society. After the new smell wears off we are forced to buy again. There will always be a new, bigger, fancier, and exciting gadget to be had and we won't be happy until we have one. Styles will change with each season so the only way to be in style is to buy again. It is a never ending treadmill that our friendly corporations have created.

We all must be consumers. There are real needs to be meet. There are also those "tools" that we use to bring ourselves some joy. If you love to play tennis you certainly need a tennis racket, but you don't need a new one every time a manufacturer comes out with a new model. The person holding the racket will determine the outcome of the match, not the racket! Being an environmentally sensitive consumer requires a lot of thoughtful action and often inaction.

The economic crash 2008 was primarily caused by the greedy, selfish, and criminal actors of Wall Street. I don't want to shift the blame from them, but many families suffered more than necessary because of their living the life of the American consumer. Beginning in the 1970's wages for middle class employees flattened. Even as productivity of each worker increased their wages did not increase as prices rose. The increased profits of corporations went to the already wealthy. To keep up with their past consumer habits, too many people borrowed more on their homes and when the economic crash came they found themselves "under water" with their mortgages.

It is time for the old time values of thrift and the purchase of quality products that are functional, meet real needs, and are durable. We should consider where the product is produced. What types of materials of which is it produced. Is it made of recycled materials? Can it be recycled or passed on to another user like an out grown child's toy? We can no longer be blind consumers brainwashed by corporate propaganda. Are we willing to give up something so that there is enough for others now and in the future? We must find real joy in living life. Joy can't be found by filling our attics, garages, and rental storage units with more stuff.