Letter on Penn State's Coal Plant to the Board of Trustees

Recently, I was alerted that the Board of Trustees removed discussion of the coal plant from their meeting. It prevented public comment. As a concerned person, I wrote them the following letter:

To the Board of Trustees,

It has recently come to my attention that the Board of Trustees were to discuss the energy future of Penn State University at its most recent meeting. Specifically, the coal plant's future was on the agenda. From the reports I have from attendees, it was absent. I do not include myself among the conspirators who think that Penn State and Massey Energy definitely colluded to obstruct and obfuscate the agenda, but it is most unfortunate that the UP coal plant's future was removed from the agenda the morning of the meeting. Given that interested and concerned groups lost their possible voice at that meeting, I would like to ensure that you understand my position.

In what follows, I speak as the founder and serving president of Environment-Ecology-Education in the College of Education, the co-host of a WKPS The Lion radio show called Sustainability Now, last year's Assistant to the Director of the Pennsylvania Environmental Resource Consortium, and the emcee for Penn State's first Student Sustainability Summit. I speak for none the organizations nor the show but as someone steeped in the sustainability movement who is concerned about his own impact on his own community and his sad involvement with the mandated ecocide and pollution that our university's cost of doing business does.

Silence and remove the coal plant as soon as possible. Coal, from its extraction, to its byproducts via extraction, to its combustion, to its scrubbing, and to its scrubber cleaning destroys life. It is a powerfull anti-biotic - a destroyer of life - that serves to enrich few people lavishly, support an unsustainable and ecologically crippling way of life for many more, and poisons poor people and their water systems. The cascading effects spread. One need only look at the economic, social, and ecological corrosion of the Tennessee Valley Authority disaster or the decades-long legacy of mountain top removal in Western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, or Kentucky. How fortunate and easy it has been that we at the lavishly equipped Pennsylvania State University have been able to define those people, their traditions and customs and ways of being, their watersheds, and the habitat that depends on those waterways as economic externalities. And I have said nothing of climate change, the study of which our university stands as a shining beacon.

Perhaps now, with all of the attention on the Gulf oil disaster, the methane gas disaster at the Upper Big Branch Mine, and the continued small disasters regarding drilling in the Marcellus Shale, Penn State will begin moving more ethically and responsibly regarding human welfare and the environment regarding its energy "needs." I understand that Penn State has been able to negotiate an environmental assessment of its coal purchasing. This is a noble first step and a good intention. Forgive me if I remain skeptical of its impact and am niggled by the statement, "The road to hell is laid with good intentions." Were we to be extracting coal from the Purdue Mountain to the west, Mount Nittany, the Tussey Ridge, and the Seven Mountains, I don't think we would have Penn State here and our good intentions would be too little to late.

I apologize for the polemic tone of this letter but have found that our turtle's pace could be quicker and that we could do more to reduce our energy use. The Campus Sustainability Office is doing marvelous things with behavior, curriculum is changing, and perhaps more than anything, facilities and operations under Steve Maruszewski and Al Matyasovsky have been doing amazing things. Now is the time to pony up and recognize that coal can't be clean and that we need to move away from it immediately. Too much of our collective health from the newt to the walrus to me need it.

Peter Buckland

Update from Sweden

Hi dear 3E-COE members and friends! I arrived two weeks ago in Uppsala, Sweden, where I'll be living for the next two years and finishing my studies long-distance. I'm sorry that I had to leave at the moment when the anti-disposable water bottle campaign has been heating up, but I'm thrilled to hear about all of the exciting developments and progress you've been making there!

Some of you may know of Sweden's record of being very progressive on the environmental concern/protection front. Well, reading about these developments from afar was great, but seeing many of them in action is even cooler. For example, in our apartment complex, we have recycling bins for plastics, metals, cardboard (paper must be brought to one of four municipal facilities), compost (yay!!), and trash, of course.

While all of these options are exciting, what blows me away the most is what happens to the trash. According to an excellent report of the city's developments, seventy percent of household waste gets converted into fuel for 50 city buses. Seventy percent!! The report also states that the facility that converts waste to fuel is being expanded so that 100% of the city's household trash can be used as fuel for public transit. Amazing, huh?

Something else that's quite exciting is how many people ride their bikes here and how the city accommodates/encourages cycling. For example, there are bike paths, many streets have dedicated bike lanes, and in some cases there are separate traffic signals for bicycles. Further, part of Uppsala's "Stop the Unnecessary 2.0" campaign includes encouraging individuals to bike to work. Other parts of that campaign include having e-meetings, keeping an eye on how much we print, turning off lights, etc.

If you have the time and interest, there are several pages in the report that focus on environmental efforts that the city is taking to make life in Uppsala more sustainable. It's mind blowing and very inspiring...seeing all of these efforts here reminds me of how much hope there is of similar amazing things happening in the U.S. In State College, we already have the awesome bike paths...

The dangers from natural gas drilling to our water

Pennsylvania is on the march to opening up all of the Marcellus Shale for natural gas drilling. To learn more about the Marcellus Shale go here and here. I've been taking a bit of time to look into this because I'm concerned about what it might do to the water in our rural communities. I worry about what can happen to watersheds and then the people that drink from them, the agriculture that depends on those watersheds, and the wild ecosystems.

Here's a piece to really worry you from Water Under Attack.

WYOMING! from JOSHFOX on Vimeo.

I am worried about these things: destroyed water wells for the narrow profits of natural gas companies. As one of the ranchers says in the video, "It's amazing that what took Mother Nature millions of years to build can be destroyed in a few hours with a piece of heavy machinery."

Campus coal contentions

It looks as though the Sierra Club's Coal-Free Campus Campaign has aroused some ire. For the last few days students and PSU grads have written letters to the editor of The Daily Collegian decrying the anti-coal campaign (click here and backtrack to previous letters). It's an interesting back and forth primarily because it contains ill-informed arguments.

It would be nice if some of these letter writers actually understood the problem. We understand that coal plants power our lights, computers, and appliances. Yes, coal is part of the equation that has made it possible for us to watch football games and powered the factories where our cars and trucks that got us to the game (and contributed to climate change as well). We are not ignorant straw men and stupid bandwagon joiners.

Burning coal contributes to a host of natural environmental problems: Coal plants emit enormous amounts of greenhouse gases that in turn contribute to climate change. In this regard, the American northeast is a significant and disproportionate contributor to climate change. Coal plant waste and mining operations also poison local wells and watersheds in ways that hurt communities - especially poor communities - and devastate ecosystems. One need only look at last year's Tennessee Valley Authority's coal ash spill to see the results (at right courtesy of ENS-newswire). But those pesky facts just don't matter to some people or haven't penetrated the veil of convenience for them.

As a case in point a letter writer today states,

Coal allows us to live the lifestyle we have grown accustomed to at an affordable price. The U.S. would revert to a third world country if coal were taken out of our energy mix.

In effect, this this person argues that his leisure and convenience SHOULD come at other people's expense. And the only price that he seems to have considered is the immediate economic price or standard bottom line. He clearly has not considered the triple bottom line that would add the human welfare costs and the price to the natural environment. Were those things weighed in any kind of equal weight, he would have to conclude the real cost of doing business constitutes a disaster.

I am not making some wishy-washy argument about the intrinsic value of trees, moss, owls, and cute tree frogs. We don't need to believe in the "suchness" or "transcendent good" of other organisms to witness coal's destructive qualities when we burn it to produce electricity. Coal hurts people in enormous ways. We don't need to be treehuggers to see that thousands of people were endangered by TVA's coal ash spill. Though I am guilty right now of using a computer powered by coal, I can use that computer to urge a speedy and intelligent transition toward a cleaner world. My iPod SHOULD NOT come at the expense of other people's and other organisms' health and well-being. These are not morally defensible side effects to "business as usual" so that can run our iPods or attend football games. We are currently trapped in a system that makes hypocrites out of people with the best intentions and aspirations. Penn State can do better.

As the Sierra Club notes, "we have all of the technology we need" to solve these problems, including effective solar and wind power. But we lack the political will to do it. The recent letters seem to argue that we should do little to reduce our energy consumption as individuals, communities, or institutions. One letter writer says that be "believes in the environment." He better. It's there. And it can't supply us with coal, oil, and natural gas to burn forever. Beyond that, the atmospheric and oceanic climate feedback systems will, at some point, make it very difficult for all of us to adapt if we continue this trend.

We can see a way to escape this trap. Reduction and replacement go hand in hand. We need to consume less by just using our sources less and making all of that use more efficient. And we need to replace dirty and climatically precarious sources much less. Coal has to go. We are morally called to do it.

Perhaps, if we think deeper about these issues, as one letter writer suggests we do, then we will figure out ways to halve our energy consumption and make coal irrelevant. That is both a realistic and hopeful step toward a solution.

Earth Hour this Saturday

So this Saturday, Penn State is doing a lot for Earth Hour. And, I got a really good email from Paul Ruskin at OPP that shows some small participation! Cool! Maybe we can see that we should step it up a bit...make a slippery slope of it.

Earth Hour Participation

(University Park) On Saturday, March 28th at 8:30 p.m., the exterior lights on Penn State’s Old Main will go out for Earth Hour 2009. “We feel it is symbolically important to join in this worldwide effort to show the effect that many people, working together, can have on climate change,” says Steve Maruszewski, Deputy Director of the Penn State’s Office of Physical Plant. In addition, decorative floodlights at the Lion Shrine, the Nittany Lion Inn and the Information Sciences and Technology building will be shut-off. Even the Bryce Jordan Center Marquee sign will be dark in honor of this international collaboration. Penn State students suggested various building lights to consider, and after safety evaluations, all were approved.

Penn State also encourages students, faculty, staff, and local businesses to participate in this effort by turning off their individual office and residential lights during that hour to show their support for slowing the effects of climate change. Penn State will be joining over 2,712 cities in 83 countries in this event sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund. Other cultural icons that will go black include Chicago’s Sears Tower, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, New York’s United Nations and Empire State Building, and the Eiffel Tower in Paris. What began as an effort in Sidney, Australia two years ago has grown into a worldwide celebration of the power of people to turn it off.

Here's to a small step!