Greenhoof

Reuters – A U.S. ethanol industry group is pushing lawmakers to craft legislation requiring gasoline filling stations to inform customers what country their fuel came from in hopes of increasing awareness about money spent on oil imported from overseas.

AFP – Angola will begin planting sugar cane for the first time in more than 30 years this month as the oil-rich country takes its first step toward biofuels.

Only a collaboration between the two countries will create an environment where clean-energy technologies can thrive.

by Jeff Biggers

Verizon Wireless needs to reconsider its “Friends and Family” feature—or, more pointedly, withdraw its support for Massey Energy’s outrageously bogus “Friends of America” rally on Labor Day weekend.

Do 87 million Verizon Wireless customers, stockholders, and its Public Policy Development and Corporate Responsibility Department know that their company is a cosponsor of next week’s climate change–denying, union-busting, pro–mountaintop removal rally organized by Massey Energy in Logan, W.Va.?  (And what about Greenebaum Doll and McDonald, “a top 200 trademark law firm”—perhaps the rally’s most odd sponsor?)

Does the Environmental Defense Fund, which recognized Verizon’s Green Initiatives—to save energy, support solar and other renewable-energy sources, and lower its greenhouse-gas emissions—know that Verizon Wireless is sponsoring an event at which the featured speaker is Lord Christopher Monckton, a former science adviser to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and one of the most infamous global-warming deniers?

On its Green Press Kit site, Verizon claims, “Environmental stewardship is ingrained in Verizon’s heritage, and the company prides itself on having a positive influence on the environment in which it operates.”  The page links to info on solar-energy and energy-efficiency measures undertaken by various offices.

Does Verizon know that 500 mountains have been destroyed, historic communities devastated, and watersheds polluted by mountaintop removal—and that Massey Energy has worked aggressively to not only wipe out our nation’s carbon sink of deciduous forests in Appalachia, but also any attempts at renewable energy and development in the region?  Read about Massey’s role in strip-mining the last ridge on Coal River Mountain and impeding an incredible wind farm.

Do the Communications Workers of America, who represent Verizon technicians, know that the bogus “Friends of America” rally is a blatant anti-union event aimed at taking down the 70th annual United Mine Workers of America picnic, and that Massey Energy is defiantly anti-union?

So why is Verizon sponsoring this pro–mountaintop removal rally on a strip-mine site?  Does Verizon support Massey Energy’s ruthless mountaintop-removal campaign and its infamous CEO Don Blankenship? Check out this ABC News report on Blankenship’s campaign to bankroll the West Virginia courts:

During their 4th quarter 2008 earnings call last spring, Massey Energy executives crowed that “2008 was a very exciting and successful year for Massey, by many measures, the most successful in our history. As you know, we undertook a very aggressive expansion plan in late 2007, and our members executed that plan almost to perfection in 2008.” And then, in answering a question about how 2010 guidance could lower production 10 percent and impact the high head count, a Massey executive simply responded with the bottom line of profiteers: “I think the answer would be that we will be able to reduce the workforce with attrition fairly markedly,” and “we also will cut back on salaries.”

Bottom line: Massey Energy profits up, jobs down. Find out more about Massey.

And here’s Lord Monckton:

George Monbiot has thoroughly debunked Monckton’s anti–global warming thesis

Verizon should withdraw its sponsorship of this bogus rally immediately—or explain its support of mountaintop removal, climate-change denial, and union-busting to its 87 million customers.

Call or text or email Verizon Wireless corporate leaders and let them know.  CEO Dennis Strigl can be emailed at Dennis.Strigl@verizonwireless.com.  Verizon HQ is here:

1 Verizon Way
Basking Ridge, NJ 07920-1097
(908) 559-7000

Related Links:

EPA reveals almost twice as many dangerous coal ash dumps as previously known

Aerial video of mountaintop-removal tree-sit

Coal lobby claims their grassroots support is “more organic” than green groups’

by Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins

Four years ago, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. As the Gulf Coast struggled to keep its head above water, the rest of us were glued to the news—astounded at first by the awful destruction, and then by the inadequate response to so much human suffering. 


In those days, our TV sets became microscopes, magnifying in shockingly clarity the divide in our nation between those who could afford to escape and those who could not. The Gulf Coast continues to be a microcosm for a nation in search of economic recovery. 

What can New Orleans tell us about how to rebuild, revitalize, and recover?

Root economic recovery in clean energy

In the quest to rebuild, New Orleans has become a leader in energy saving and clean energy, from solar-powered streetlights and hybrid city buses to energy-efficient homes for residents who were made homeless by Katrina.

Why choose clean energy?  For one thing, clean energy means jobs for a devastated region. A $615 million investment in clean energy is projected to create over 6,000 jobs in New Orleans, according to a recent report from Green For All and the Natural Resources Defense Council. In fact, clean-energy investment creates roughly three times as many jobs as the same level of investment in fossil-fuel technologies, and the jobs generated are more accessible to workers with relatively low levels of formal education.

With the challenge of rebuilding much of the city’s infrastructure, New Orleans is finding that clean-energy projects make the most sense in the long term—by benefiting the environment, and the local economy.

Jobs must be good and accessible to local residents

The Gulf Coast recovery, however, has seen its share of challenges, particularly in ensuring that recovery plans create quality jobs for the community.

Many of the rebuilding jobs in the Gulf region are going to two groups: professionals from out-of-state and undocumented workers, mostly from Latin America. The first group is made up of mostly highly-educated, highly-paid professionals in fields like urban planning. The undocumented workers, meanwhile, face temporary, dangerous jobs with dismal pay and no benefits, and have no way to address these issues for fear of being turned over to the authorities.

This lack of standards is leading to low-road jobs that don’t benefit workers or the local economy. Similarly, the professional jobs are drawing new people to the region, but doing little for the folks who lived in New Orleans before the storm hit.

The Louisiana Green Corps, in contrast to this trend, provides real opportunity and access to the job market for local residents, many of whom have few other options. The Corps teaches practical job skills in green construction, weatherization, and energy-saving techniques to local youth who have had trouble with the law. Another successful project, Make it Right, is building energy-efficient homes in the Lower 9th Ward, a working-class New Orleans neighborhood. Make it Right is not only providing homes for families that have been displaced by Hurricane Katrina. It is also providing jobs and much needed entrepreneurial opportunities.

The Louisiana Green Corps and Make it Right are now partnering with the City of New Orleans to create more jobs, homes, and local opportunity – using President Obama’s Recovery Act. The partnership is jointly applying for Recovery funds to expand the number of workers it trains and energy-efficient homes it builds.
 
Lessons for Washington, DC

The challenges and successes Louisiana has faced offer important lessons to the nation, and particularly to our leaders in Washington.

The Senate is now crafting a crucial clean-energy bill that could create hundreds of thousands of American jobs. It is absolutely essential that the Senate legislation include investment in green-collar job training so that programs like the Louisiana Green Corps can prepare America’s workforce for new jobs across the country. 

Equally important are standards to prevent a low-road economy that excludes local workers. The Green Construction Careers Demonstration Project is a key provision in the clean-energy bill that ensures that green construction jobs have quality standards and are accessible to local workers.

Both of these provisions were included in the clean-energy bill the House passed this summer. They must also be included in the Senate version. America’s workers and middle-class depend on it.

The rebuilding in New Orleans is far from done.  There are thousands of people who still need homes, jobs, and health care—thousands who need their communities back. But in the past four years we’ve learned a lot about the right and wrong ways to help the region rebuild and thrive.

It is time as a nation to put these lessons to use.

Related Links:

Push is on to strengthen climate bill

Senators see climate-bill delay

NYT reads the future: Senate Dems consider maybe doing something in 2010