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The Sierra Club's Missouri Beyond Coal campaign achieved a prized goal this month when Ameren Energy announced that it would phase out its 923-megawatt Meramec coal-fired power plant in St. Louis County by 2022, with an option to retire the plant even sooner.
The announcement comes after years of advocacy from the Beyond Coal campaign, local citizens, the Club's Missouri Chapter, and allied health and environmental groups to retire the outdated 61-year-old coal plant and invest in clean energy. Below, the plant's four smokestacks loom behind a residential neighborhood in south St. Louis County.
"If you've ever been to one of our Missouri planning meetings, you know that we often repeat for each other during tough times… 'be patient, we have to stick with this for the long haul,'" says Holly Bender, associate regional director for Beyond Coal. "Today, the patience and relentless advocacy paid off."
For the past several years the Sierra Club has urged the Missouri Public Services Commission to adopt an integrated resource plan and made the case that retiring the Meramec plant is the most prudent path forward in light of new carbon pollution regulations and changing market conditions.
The Club has steadfastly called for reductions in sulfur dioxide emissions at three St. Louis-area coal plants, demanded groundwater monitoring at coal ash sites, and urged local elected officials to be leaders in taking a stand against coal pollution in St. Louis County. Last year the Club revealed Ameren's leaking coal ash ponds across the state and the company's significant contribution to decades of unsafe air quality in St. Louis.
"This victory is a testament to the patience and perseverance of the Sierra Club team in Missouri and the power of an all-in campaign," Bender says. "In the belly of the beast, and in the hometown of coal's giants, dedicated grassroots engagement, strategic legal work, and a relentless drive to change the public's perception about coal has won the day. We will continue to advocate alongside Meramec-area communities for a retirement date sooner than 2022, and ensure that Ameren finally gets serious about adding clean energy."
Ameren currently produces 75 percent of its power from coal, and has for a long time joined Arch and Peabody in deeply vesting coal's future in the community. Missouri gets 85 percent of its electricity from coal, and according to the American Council for An Energy-Efficient Economy, the state ranks 43rd nationally in energy efficiency.
Local elected officials receive generous donations from Ameren, potential clean-energy allies have shied away from fighting against coal due to the company's hefty donations and support of annual galas, and Ameren's public relations machine has successfully convinced citizens in greater St. Louis that it really does care about clean energy -- despite its rating among the Natural Resources Defense Council's "Gang of 8" top polluters lobbying in Washington against clean air and water protections.
In announcing its decision to phase out coal at Meramec, Ameren said the plant had reached the end of its useful life. The decision comes as Ameren has realized great success saving energy -- and saving its customers money -- through energy-efficiency programs. Ameren previously stated that the power generated by Meramec could be entirely replaced through strong energy-efficiency programs.
"As a local mother, this announcement could not have come soon enough," says Donna Seidel, a local parent who lives close to the Meramec plant. "Our community is looking forward to collaborating with Ameren and other stakeholders to find a plan to make south St. Louis County an even safer place for our families to live."
The announcement to phase out the Meramec coal plant represents the 168th coal plant to retire or announce retirement since 2010, cutting nearly 252 million tons of carbon emissions -- the equivalent of 53 million passenger vehicles.
"After years of dangerous coal pollution, we could use a breath of fresh air from Amaren and some forward-thinking investments in clean energy," says Andy Knott of the Beyond Coal campaign in St. Louis. "As utilities elsewhere in the Midwest continue to grow clean-energy portfolios, Ameren has lagged behind with woefully low investments in readily available and cheap resources like wind, solar, and efficiency, which can create local clean-energy jobs."
Today, the United States has more than 61,000 megawatts of installed wind capacity and 13,000 megawatts of installed solar capacity -- enough to power the equivalent of 20 million American homes.
"Communities in south St. Louis have struggled with unsafe air for decades," says St. Louis-based Sierra Club organizer Sara Edgar. "We're ready to work with Ameren on a plan to invest in local clean energy, to build a responsible timeline for transition of its workforce at Meramec, and to move as expeditiously as possible to stop burning coal in St. Louis."
Photo courtesy of Simmons Hanly Conroy
By Javier Sierra
When President Obama signed the proclamation to designate the Organ Mountains/Desert Peaks National Monument in May, it was the last stich of a tapestry to weave together several natural sites of extraordinary beauty and cultural significance.
The monument, located in the Doña Ana County in southern New Mexico, is loaded with enchantment and historic significance, particularly for the Latino community. Just notice the Spanish names of many of these places: Sierra de las Uvas, the Robledo, Potrillo and Doña Ana mountains, and the very Sierra de los Organos (Organ Mountains), named after its resemblance to the musical instrument. Let's call it a monumental symphony.
The Organ Mountains, the centerpiece of the monument
For centuries, the ragged peaks of the Organs for centuries witnessed the flow of settlers travelling from Mexico to Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Taos on the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro. In the Broad Canyon there is an abundance of petroglyphs, testament of ancestral native cultures. And in the Robledo Mountains dinosaur foots prints were petrified millions of years ago.
These natural treasures have been protected in large part due to the activism of Latino leaders.
"Latinos have been working to protect these lands for well over a decade," says Michael Casaus, New Mexico State Director of the Wilderness Society. "From the very beginning Latino leaders took an active role in shaping the campaign and determining which lands should be protected. Without the contribution of Latino leaders and conservationists the designation would not have happened."
This Latino activism also ensured that the traditional uses of the land would be permitted in the monument, such as grazing, water rights, hunting, fishing and recreational activities.
"This garnered the support of the local residents, who are mostly Latinos, and ensured that these lands will not be sold to private owners to reduce the national deficit or be turned into mining operations," says Casaus.
The monument is also getting Latino youth interested in their history and culture and encouraging them to stay in school.
"I lead these kids into the monument to help me compile its cultural inventory," says Angel Peña, research specialist of the New Mexico Cultural Alliance. "We hike around the lands looking for remnants of Hispanics coming through in the 1580's, we have found evidence of the Camino Real, as well as numerous petroglyphs and other archeological resources."
The monument has literally changed the lives of these kids.
"Each expedition is a trek of discovery of their culture and past," says Peña. "They now have a purpose in life. Many of them are interpretative rangers of the Bureau of Land Management. Here there are good jobs that will fill them with pride and satisfaction."
Unfortunately, there are representatives in Washington, DC, who are adding a sour note to the music. Reps. Rob Bishop (R-UT), Steven Pearce (R-NM) and Jeff Duncan (R-SC) insist that the monument, located by the Mexican border, poses a threat to national security because it creates a gateway for illegal activity, and impedes open access to the Border Patrol and other law enforcement bodies.
Several civic groups, on the other hand, called the representatives' claims "false" alleging data and statements by the US Customs and Border Security that prove the opposite. The faith-based group NM CAFé, for instance, labeled the statements as "a waste of time and taxpayers' money" and urged these congressmen to dedicate their time to find "real solutions to the border problems," including supporting immigration reform.
The establishment of the monument is a brilliant idea. Too bad there are those willing to play out of tune in this monumental symphony.
Javier Sierra is a Sierra Club columnist. Follow him on Twitter @javier_SC
Gretna, La., might be a small city, but the residents are banding together to speak out against a proposed coal export terminal and the increased coal trains that would come with it. In the past month they've packed two community meetings to learn more about the proposed RAM Terminal coal export facility.
Back in June, dozens of people attended a Clean Gulf Commerce Coalition public meeting as a way to kick off the Gretna movement against the facility. The facility itself it planned for Plaquemines Parish, but the rail line serving it bisects Gretna.
The meeting followed weeks of canvassing, phonebanking, and media outreach to publicize the meeting, collect petition signatures, and draw attention to the problems of coal trains rumbling through historic districts and along major commuter highways intersections, said Sierra Club organizer Devin Martin.
"It was a joint effort between the Sierra Club, the Gulf Restoration Network, and the Clean Gulf Commerce Coalition," said Martin.
The movement's been making the news as well:
Then on July 9, Gretna residents packed a Gretna City Council meeting to get the chance to testify their concerns about the possibility of coal trains passing through their neighborhoods, with all the attendant health risks, traffic congestion, emergency response times, and economic and quality of life concerns that would rattle the town.
"They gave some of the best, most heartfelt, moving, and powerful statements I've ever witnessed in my four years with the Club," said Martin.
Martin says the weeks since that first June town meeting included some excellent organizing - from tabling at farmer's markets and cafes, to business outreach, and weekly community meetings.
"Our goal was to introduce our presence and show the council that this is a vital issue that cannot be ignored any longer, and that the Mayor and council must take leadership and elevate and amplify the concerns of their constituents to state and federal decision makers," said Martin.
The coalition is asking the Gretna City Council to pass a resolution that would oppose coal trains, as well requesting that the appropriate state and federal agencies involved in the RAM Terminal permitting conduct a full public health, economic, and environmental impact analysis, which has not been done.
"The Council is definitely feeling the heat, and we intend to come back in August with even more residents, business owners, and health professionals to encourage the Council to pass this resolution," said Martin.
"From there, we will work to engage the entire Parish of Jefferson, the most populous parish in Louisiana, to do the same to stop this new coal export terminal that puts so much at risk for so many in one of the most vulnerable regions of the world for climate change and sea level rise."
In case you've missed the news lately, Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune and his family are touring some beautiful wilderness sites in the Pacific Northwest in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act. This write-up from the Oregon Chapter on the Brune family visit to Waldo Lake is a great one we had to re-post:
The week of July 7 was an exciting one for the Oregon Chapter, as we welcomed national Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune to Oregon for several days. Mike and his family are currently in the midst of a Northwest roadtrip in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act. After departing their home in the Bay Area and stopping over for a night in the redwoods of northern California, their first stop in Oregon was at Odell Lake, just down the road from Waldo Lake.
We had a nice gathering of Sierra Club volunteers and staff with Mike and his family (wife Mary, daughters Olivia and Genevieve, and son Sebastian) on Monday evening, enjoying a cookout at a cabin near Crescent Lake. Then on Tuesday morning, the real fun began!
We began the morning with a press conference and briefing on the scenic shore of Waldo Lake about the Sierra Club's Keep Waldo Wild campaign. In addition to Brune and his family and Sierra Club staff and volunteers, we also had a good assemblage of Congressional and Forest Service staffers present. They heard about our exciting plan to protect more than 76,000 acres of forest and wild areas around Waldo, developed in concert with other non-motorized user groups like the Central Oregon Trail Alliance mountain biking organization. We were pleased to be joined by COTA Chairman, Woody Starr, and by Bruce and Brian Johnson, the great-grandsons of Judge John Waldo, for whom the lake is named.
After the briefing, we took the Brunes for a fun, 3.5-mile hike around Charlton Lake. Despite the heat and the mosquitoes, Mike's 9 and 5-year-old children did an amazing job on the hike. Then we did a great 5-mile roundtrip mountain biking trek over to Bobby Lake. Mike and his 5-year-old son Sebastian had to turn back about midway through the mountain bike ride, but his 9-year-old daughter Olivia did the entire ride and wanted even more when we were finished!
Click here to read Mike's Huffington Post blog about his visit to Waldo Lake!
Then, on Wednesday, July 9, with the assistance of several members of our Many Rivers Group from Eugene and outdoor writer William Sullivan, we treated Mike and his family to an excellent hike up Mt. June, just outside of Dexter, Oregon. This hike is found in the Hardesty Wildlands area about 25 miles east of Eugene/Springfield, which our Many Rivers Group has been working to protect.
Thursday was another busy day for the Brunes, who had to depart their cabin at Odell Lake early in order for Mike to get to a morning Editorial Board meeting with the Eugene Register-Guard. Then they drove up to Portland for an exciting evening program with a packed room at the Chapter office with former national Sierra Club Executive Director Mike McCloskey, who discussed his great new book, Conserving Oregon's Environment.
Mike Brune also spoke movingly about his road trip and about his desire to preserve wilderness and protect the planet for his (and all of our) kids to enjoy. And then it was off to Seattle for the Brunes, as they continued on to the next leg of their road trip.
It was a great few days with Mike, Mary, Olivia, Sebastian, and Genevieve, and I was honored to be one of the tour guides showing them some of the spectacular areas of our state. Obviously, four days is not nearly enough to really let them see the wonders Oregon has to offer, so we hope they will be back soon. We've got a few hundred other places we'd like to take them to!
Earlier this month more than 130 people joined the Sierra Club Florida-led Sunshine State Clean Energy Coalition at a Citizens' Hearing for Clean Energy Solutions to call for greater investments in energy savings and solar power in the state.
Sierra Club Florida organizer Julia Hathaway said the Tampa meeting drew people from around the region -- including seven public officials -- to tell the Florida Public Service Commission (PSC) to boost energy savings goals, clean air, and clean energy jobs in 2014.
The Sierra Club and the Sunshine State Clean Energy Coalition held this public hearing because the PSC had denied a request to hold an official hearing in the area. The Florida PSC decides this summer whether to strengthen or weaken state-wide energy efficiency programs.
"We want to create a forum to ensure public participation in the decision making process, which will set the course for the next ten years," says Hathaway.
"At our hearing, after opening statements by some of the elected officials, three expert presentations set a compelling case for why Floridians need to stand up for their own energy future. Then people lined up to testify themselves."
A number of groups new to the coalition -- including the NAACP and the League of Women Voters -- also had members attend the hearing. Hathaway says the meeting was a huge success because of how many people got involved. "We saw increased involvement by elected officials, not only in terms of individuals present but also depth of engagement," she explains. "At the end of the evening, County Commissioner Ken Welch, a former Progress Florida employee, took the floor to say that he would press the county commission for greater leadership."
Hathway credits the amazing volunteers with the coalition for this great hearing success.
"In addition to collecting formal comments, this Citizens Hearing served as a ramp-up to the Coalition's Rally for Energy Savings, which will take place during the public hearing at the Public Service Commission on July 21st," she says. "Our coalition is working to fill up the buses!"
The Sierra Club and Sunshine State Clean Energy Coalition will hold a rally on Monday, July 21 at 11 AM outside the PSC building in Tallahassee, repeating their call for the PSC to strengthen energy savings goals in 2014.
By Briana Okyere
Asked why she feels it's important to expose young people to the natural environment and the great outdoors, Tucson elementary school teacher Cheryl Walling, above, responds with a John Muir quote from his 1912 book, The Yosemite:
"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul."
This quote appropriately describes the verve and enthusiasm that Walling brings to her position as an Inner City Outings leader in Tucson.
[Editor's note: On July 1, the name Inner City Outings was officially changed to Inspiring Connections Outdoors.]
Walling has been a volunteer leader with Tucson ICO for eight years. During that time, she has taken students from across the Tucson Unified School District on outdoor adventures at least once a month -- from short forays into Tucson's nearby nature to Grand Canyon outings to multi-day wilderness backpacking trips.
Getting out into nature has always been a passion for Walling. Growing up in Illinois and Michigan, she regularly went hiking and camping with her family. "When I became a teacher I noticed that many of my students didn't get to go out in the wilderness," Walling says. Determined to expose her students to the natural environment, she connected with a teacher at her daughter's school, who directed her to the local ICO program.
For Walling, the program means more than just getting her students to connect with nature -- it's about forming a bond with the participants, and bringing that personal element back with her to the classroom. "The kids see me as teacher, but they also see me as something more," she says. "They open up to me on the trips and I learn about them. Then I use the knowledge gained on our trips and connect it to what we're learning about in class."
Walling goes to great effort to encourage young ICO participants to form a strong and lasting bond with nature. At the end of all the outings she leads, Walling sets aside ten minutes for quiet reflection. "I want the kids to really connect with the wilderness," she says. "Often they say this is one their favorite parts of the trip."
This was the case with a sixth-grader named Anthony, who participated in several of Walling's outings over the years. On his first several trips, the 11-year-old would suffer from panic attacks and constantly have to use his inhaler. "The entire group helped him overcome his fears and his dependence on the inhaler," Walling says.
By the time Anthony was in the eighth grade, he was hiking challenging peaks and extreme terrain and walking the Grand Canyon, all without his inhaler. And upon entering college, he won a scholarship for his writings about his experiences with ICO. "He now helps me as a volunteer leader on my trips," Walling says. "The kids love to hear about his experiences."
Stories like Anthony's motivate Walling to continually push for more funding for Tucson ICO, applying for grants to help fund trips within the school district so that she can lead more frequent outings and make them even more enriching for her students. "Although our program doesn't have a lot of money, we've been able to get grants from some amazing local businesses that have really helped with expenses this last year," she says with obvious pride.
"These trips really change the students and the way they relate to the outdoors," Walling says. Three years ago, Arizona threatened to close multiple state parks due to budget cuts. Incensed, Walling's students wrote letters to the governor, insisting that the parks stay open. "And they did!" she beams.
Walling and her fellow Tucson ICO volunteers constantly remind young participants in the program that it is their responsibility to maintain and care for the parks and wilderness in their community, but they take pains to impart this message in a way that the students enjoy.
Nothing makes Walling happier than to see a student who is truly inspired by the environment. "I love seeing their faces when they discover a new place and when they realized they have completed a goal," she says.
Learn more about ICO. Find a group near you -- or start your own.
Briana Okyere is a freelance writer based in San Francisco.
By Stacy Bare, Sierra Club Outdoors Director
Please join us in our excitement over a new name for our beloved ICO program. As of July 1, we are no longer Inner City Outings. We are Sierra Club Inspiring Connections Outdoors.
The acronym ICO and the mission -- to provide opportunities for people (especially youth) with limited access to the outdoors to safely explore, enjoy and project the natural world -- remain the same. We have 55 ICO groups in cities and towns across America going outdoors with 14,000 participants each year. And that number grows every year thanks to our dedicated volunteers and the growing nationwide movement to (re)connect with nature.
So why change the name?
There's a lot of familiarity with ICO, our long-standing moniker and acronym, and for many people, "InnerCityOutings" runs together as one word and quickly encapsulates the pride we all have in the tremendous work this program has done.
However, to some people the words "Inner City" have negative connotations, and have been a barrier to deeper engagement on the part of many participants, volunteers, would-be volunteers, donors, and agency partners.
Additionally, the term "Inner City" does not fully represent the geographic areas our program serves, which include rural and suburban neighborhoods and, frankly, anywhere Sierra Club leaders want to go outdoors with people who may not otherwise have easy access to the outdoors. "Inner City" is a term of the past. And ultimately, these were sufficiently compelling reasons to change the name.
To quote one of our San Francisco Bay Area volunteers, "We are in the business of empowering others, encouraging others, connecting with others, and -- dare I say it -- inspiring others."
We are excited about this next step in the future of Sierra Club Inspiring Connections Outdoors. Last year we grew by 20 percent, and we are working hard to double the number of participants getting outdoors with the Sierra Club nationwide by 2020.
Inner City Outings has served the Sierra Club -- and all who participated in the program -- well. Now ICO moves onward and upward with a new name that better encapsulates the full spectrum of people ICO seeks to reach.
Want to get involved? Find an ICO group near you -- or start one of your own!
This week the New York Public Service Commission announced that it will require the state to invest in more clean energy as part of its renewable portfolio standard -- and all thanks to action from the Sierra Club and nine other groups.
New York had been lagging behind in its progress to meet its renewable portfolio standard -- NY must obtain 30 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2015 -- so the Sierra Club and these nine other groups took action. In December 2013, the Sierra Club, along with Alliance for Clean Energy New York, Inc, Citizens Campaign for the Environment, Environmental Advocates of New York, Natural Resources Defense Council, New York League of Conservation Voters, New York Public Interest Research Group, Pace Energy And Climate Center, Renewable Energy Long Island, and the Vote Solar Initiative, submitted a petition to the New York Public Service Commission seeking changes to the method by which the state engages in large-scale procurement of renewable energy resources.
Last week, the Club's efforts were rewarded with an order by the commission adopting the Sierra Club's core recommendation and requiring additional renewable procurement solicitations in 2014 and 2015. These solicitations should produce hundreds of millions of dollars in economic and environmental benefits for New Yorkers -- creating jobs and stimulating investment while also reducing emissions and New York's dependency on fossil fuels.
The primary mechanism for procuring large-scale renewable generation is through contracts between the state and developers for renewable energy credits (RECs). Traditionally, these contracts have been limited to ten years. In the past, the ten-year REC contracts provided developers with sufficient certainty to obtain financing for their projects. Indeed, analysis of the RPS program as recently as 2013 showed that early solicitations were highly successful, with benefits to the state significantly outweighing costs -- every $1 spent on the RPS generated $3 of direct investment in New York.
More recently, however, inconsistency by the state in the timing of project solicitations, as well as more attractive contracting structures in other states, made New York a less favorable place for renewable developers to site projects. As a result, progress toward New York's RPS goals slowed markedly.
To help address the uncertainties in the solicitation process and provide renewable energy developers the contracting flexibility required to finance projects, the Sierra Club coordinated with a broad range of organizations on a petition to the Public Service Commission to remedy the shortcomings of the RPS.
The petition made the case for more regular project solicitations by the state as well as for increased contract flexibility to help bring renewable energy developers back to New York State. The commission's order, released last week, broadly adopted the Sierra Club's requests. The commission required that the state engage in two large-scale renewable project solicitations between now and the end of 2015, one in each calendar year.
This is great news for New Yorkers, and we look forward to seeing the continued expansion of clean energy in the Empire State.
-- Joshua Berman, Sierra Club Staff Attorney
In a victory for wild lands and our climate, U.S. District Court Judge R. Brooke Jackson last week rejected Arch Coal's plans to bulldoze six miles of roads through 1,700 acres of Colorado's wild and natural Sunset Roadless Area in order to expand its underground West Elk coal mine.
While the decision is an enormous victory for protecting these precious wild lands and halts Arch Coal's coal mining plans for now, Judge Jackson's ruling also represents the first time that a coal mine has been rejected because of the failure to adequately consider and disclose the impacts that a mine would have on climate disruption.
Sunset Trails Roadless Area in Colorado. Photo courtesy of WildEarth Guardians.
The landmark decision, affirming a challenge brought by the Sierra Club and allies at Earthjustice, WildEarth Guardians, and High Country Conservation Advocates, could have far-reaching implications for protecting our climate from the threat of mining and burning of coal, natural gas, tar sands, and other fossil fuels.
In addition to building on the Sierra Club's recent successes establishing legal standing to raise climate arguments (1) and telling the agencies that they cannot simply ignore the Social Cost of Carbon when weighing the impacts of coal leasing, Judge Jackson squarely rejected the notion that massive coal mines would have no impact on our climate.
For years, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has used tortured economic logic to mask its willful ignorance of the tremendous harm done to our climate and people through federal leasing of more than five billions of tons of coal.
Spoiler alert: There's a direct connection between BLM's federal coal leasing program and the amount of carbon pollution disrupting our climate. Coal that's mined from federal lands is burned in coal-fired power plants; coal-fired power plants emit carbon pollution; and carbon pollution warms our planet and contributes to increasingly destructive weather events and other consequences of climate disruption (2).
Judge Jackson's ruling exposes the bogus economic assumptions underlying nearly all of BLM's coal leasing decisions, and it will help hold BLM accountable for the climate impacts of other decisions on coal and fossil fuel extraction. BLM continues to claim that if it were to deny a coal lease, that same amount of coal would just get mined from someplace else. The result, according to BLM, would be the same amount of coal mined, the same amount of coal burned, and the same amount of carbon pollution emitted from coal-fired power plants. And if the impacts to climate are the same no matter what, why deny a coal lease?
As recognized by Judge Jackson, that logic ignores basic principles of supply and demand. After summarizing BLM's economic assumption, Judge Jackson debunked it, stating:"The production of coal in the North Fork exemption will increase the supply of cheap, low-sulfur coal. At some point this additional supply will impact the demand for coal relative to other fuel sources, and coal that would otherwise have been left in the ground will be burned." (Slip op. at 30) (emphasis added).
Judge Jackson's point is key. BLM's topsy-turvy approach on climate has brought us a federal coal binge that is indirectly subsidizing the coal industry and worsening climate disruption. The economic principles at play are not complicated. Broadly stated: If you reject a lease and take a large portion of a commodity (here coal, but it could have been natural gas, tar sands, etc.) off the market, you decrease the supply, increase the cost, and, over the long term, decrease the use of that commodity. Because switching from coal to cleaner and more affordable energy would result in less coal mined, less coal burned, and less carbon pollution emitted, BLM's decisions do have a climate impact -- and a big one at that.
In Wyoming's Powder River Basin, BLM has approved four mine expansions that alone would dig up 2.3 billion tons of coal. These "Wright Area" leases, which have been challenged by the Sierra Club and its allies, would dump more than 3.3 billion tons of carbon pollution into our atmosphere. There too, BLM continues to hold tight to its economic fiction as a way to deny the climate impacts of its decisions.
Meanwhile, through its Buffalo Resource Management Plant update, BLM has called for an additional 10 billion tons of coal to come out of the ground over the next 20 years, all while claiming the federal coal program has no impact on our climate. By preventing private companies from mining and burning coal from federal lands, BLM can better protect our climate and public health, the waters we use, the air we breathe, and the wild places we enjoy. We cannot ignore the enormous impact that mining and burning coal will have on our climate, and with last week's decision, it's clear that the BLM and Forest Service can't either.
-- Nathaniel Shoaff, Sierra Club staff attorney
(1) See WildEarth Guardians v. Jewell, 738 F.3d 298 (D.C. Cir. 2013); WildEarth Guardians v. BLM, Case No. 11-cv-1481-RJL (D.D.C. Mar. 30, 2014), 2014 WL 1285505.
(2) For underground mines like West Elk, the climate impact is compounded by companies venting methane directly into the atmosphere during mining. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas with 86 times the heat trapping properties of carbon dioxide over 20 years. And while underground mines must remove methane to protect workers, there's no reason other than corporate profit margins that it can't be captured and used instead of vented into our atmosphere.
Sunset Trails Roadless Area in Colorado. Photo courtesy of WildEarth Guardians.
By Nathaniel Shoaff, Sierra Club staff attorney
In a victory for wild lands and our climate, U.S. District Court Judge R. Brooke Jackson last week rejected Arch Coal's plans to bulldoze six miles of roads through 1,700 acres of Colorado's wild and natural Sunset Roadless Area in order to expand its underground West Elk coal mine.
While the decision is an enormous victory for protecting these precious wild lands and halts Arch Coal's coal mining plans for now, Judge Jackson's ruling also represents the first time that a coal mine has been rejected because of the failure to adequately consider and disclose the impacts that a mine would have on climate disruption.
The landmark decision, affirming a challenge brought by the Sierra Club and allies at Earthjustice, WildEarth Guardians, and High Country Conservation Advocates, could have far-reaching implications for protecting our climate from the threat of mining and burning of coal, natural gas, tar sands, and other fossil fuels.
In addition to building on the Sierra Club's recent successes establishing legal standing to raise climate arguments (1) and telling the agencies that they cannot simply ignore the Social Cost of Carbon when weighing the impacts of coal leasing, Judge Jackson squarely rejected the notion that massive coal mines would have no impact on our climate.
For years, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has used tortured economic logic to mask its willful ignorance of the tremendous harm done to our climate and people through federal leasing of more than five billions of tons of coal.
Spoiler alert: there's a direct connection between BLM's federal coal leasing program and the amount of carbon pollution disrupting our climate. Coal that's mined from federal lands is burned in coal-fired power plants; coal-fired power plants emit carbon pollution; and carbon pollution warms our planet and contributes to increasingly destructive weather events and other consequences of climate disruption (2).
Judge Jackson's ruling exposes the bogus economic assumptions underlying nearly all of BLM's coal leasing decisions, and it will help hold BLM accountable for the climate impacts of other decisions on coal and fossil fuel extraction. BLM continues to claim that if it were to deny a coal lease, that same amount of coal would just get mined from someplace else. The result, according to BLM, would be the same amount of coal mined, the same amount of coal burned, and the same amount of carbon pollution emitted from coal-fired power plants. And if the impacts to climate are the same no matter what, why deny a coal lease?
As recognized by Judge Jackson, that logic ignores basic principles of supply and demand. After summarizing BLM's economic assumption, Judge Jackson debunked it, stating:"The production of coal in the North Fork exemption will increase the supply of cheap, low-sulfur coal. At some point this additional supply will impact the demand for coal relative to other fuel sources, and coal that would otherwise have been left in the ground will be burned." (Slip op. at 30) (emphasis added).
Judge Jackson's point is key. BLM's topsy-turvy approach on climate has brought us a federal coal binge that is indirectly subsidizing the coal industry and worsening climate disruption. The economic principles at play are not complicated. Broadly stated: if you reject a lease and take a large portion of a commodity (here coal, but it could have been natural gas, tar sands, etc.) off the market, you decrease the supply, increase the cost, and, over the long term, decrease the use of that commodity. Because switching from coal to cleaner and more affordable energy would result in less coal mined, less coal burned, and less carbon pollution emitted, BLM's decisions do have a climate impact -- and a big one at that.
In Wyoming's Powder River Basin, BLM has approved four mine expansions that alone would dig up 2.3 billion tons of coal. These "Wright Area" leases, which have been challenged by the Sierra Club and its allies, would dump more than 3.3 billion tons of carbon pollution into our atmosphere. There too, BLM continues to hold tight to its economic fiction as a way to deny the climate impacts of its decisions.
Meanwhile, through its Buffalo Resource Management Plant update, BLM has called for an additional 10 billion tons of coal to come out of the ground over the next 20 years, all while claiming the federal coal program has no impact on our climate. By preventing private companies from mining and burning coal from federal lands, BLM can better protect our climate and public health, the waters we use, the air we breathe, and the wild places we enjoy. We cannot ignore the enormous impact that mining and burning coal will have on our climate, and with last week's decision, it's clear that the BLM and Forest Service can't either.
(1) See WildEarth Guardians v. Jewell, 738 F.3d 298 (D.C. Cir. 2013); WildEarth Guardians v. BLM, Case No. 11-cv-1481-RJL (D.D.C. Mar. 30, 2014), 2014 WL 1285505.
(2) For underground mines like West Elk, the climate impact is compounded by companies venting methane directly into the atmosphere during mining. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas with 86 times the heat trapping properties of carbon dioxide over 20 years. And while underground mines must remove methane to protect workers, there's no reason other than corporate profit margins that it can't be captured and used instead of vented into our atmosphere.
Just about every day, I'm hearing about new innovation in electric vehicle (EV) technology on the market or in the works.
Sustainia, an annual guide to innovative sustainable solutions worldwide, just announced its 100 top picks. Among the companies were at least five in the EV space. One is Proterra, the electric bus company about which we've blogged before, for its EcoRide Fast Charging Electric Buses. Proterra says these buses get the equivalent (in terms of efficiency and emissions) of 20.8 mpg as compared to 5.25 mpg for hybrid, 3.86 mpg for diesel, and 3.27 mpg for CNG. These e-buses are seriously cleaner!
Honeywell & Safran made the Sustainia 100 list for its new electric taxiing system for airplanes, which is expected to equip A320 aircrafts with autonomous taxiing technology from gate to runway to save the CO2 equivalent per plane of planting 835 trees or eliminating 717 automobiles.
ChargePoint was on Sustainia 100 for the company's technology at 17,000+ EV charging stations nationwide. ChargePoint is clearly charging ahead -- with millions more in venture capital support recently secured and a new partnership with French electrical systems giant Schneider Electric.
Finally, there were two battery technology companies on the Sustainia list; Aquion Energy and Ambri are both making strides in renewable energy battery storage. My Sierra Club colleague Reed McManus wrote for the current edition of Sierra Magazine about research underway for EV batteries that will allow electric cars to charge faster and go further.
So is it competition or collaboration that is enabling these kind of advances? Tesla recently surprised many by announcing that it would open up its 172 current patents to any company that works "in good faith" to advance the EV market. When we read that "Nissan wants a three-way with Tesla and BMW" (not my words!) for supercharger technology, we know this kind of collaboration could mean that EV drivers are soon enjoying big benefits from this kind of corporate love-in.
-- Gina Coplon-Newfield is the Sierra Club's Director of Future Fleet & Electric Vehicles Initiative
Many readers of The Planet blog know about the Great March for Climate Action -- an eight-month, 3,000-mile march from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., to demonstrate to the American people and our elected leaders the need to act now to combat climate disruption.
The Great March for Climate Action commenced on March 1 with a big rally at the Port of Los Angeles with an oil refinery as the backdrop, and is scheduled to end on the National Mall in Washington on November 1, with rallies scheduled at 35 stops along the way. Marchers in the "mobile community" are welcome to join any segment of the march they wish. The next rally is scheduled for July 4 in Omaha.
At the previous stop, in Denver on June 16, more than 150 people rallied at the state capitol, marched through downtown, and gathered across the street from EPA Region 8 headquarters to hear from the regional EPA administrator about the agency's new carbon pollution standards, and concluded at a local restaurant for a symposium that addressed a wide range of issues including fracking, renewable energy, tar sands and the Keystone XL pipeline, transportation, and moving beyond fossil fuels.
Partner groups in the day's event included 350 Colorado, AFGE (the federal union that helps represent EPA employees), and the Citizens' Climate Lobby, among others. We'll let Denver-based Sierra Club organizer Bryce Carter pick up the story from here.
"At the capitol, our master of ceremonies and march chanter for the evening was Jonny 5, the lead singer for the Denver band Flobots. We also had DJ CAven give a great introductory performance, Our speakers included Karen Dike, the Rocky Mountain Chapter chair for the Oil and Gas Team, who spoke about the impacts of fracking in our state; Isaac Rivera with 350 Colorado, who talked about divestment from fossil fuels; and several marchers who gave passionate speeches.
"We then marched along the 16th Street Mall -- a pedestrian mall that runs the length of downtown Denver -- to the lobby of the Alliance for a Sustainable Colorado Building across the street from EPA Region 8 headquarters. There, I spoke to the crowd about some of the local impacts of climate change that Colorado has felt, and the important foundation the new carbon pollution standards put forth for us in moving toward a clean energy future.
"I introduced EPA Region 8 Administrator Shaun McGrath (above), who was eager to speak to the marchers and thank them for their effort and give more details on the EPA's new clean power plan. We both emphasized that the Denver hearing on the new carbon standards is a big date, and everyone should be there!"
The marchers and ralliers then moved to the Mercury Café on the other side of downtown for dinner and a symposium which had various breakout brainstorming groups, including:
Hydraulic Fracturing — Karen Dike, Sierra Club
Keystone XL & Tarsands — Isaac Rivera, 350 Colorado
Moving Beyond Fossil Fuels — Russell Mendell & Bob Castellino, ClimateColorado.org
Fossil Fuel Divestment & Reinvestment –Simón Mostafa, Fossil Free Campaign
Politics of Climate Change — Harry Hempy, activist
Environmental Law — Andrea Gelfuso, environmental lawyer
Afterward, 350.org showed the movie A Fierce Green Fire.
Carter, gives "a huge shout-out" to fellow Sierra Club organizers Shane Levy and Dan Schreiber, and EPA employee and AFGE local leader Dave Christenson, who helped line up EPA Administrator McGrath for the event. (That's Carter, above at center, flanked by McGrath and Christenson.) "And certainly the event wouldn't have been such a great success if it weren't for our amazing core volunteers Jodi Jones, James Luidi, James Hennessy, and Nick Anderson."
In 2007, Sierra Club member Joshua Horwitz traveled with his 13-year-old daughter Julia to one of the last pristine whale lagoons on the Pacific coast of Baja, Mexico. The experience so moved the Washington, D.C.-based writer that for the next seven years he immersed himself in what he describes as a "fascinating and bottomless" study of whales and their struggle for survival.
The result is War of the Whales, to be published on July 1 by Simon & Schuster. War of the Whales is a true story of how a whale researcher and an environmental lawyer took on the world's most powerful navy after they both stumbled on evidence linking sonar exercises to mass strandings of whales. Their fight went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Horwitz says that prior to seeing whales in the wild in Baja, "what I knew about whales was essentially what I'd learned in Mr. Biggs's fifth grade biology class: that they were mammals who had once lived on land." But seeing and touching the whales and their newborn calves was an utterly transforming experience for Horwitz and his daughter.
"Every winter, the gray whales return to this lagoon to give birth to their calves, suckle them, and head out for their months-long journey to the Bering Sea, where they have their winter feeding grounds," Horwitz says in this short video.
"We went out on these tiny boats, and there's a remarkable phenomenon in this whale lagoon where the mother whales and their calves actually approach you in these boats, to the point where you can actually reach out and touch them and run your hands through the baleen in their mouth."
"The experience of that kind of contact with wild whales is just indescribable," Horwitz says. "And once you've had that experience, it changes the way you think about these animals. Having that experience and looking at my 13-year-old daughter's response to these animals, particularly in the presence of a mother and a calf, I just felt that I had to do something, and as a writer I decided to try to tell the story of this generation of whales and what they've struggled with for survival."
Horwitz says he hopes what readers will take away from War of the Whales is an understanding of the importance of tenacity in social change. "The book is really a story about two individuals who stood up to the most powerful navy in the world. I think that they are real role models for anyone, particularly young people, who really want to fight for change."
Above, environmental attorney Joel Reynolds and whale researcher Ken Balcomb, the book's two main protagonists. Below, Horwitz and Balcomb at Balcomb's research station on San Juan Island, Washington.
The Planet talked with Horwitz last week about his newfound fascination with "nature's experiment in gigantism" and War of the Whales.
Planet: This book took you seven years to research and write. Were you starting from scratch learning about whales, or have they long interested you? I remember hearing the rallying cry, "Save the Whales," when I was a college student in the 1970s.
Horwitz: Looking back, it's honestly appalling to me how little I knew at the outset about whales, the ocean, the U.S. Navy, and environmental law. What I knew about whales was essentially what I'd learned in Mr. Biggs's fifth grade biology class: that they were mammals who had once lived on land. The idea that they were nature's experiment in gigantism, and that they reverse migrated into the ocean was intriguing. But beyond that, they were pretty much a blank slate for me -- which surprisingly is the case for many people who have never seen them in the wild. It wasn't until I visited a gray whale lagoon in Baja seven years ago that I lit up inside around whales, which is another through theme of my book: even "objective" scientists couldn't study these animals for long without being touched in a deep place.
Of course, the Save the Whales movement was on my screen when I was in college in the 1970s -- I remember that ABC's Wide World of Sports actually featured Greenpeace's high-seas chase after whaling ships as part of their Saturday afternoon offering! But living on the East Coast at the time, mostly in New York City, it was in the background, rather than the foreground. The character from my book who made the biggest impression on my youth was John Lilly, the NIH neuroscientists who became a leading navy-funded dolphin research, before liberating this research subjects in the late '60s and helping to instigate the Save the Whales movement. By the time I was reading Lilly's books in the '70s, he had moved on from dolphins to isolation tanks and psychedelic meditations on the human brain as bio-computer. My sophomore year in college, my inner circle was reading Lilly's The Center of the Cyclone: An Autobiography of Inner Space.
Planet: What prompted you to devote half a dozen years to telling this particular story?
Horwitz: I had no idea this was going to turn into such a long-term research and writing project. Like any other author, I'm cautious about diving into a book, because I know how hard it is to bring any subject alive on the page, and to get it "right" in some meaningful way. The first I'd heard about the story was a newspaper article about an environmental lawyer suing the Navy over sonar's impact on whales. The headline: "Navy v. Whales" read like a divorce proceeding -- which in fact it was in many ways. What first intrigued me about the story, once I dug into the history, was that the Navy had fallen under the spell of whales and dolphins way back in the late '50s and early '60s, when they first discovered that they echolocated in water in much the way that bats did in air -- with sound. At the time, the only people who cared about "saving the whales" were whalers, who were frantically trying to figure out how to revive the whale stocks that had crashed in the 1940s after decades of over-fishing. In the 1960s, the Navy single-handedly gave birth to the scientific discipline of marine mammal science and cetology. They launched an intensive investigation into whale biosonar, communication and even hydrodynamics that they applied to their own search after Soviet submarines during the Cold War. The Navy continues to be far and away the largest funder or whale research in the world. One of the dramatic pivot points in the book is the conflict of conscience in the scientific community -- they had to decide whether to bear witness, in their published research and in court, to the sometime lethal impact of navy sonar or to heed their natural fear of biting the hand that fed their research careers: the Office of Navy Research.
Planet: Were you aware of the mass stranding of beaked whales in the Bahamas when it occurred in March 2000, or did it come to your attention later on?
Horwitz: That stranding, which was the first well-documented case of navy sonar driving whales onto beaches, didn't register with me at the time, though it was also the first mass stranding that was reported in the mainstream press at the time. The first time I heard and read anything about it was in 2003, when NRDC first sued the Navy over Low Frequency Active (LFA) sonar.
Planet: In the book, the U.S. Navy faces off against whale researchers, environmental attorneys, and environmental activists, yet you write about the key players on both sides with what seems like great respect. Are there good guys and bad guys in this story?
Horwitz: While there are clearly some heroes in this story -- particularly the environmental attorney and the field biologist who witnessed the Bahamas stranding and became a reluctant whistleblower -- I don't find any villains. This is a story about the clash of two mission-driven cultures who both cared deeply about the oceans and whales, but for opposing reasons. I knew next to nothing about the Navy and its culture before I reported this book. I came away with a deep respect for the Navy characters I came to know -- particularly the retired Admirals who gave me a lot of access and insight into what was driving their decisions at the time. These officers make incredible sacrifices, even if they're serving during peacetime. Once main character in my book moved his family 22 times over the course of his 35-year naval career -- and this is typical of a navy officer's life. And he was so poorly paid that he struggled to send his kids to college.
In fact, the antagonists in this story had more traits in common than not: they were all highly committed and intelligent; none of them had chosen their career paths -- or this fight -- for either money or power. They were true believers, but their particular belief structures were sometimes in direct opposition: conservation vs. homeland security -- and the scientists were caught in the middle.
Planet: It's ironic that the whale researcher who became "the reluctant whistle-blower" had spent eight years as a naval officer. So a subplot of War of the Whales is an internal face-off taking place within one individual, is it not?
Horwitz: Ken Balcomb is the pivotal character in the book, and to me the most intriguing. Even though he'd spent most of his life "in service" -- first in the US Navy and later as field researcher trying to conserve endangered species of whales -- he's shied away from public controversies. Until the day he found himself at ground zero of the biggest multi-species mass stranding of whale ever recorded. Once he documented the event -- first by videotaping the incident and then by collecting and preserving forensic evidence from the whales themselves (that would be by cutting off their heads and dragging them into a large freezer) -- he was drawn into an agonizing contest of loyalties: between the oath of secrecy he'd taken to the Navy during his years of classified sonar work, and his commitment to the whales he'd been studying for a decade in the Bahamas and the Pacific Northwest. For all his tenacious commitment to a twenty-year lawsuit against the Navy, the environmental attorney (Joel Reynolds) had less at stake personally when they both decided to take on the world's most powerful Navy.
Planet: How much time did you spend "in the field" researching whale behavior and naval surveillance practices in the process of writing War of the Whales?
Horwitz: The research was fascinating and bottomless, taking me from international science conferences in locales like Cape Town, South Africa to field stations in Hawaii, the San Juan Islands in the Pacific Northwest, Baja, and the Bahamas. I visited Navy dolphin trainers in San Diego, marine mammal researchers at Scripps in La Jolla, in Santa Cruz, in Woods Hole, and even in College Station, Texas. I eventually gained entrance to high-security Navy facilities, such as the Navy Research Lab in Washington, D.C., and the Navy Academy in Annapolis -- which has been pretty much in lock-down since 9/11. And part of any author's "field research" is the libraries and archives where many of the really juicy bits are buried.
Planet: Without giving away the ending of the book, what do you think has changed between March 2000 and today in terms of protecting whales from the types of sonic assaults that drove them ashore that week in the Bahamas?
Horwitz: One of the themes that emerges from the character and events in my book is that the fight for conservation -- whether to protect an endangered species or threatened environment, never really ends. Any victory simply earns you the right to fight another day. The legal battle over Navy sonar continues today, with several active cases brought recently by NRDC and Earthjustice, with multiple co-plaintiffs, to block sonar training exercises in its California and Hawaii ranges. Over the past two decades there have been shifts in momentum between the contestants in terms of the outcomes in court. And of course, there is an ongoing, parallel battle being contested in the court of public opinion.
But if you step back and look at the net change in the way the Navy now operates, at least in U.S. waters, the changes have been are profound. As recently as the late '90s, the Navy operated with no accountability to the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act, or any other of the major conservation laws first passed in the early '70s. Particularly during the Cold War, all its high-intensity sound experiments and sonar exercises were conducted in secret, with no transparency, no environmental assessments, no safeguards.
Today, after a series of courtroom losses, the Navy has committed to conducting comprehensive Environmental Impact Statements for sonar trainings on all its U.S. coastal ranges. There is still a lot of debate, much in public forums and in legal proceedings, over risk mitigation having to do with geographic and seasonal exclusions. But compared to how the Navy operated twenty years ago, it's night and day.
Unfortunately, the same can't be said about the Navy sonar training on international ranges, where they still don't conduct rigorous environmental assessments, and where strandings are still occurring. Just this past April, five beaked whales stranded on the coast of Crete during joint sonar excercises involving the U.S., Greek and Israeli navies. This was the fourth recorded stranding event during naval exercises in those same waters, so they should have known better than to be operating there. In the end, it comes down to a vigilant public holding the Navy accountable, both domestically and internationally.
Planet: What do you hope the telling of this story will accomplish?
Horwitz: For me, this story is only partly about naval sonar and whales. At heart it addresses the question of what makes an effective change agent? My two protagonists -- the environmental attorney and the marine biologist-- are in many ways polar opposites. The lawyer is an institutional player who works inside the system in collaboration with other organizations and activists, with scientists and celebrities; whatever will get the job done. The whale scientist is a true maverick who's never had any institutional affiliation, and who's not very good a working collaboratively. One's an extrovert, and the other's an introvert who seems to enjoy the company of whales over humans.
But they share several important traits that make them highly effective when it comes to forcing change. They're both tenacious and totally committed to the fighting the fight for as long as it takes -- often at a cost to their personal lives. They don't allow cynicism to erode their fundamental idealism or sense of purpose -- which is a big challenge in a field like environmental law where you're typically outgunned by deep-pocketed adversaries or facing judicial panels who defer to the military, especially during wartime. Tenacity, it turns out, is as important as intelligence or tactical decisions when it comes to fights over threatened species and environments. By the end of the book, their antagonists at the Navy, at the regulatory agencies, and on Capitol Hill have long ago cycled out of service and into other careers. But Balcomb and Reynolds are still at it, still fighting for the whales.
Planet: Do you think "acoustic ecology," as some have termed it, should get more attention within the environmental movement?
Horwitz: Ocean noise pollution is a huge threat to all forms of marine life. But because it's invisible and occurs under water, it's a difficult problem to educate people about or focus people's attention. Noise from international shipping and oil gas exploration, even more than military sonar, has made the oceans increasingly noisy environments. And the science emerging in recent years has begun to quantify the costs to marine mammals and other marine life, including fish and even coral. Marine mammals are fundamentally acoustic animals, so ocean noise is can make it difficult for them to communicate, to find mates, to forage for food, and to avoid predators. And it's putting alarming reproductive pressure on some endangered species.
Last week I attended an ocean conservation summit in Washington D.C., and it was notable that ocean noise wasn't high on other participants' agenda. Partially, it's due to people's understandable focus on climate change and its impact on the oceans, primarily acidification. But it's also economic. The oil and gas and shipping industries have very powerful lobbies and very well-funded legal war chests, so trying to regulate their noise pollution seems daunting. And because noise pollution is an unseen -- and by humans largely unheard -- problem, it's difficult to mobilize the public. I hope my book will go a ways to increasing public consciousness of the issue, as well as activism.
Planet: Kids are drawn to whales -- at least I sure was. Do you think this is a story that will resonate with children as well as adults?
Horwitz: I have three teenaged daughters, so I can affirm that whales have a lot of sex appeal for young people. I'm also pleased to see that environmental science has ascended to parity with chemistry and biology in many high school science curricula. While my book is pitched at adult readers, it's absolutely a good summer read for any high school student who's interested in the oceans or marine life. Amazon has short-listed War of the Whales as one of its 'best summer reads," which is about as crossover an endorsement as I could hope for.
Planet: Have you been approached yet about selling the movie rights to War of the Whales?
Horwitz: Yes. But we're still waiting for Leo.
Planet: Do you think whales are as intelligent or more intelligent than we are?
Horwitz: That's ultimately a contextual question. Whales are the Einsteins of the oceans, of marine communication and navigation. They have evolved highly complex acoustic cultures which they transmit generationally and which we can't begin to comprehend. They've adapted to and dominated every ocean environment on the planet, and despite the ceaseless slaughter of industrial whaling, many of them have endured. So we can probably learn a lot from the whales about adaptation as we face our own struggle to survive on a planet we've pretty much pushed to the limit.
When it comes to assessing human intelligence, it's hard to know whether to be persuaded by the incredible innovations of technology, or the short-sighted self-interest we see everywhere in evidence, particularly in our mismanagement of the environment and our proclivity for war. If I had to cite one reason that humans have prevailed, for now, in our chronic wars against the whales, I'd point not to our brains, but to our opposable thumbs. If whales had evolved thumbs instead of flukes, who do you think would be running the planet right now? And I suspect they'd be doing a better job of it.
Want to have an amazing bicycle adventure and support the Sierra Club's work at the same time? Then Climate Ride may be just the event you've been looking for.
According to Climate Ride's website: "Climate ride is about cycling, green energy, combating climate change, promoting sustainability, meeting inspirational people doing great work in all these realms, and making lifelong friends. It's also about riding 300 miles through some of the country's most beautiful and historic regions."
The reward for this commitment is the experience of a lifetime through some of America's most beautiful landscapes. Participants meet and network with leaders in sustainability, renewable energy, and environmental causes while raising awareness about the Sierra Club's cause.
A 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, Climate Ride is the nation's largest cycling event dedicated to active transportation, sustainability, and environmental causes. The national Sierra Club is a beneficiary of this year's Climate Ride, and now is the time to register for the remaining 2014 events.
This September, Sierra Club volunteers and staff will be participating in Climate Rides in the Midwest and Northeast. (The first Climate Ride of 2014, a 250-mile ride through California wine country from San Francisco to Sacramento, took place in late May, and a 50-mile Climate Hike in Glacier National Park in August is already full.)
But there are still a few spots left in the 300-mile Midwest Ride from Grand Rapids, Michigan, to Chicago on September 6-9, and the 300-mile bike ride from NYC-DC Ride from New York City to Washington on September 20-24 if you register now.
By participating in one of these rides, you can make a difference by raising awareness about the causes you hold dear and raising funds for the Sierra Club. "The Sierra Club is excited to be partnering with Climate Ride in our fundraising efforts, and in raising awareness about climate disruption and sustainable transportation," says Jesse Simons, the Club's chief of staff who plans to participate in the NYC-DC Climate Ride. That's Simons below with daughter Eloise on California's Big Sur coast.
The start of the New York-to-DC ride is being timed to coincide with the People's Climate March on September 21 in New York City, as international delegates arrive for the September 23 U.N. Climate Summit. The People's Climate March, co-sponsored by the Sierra Club, is shaping up to be the largest-ever demonstration for climate action.
"We are excited to have the national Sierra Club join Climate Ride as a beneficiary in 2014," says Michelle Levitus, beneficiary coordinator for Climate Ride. "In the past, riders have been able to raise funds for the California and Florida chapters. This year we've added the national Sierra Club and the Club's Washington, D.C., Chapter to our exceptional list of organizations that riders can select to support while participating in any Climate Ride event."
Here are more details on the Midwest and NYC-DC Climate Rides:
Climate Ride Midwest: The Midwest ride spans three states and connects two vibrant cities, while exploring some of the best biking in the country. From the trip start in Grand Rapids, Michigan, we ride past historic lighthouses, blueberry farms, and quaint artist villages. We'll also visit Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore before pedaling on paved rail-trails to a bicycle path on Lake Michigan that affords stunning views of Chicago's dramatic skyline. The last 6-mile stretch leads up to Grant Park -- known as "Chicago's Front Yard" -- for the ride finale.
Climate Ride NYC-DC: The ride begins in the heart of New York City to the tip of Manhattan where a ferry that will carry us off the island and across New York Harbor to New Jersey. From there we travel along country roads passing through Princeton, near Valley Forge, into Pennsylvania Amish Country, crossing the Susquehanna River into Maryland Horse Country. After a day of pedaling past farms and silos, we reach Maryland horse country. On the fifth day, riders cycle past the iconic Washington Monument to arrive at the U.S. Capitol. A highlight of the ride is that Climate Ride arranges appointments for every rider to personally meet with her/his Congressional representative. It makes a big impression to pedal 300 miles to meet your Member of Congress.
All photos courtesy of Climate Ride.
On June 7-8, Sierra Club volunteers and staff participated in a weekend of Puerto Rican pride in New York City. On Saturday, the 116th Street Festival in East Harlem, below, kicked off the weekend's festivities with a celebration of Puerto Rican culture attended by hundreds of thousands. That's Puerto Rico Sierra Club volunteer leader Ester Perez, talking to local residents about recycling.
The following day, more than 80,000 people marched up Fifth Avenue from 44th St. to 86th St. in the annual National Puerto Rican Day parade, below. First held in 1958, the parade now attracts nearly two million spectators, making it not only one of the largest parades in New York, but one of the largest outdoor events in the U.S.
This year, 50 volunteers from the Sierra Club's Puerto Rico Chapter teamed up with local volunteers from GrowNYC to recover 350 pounds of recycling material along the parade route before, during, and after the event. Activists with the global civic organization Avaaz marched alongside the recycling brigade, handing out literature encouraging people to get involved in decision-making on climate disruption, environmental justice, poverty, and a range of other issues.
Sierra Club volunteers collected more than 100 bags of glass, metal, and plastic, which were then separated for recycling. Once volunteers' bags were full, they weighed the bags prior to placing them curbside for collection by DSNY (the New York City Department of Sanitation).
"Two leaders from our 'sustainability team' carried hand-held scales and noted the weight of each bag as it was filled, and parade staff passed out gloves and hand sanitizer, helped volunteers weigh the full bags, and provided them with new empty ones," says Puerto Rico-based Sierra Club staffer Adriana Gonzalez, at left, the Club's lead orgnizer for the weekend's events.
Sustainability team volunteers worked from 10:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. the day of the parade, with a 45-minute check-in, breakfast, and a training session before walking to the parade entrance.
"Spectators and fellow marchers were very happy to see recycling so prominent in this year's parade," Gonzalez says. "The volunteers were well-trained, they interacted a lot with the spectators, and their efforts left people with an impression of a clean, well-planned event. I heard many people thanking our volunteers."
Above and below, sustainability team volunteers and spectators along the parade route.
The 116th Street Festival, below, held every year on the Saturday before the National Puerto Rican Day parade, is the largest Latin street festival in New York City. It began nearly 30 years ago as a one-block party, and has now grown into a 20-block celebration that stretches along 116th St. from Lexington to Second Ave., and along Third Avenue from 106th to 121st Streets.
This year's festival featured music, food, stand-up comedy, arts & crafts made by Puerto Rican artisans, a bicycle stunt show, and information booths like the one set up jointly by members of the Puerto Rico Sierra Club and GrowNYC.
"As part of the Sierra Club's Zero Waste Campaign in Puerto Rico, we partnered with GrowNYC to incorporate recycling efforts into Puerto Rico-related cultural events in New York City," says Gonzalez. "The goal this year was to bring our efforts to the Puerto Rican community in New York and gather recycling material in Sunday's big parade."
"At the 116th St. Festival we were able to educate hundreds of people about New York's recycling rules & regulations and the Sierra Club's work in Puerto Rico, and we also recruited volunteers to help in the parade recycling effort," Gonzalez says. "This year's Puerto Rican Day festivities in New York were red, white, and blue, and green all over!"
How far would you go to promote clean energy? For Matt Kearns of Long Island, the answer is 100 miles.
This past Saturday, June 14, Sierra Club member Matt Kearns took off from Montauk, at the far eastern tip of Long Island, and ran 90 miles to the Long Beach Boardwalk, just outside New York City, to draw attention to Long Island's potential to develop clean, renewable, offshore wind power off the coasts of Montauk and Long Beach. Building offshore wind capacity would create jobs, drive millions of dollars in investments to Long Island and position New York as a national leader with one of America's first offshore wind projects.
A resident of North Babylon who works for Green Homes, Kearns grew up in East Setauket on Long Island's north shore, where he was initially inspired to tackle environmental problems after a dangerous gas pipeline leak that contaminated the water under the town. More recently, his sense of urgency was bolstered by witnessing the destruction wrought by Superstorm Sandy, which inspired him to take action to find solutions to the climate crisis.
Kearns started working as a home energy efficiency contractor where he spent time everyday talking to Long Islanders about energy issues in their homes. At the same time, he joined the Sierra Club, where he got involved in efforts calling on Long Island Power Authority (LIPA), the local utility, to invest in offshore wind power. This year, PSEG-Long Island (Public Service Electricity and Gas) along with LIPA's trustees could decide to invest in an offshore wind project proposed 30 miles off the coast of Montauk that would produce enough renewable electricity to power 120,000 Long Island homes.
As an avid runner, Kearns thought there was more he could do, so he came up with the Wind 100 as a way to connect two points on Long Island with offshore wind potential and areas hit hard by Superstorm Sandy.
"Long Islanders know the dangers posed by climate disruption and we want to be part of the solution," he says. "We're particularly vulnerable to stronger storms and rising seas, but this unique geography also gives us access to one of the most reliable renewable energy sources in the world just off our shores. "We can be a national leader, but we need Governor Cuomo, our LIPA trustees and PSEG-Long Island to help get us there by committing to build offshore wind in New York."
At the end of his long run, Kearns was greeted by a cheering crowd of over 1,000 people at the Sierra Club's Wind 100 rally and concert.
Please support Kearns's efforts by signing this petition telling Governor Cuomo to make offshore wind a reality.
Bart Carlson is a longtime Sierra Club Outings leader with a pretty special reason why he loves leading outings so much: Because he frequently gets to do it with one or both of his sons, Zach and Bart Jr.
Bart has led rafting trips, weekend trips, and multi-day expeditions for the Sierra Club, and as a nature lover, it just made sense to teach his kids to love being outside, too.
"It's where life-long memories are made," Bart says. "What a great legacy to leave - having my children loving others and the outdoors as much as I do."
Bart's son Zach agrees about the memories. "When my brother Bart Jr. and I were young, we were so blessed to have our father slap life jackets on us and throw us into big blue boats on the river," says the 17-year-old. "To the two of us this meant a day of massive waves and fun in the water."
Over the years, Zach says his dad slowly let the two boys take on more and more responsibility, and it wasn't long before they earned their own place as Sierra Club Outings whitewater rafting guides. "I am a very blessed man and father to have such an opportunity," says Bart.
One of Bart's favorite memories of leading an outing with his sons is a recent trip on California's East Fork Carson River. They were leading a group of eight teenage boys from a center for troubled youth.
"The beauty was beyond our expectations - back-side Sierra views, hot springs, desert plateaus, and an amazing group of kids and Sierra Club Inner City Outings guides," says Bart.
Sierra Club Outings' Mel MacInnis describes it as such: "The last night of the trip, one of the group chaperones shared a great gift with Bart. Most of these boys did not know their fathers or had bad experiences with theirs. Moreover, most of the counselors at Hanna Boys Center are women, so it is rare for them to interact, play and engage with a positive 'father figure.' Bart and his son were total hits with the Hanna Boys, who got to see a positive father/son relationship, while they got some positive male attention too."
For Zach, the whitewater training and trips with his dad have been so much more than learning to be safe on the water.
"He has been guiding us through rapids ever since we were young, and more symbolically he has been guiding us through life to become young men," Zach says. "So when the question is asked, 'what's it like to serve and lead on outings with my father,' the only response I have is that it's an honor to lead beside the man whom I learned everything from."
Bart hopes to keep leading outings with his sons for many years to come. "As a father, I could not ask for a better opportunity to model to my children the impact of serving others and caring for our environment. I am a very blessed man and father to have such an opportunity."
Happy Father's Day, Bart!
Honoree Kathleen Ridihalgh brings "art, science, heart and grit" to inclusive energy coalition work
In its 33-year history, the NW Energy Coalition has honored dozens of groups and individuals for their efforts in advancing clean and affordable energy policy across the region. But it has never honored someone specifically for their on-the-ground success in mobilizing grassroots support for those policy efforts.
That glaring omission was rectified on Thursday, June 12. As part of the Coalition's 2nd annual 4 Under Forty celebration, the inaugural Doug Still Community Organizing Award was given to Kathleen Casey Ridihalgh, senior organizing manager for the Sierra Club.
"Kathleen Ridihalgh sets the standard for organizing in the public interest," said NW Energy Coalition executive director Sara Patton. "She represents everything that award namesake Doug Still stood for, and her years of success bear that out."
Over the past 15 years, Ridihalgh has overseen outreach efforts on many of the Northwest's most important energy, environmental and political issues, from climate change and coal exports, to clean power and transportation, to environmental and economic justice. Her accomplishments include building significant grassroots support for campaigns that have:
Through it all, Ridihalgh pushes for inclusion of all those touched by the campaigns, from electric ratepayers and taxpayers to coal-plant workers and local communities.
"Organizing is equal parts art, science, heart and grit," Ridihalgh explained. "The most rewarding times of my career have been helping folks to find their voice and realize they can make a difference against all odds. I have played just a very small part of the huge struggle for equality and justice, but all our small parts add up to great things."
She joined the Sierra Club in 1999, just in time to lead public education events around the game-changing WTO meeting in Seattle. After stepping in as the Club's acting regional director, she assumed her current position in 2006, just as the Club was joining with the Coalition and other allies to lead passage of Washington state's clean energy law, Initiative 937.
Since then, Ridihalgh commended the Coalition for creating the Doug Still Organizing Award and said she was honored to be its first recipient.
-- Meg Matthews, Sierra Club
More than 100 people turned out at an event in Jersey City, NJ, Tuesday night to support the Environmental Protection Agency's proposed carbon pollution safeguards.
The gathering at New Jersey City University featured a screening of the popular Showtime documentary "Years of Living Dangerously" and remarks from Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop.
"Jersey City residents turned out in big numbers to hear Mayor Fulop talk about his support for climate action and to show their support for the carbon standard," said Christine Guhl, a Beyond Coal organizer in New Jersey. "This really highlighted the strong support New Jersey residents and students have for cutting carbon pollution."
Last week, the EPA announced the first-ever limits on carbon pollution from existing power plants. The new standard, which is the key component of President Obama's Climate Action Plan, will start cleaning up dangerous air pollution from power plants, the industry that creates the lion's share of carbon pollution in the United States. Carbon pollution is the leading cause of climate disruption, contributing to extreme heat, flooding and superstorms in New Jersey and throughout the nation.
Guhl said the carbon standards are of particular concern to Jersey City residents because the area was hard hit by Superstorm Sandy, is especially vulnerable to storm surges and flooding due to climate disruption, and is home to one of the state's last coal plants.
"We know first-hand in Jersey City the effects that climate disruption has had on our community and we commend President Obama and the EPA for this important proposal," said Mayor Fulop, pictured above with local activists. "Policies that require these industries to reduce carbon pollution will not only benefit the health and well-being of our residents, they will have lasting impact for generations to come."
A great team of volunteers helped make Tuesday's event such a success, and Guhl highlighted the very hard work of local volunteer leader Christine Wiltanger. "She tirelessly tabled and petitioned and recruited and led other volunteers to do the same. She is champ and we are so lucky to have her on our team."
Guhl says the Jersey City residents and people from around the state are calling on Governor Chris Christie to support EPA's carbon standards. "Last night's attendees have been calling the Governor's office all day to tell him to take action on climate change for New Jersey."
The new safeguards will not only protect health and communities nationwide, but also spur innovation and strengthen the economy. Guhl says they will continue to call on officials to take action on climate and invest in clean energy because it will create tens of thousands of local jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in new investment in New Jersey.
By Javier Sierra
Very close to the city of Delano, CA, where Cesar Chavez conducted a great deal of his work for justice, it reeks of injustice.
In Wasco —in the San Joaquin Valley where tens of thousands of farm workers toil— a local ordinance has approved the expansion of a railroad coal depot right next to an overwhelmingly Latino barrio.
Every year, the terminal would receive 1.5 million tons of coal to run a proposed coal-powered plant known as Hydrogen Energy California (HECA) in the neighboring Kern County. The terminal would further poison what already is the country's worst air quality. The proposed terminal lies right next to a barrio housing some 220 Latino farm-working families who were never notified of the project.
"Industries take advantage of the most vulnerable, of those who can't fight back," says Ana Martinez, an organizer of Green Action for Health and Environmental Justice, who works to mobilize the community against the expansion. "We already have the worst air in the country. And the air in the barrios is worse than the air in the white neighborhoods."
During the Wasco project hearings, there were no Spanish-language announcements, and therefore no Latino residents attended the proceedings.
"This was done in typical fashion to keep the victims unaware of what was going on. This exclusion is racism," she denounces.
The project would exponentially increase the diesel pollution from trains and the relentless truck traffic hauling the coal from the Wasco terminal to the plant. Even without the expansion in place, the already existing smog and potentially deadly particulate matter pollution is costing over $2 billion in health costs to the residents of Kern County.
Also, the coal would arrive from New Mexico in open railroad cars. This would translate in the loss of some 500 pounds of coal dust per trip and car, a dust loaded with mercury, arsenic, chromium and other heavy metals that would end up in lungs and crops.
"Not even the farm owners support this project because they fear the coal dust would ruin their crops," says Martinez. "This agreement between farm owners and workers is very unusual."
A comparative study of the air quality in the southern part of the San Joaquin Valley, where Wasco lies, and China, the country with the worst air quality on the planet, illustrates the severity of the pollution problem.
In a three-week period during December and January, the air in the valley was worse than that in China 2/3 of the days, and never, in those three weeks, did the Valley's air quality reach the safe levels recommended by the World Health Organization.
The Wasco City Council, however, approved the expansion in March without having conducted any health or environmental impact assessments. A month later, the Sierra Club filed a lawsuit against the City Council to stop the expansion.
"Enough is enough!" says Martinez. "Injustice happens in communities of low income and communities of color. These industries need to put people's health first and then profits."
Cesar Chavez dedicated his life to fight injustice, to protect the most vulnerable. Ana Martinez is following his steps and has committed herself to clean this air of injustice.
Javier Sierra is a Sierra Club columnist. Follow him on Twitter @javier_SC
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subset: commoncrawl


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His first book, Beyond Winning: Smart Parenting in a Toxic Sports Environment (Lyons Press), comes out this fall. Co-authored with Kim John Payne (Simplicity Parenting) and Scott B. Lancaster (former National Football League youth sports director and author of Athletic Fitness for Kids and Fair Play), it is a candid, practical guide to help parents navigate the fanatical, results-obsessed world of youth sports.
His second book, on bullying, in collaboration with Kim John Payne, is due in 2014, and a third, a trilogy collection of non-fictional short stories (Stories From the Heart of Parenting) composed by parents from across America, is also currently in development.
Llosa began his journalism career at FORTUNE MAGAZINE in 1995. After moving to MONEY MAGAZINE in 1996–and working there for three years–he joined SPORTS ILLUSTRATED as a general reporter. For the next twelve years he wrote, edited and investigated for the magazine. His first investigation, in 2001, exposed Little Leaguer Danny Almonte's age fraud, ranked among the top ten sports scandals of the past century. In 2004, Llosa reported from Mexico and the Dominican Republic for "Totally Juiced," Sports Illustrated's National Magazine Award finalist in the reporting category.
Llosa has made more than 500 national and local television and radio appearances, including spots on CBS Evening News, CBS Early Show, CNN, CNN American Morning, CNN en Español, FOX, FOX News, FOX & Friends, Greta Van Susteren, Nancy Grace, Univision, and CNBC, to discuss steroid investigations and other sports-related issues. He's been interviewed on NPR, ESPN Radio, The Jim Rome Show, and was a frequent guest host on Scott Lancaster's SiriusXM Radio youth sports show, The ABCs of Sports.
He has been on panels, discussing steroids and journalism, at the Investigative Reporters & Editors and National Association of Hispanic Journalists conventions and addressed groups like the Association for Applied Sports Psychology Anti-Doping Congress. He has also spoken to dozens of high school student groups about steroids, writing and journalism.
Llosa is an award winning international sports profile specialist, who introduced America to dozens of top-flight Hispanic athletes with the first detailed profiles of their lives and Hispanic backgrounds. Among them were golf superstars Lorena Ochoa, Camilo Villegas and Andres Romero, and world champion boxers Antonio Margarito, Edwin Valero and Felix Trinidad. He co-authored the 2007 Golf Writers Association of America Feature of the Year on U.S. Open winner Angel Cabrera, and reported behind the scenes on the 2009 GWAA News Feature of the Year detailing Cabrera's post Masters victory celebrations. He also co-wrote the 2011 GWAA Feature of the Year finalist on Venezuelan golfer Jhonattan Vegas.
In 2006 he conceived and co-wrote "The Mexican Connection" which exposed the largest steroid pipeline in history and detailed the DEA probe of the illegal importation of 80% of the steroids into the U.S. Over the next three years he reported on steroid use in sports, exposing athletes who received steroids and/or HGH, among them MLB stars Gary Matthews, Jr., David Bell, Troy Glaus and Jay Gibbons, boxer Evander Holyfield, 15 World Wrestling Entertainment stars, and two 2008 Jamaican Olympic track stars.
Llosa was the most sourced journalist in the Mitchell Report on Steroids in Major League Baseball. He broke stories on boxer Shane Mosley's use of EPO and testosterone and the federal indictment of New York Mets clubhouse employee Kirk Rodomski. In 2008 he co-wrote "Sins of a Father" an SI exclusive about a 13-year-old in-line skater injected with HGH and testosterone by his father, who became the first parent ever convicted and jailed for providing his child with steroids. That story was sent to every member of the U.S. Congress during the Roger Clemens hearings and referenced in those proceedings.
Youth sports has been a primary passion for Llosa, who has coached soccer for eighteen years. He just recently co-founded Whole Child Sports, an organization which aims to help create a healthier youth sports experience for kids across America.
He lives with his wife and five children in New York City.


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Valentine's Day in our home has a long history of being,
honestly, just bad.
Let's just say expectations don't ever live up.
I grew up with a mom and gramma who would make amazing
Valentine's dinners with pink tablecloths, balloons, candy, you
name it.
It was magical.
I still remember it and wish I could go back.
So, I tried to recreate it every year for my children.
Then Feb. 14 had a few rough years.
Think newborn baby, double ear infections, stomach flu, husband
lost his job and snow storm of epic proportions.
All of a sudden, we as a family started to dread Feb. 14.
Any time anyone around us would bring up that date, in hushed
tones we would mumble . . .
Last February, I was a part of a blogging project that required
me to write a post every single day.
And honestly?
It was therapeutic.
It got me through the shortest but most painful month of the
year, in my head.
And it forced me to appreciate Valentine's Day once again.
I even made a special heart-shaped pasta dinner for the
I bought a box of candy!
And I made the cutest Valentine love project for my girls.
I can't take the credit, I found it on Pinterest but of course,
the pin led to nowhere.
Just know that I am not at all creative enough to come up with
this all by myself.
This is all you do:
Last year the hubs and I did this the night before Valentine's
Day while they were sleeping.
It was SO much fun.
Secretly and quietly taping these hearts to their doors!
But this year I decided to do it at the beginning of
For many reasons but the main one is that they loved seeing
these last year so much that they kept them up until they started
ripping and falling off.
Think July.
Which makes me think that I should do this year round.
Because who doesn't like to hear how amazing they are.
Oh sure, I tell them how amazing they are, but not in this kind
of detail such as "I love to make brownies with you" or "I love
that you still want to hang out with me."
If I said any of those things to my teenager in person, she
would give me the "look."
Those with teenagers will know what I am talking about.
Though I know that secretly she loves it.
Which made me think some more . . . and that's a lot of thinking
for me . . .
Why can't we do this for the adults in our life?
I am not talking about sneaking into your loved ones' homes and
pasting construction paper hearts to their bedroom doors.
Because that would be creepy . . . and a little awesome all at
the same time.
I am talking about writing something you love about some random
friends on their Facebook wall.
Or sending a text to a loved one about how much you love their
homemade alfredo pasta.
Or writing an old-fashioned letter (remember those??) to your
Great Auntie who loves mail and tell her how much you loved going
to her house when you were little.
This Valentine's Day, how about you tape a heart to somebody's
And bring me brownies.
Kari Wagner is stay-at-home mom by day, superhero by night. She loves to write about her adventures in life, love and decorating.
See more of Kari's stories here.
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Resources for parents of children with special needs,delivered the second Tuesday each month.


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Using AirPrint application for your iPad 2 make it simple to print your email, photos, web pages and documents, without the need to download addition software or driver or event connect a single wire! AirPrint is 100% wireless which removes the need to psychically link your iPad to your printer or your home computer. How to use AirPrint will simply access your home wireless network and instantly connect to any compatible printers that are also linked to the network.
A few taps on your iPad 2, you take you from viewing your desired print source on the screen to printing a hard copy from your home printer. AirPrint will even select the correct paper source for you! For example should you find yourself printing photo's the app will select the gloss photo paper as your output, this is a truly impressive piece of software. The printing process itself is instant, simply click print and then return to using your iPad 2, while your home printer does all the work for you. You can even setup a print queue which will be automatically run in the background, printing multi-able jobs while you enjoy your iPad 2.
AirPrint can be accessed when using any of the following iPad 2 applications, from Safari, Mail, Photo, iWork, PDF's in iBook to any third-party apps with built-in printing options.
How To Use AirPrint – Enabled Printer Listings
Below you will find a list of the current generation printers from HP that are AirPrint enabled and will work seemlessly with your iPad 2 and the AirPrint.
- HP Envy eAll-in-One Series (D410a)
- HP Photosmart Plus e-AiO (B210a)
- HP Photosmart Premium e-AiO (C310a)
- HP Photosmart Premium Fax e-AiO (C410a)
- HP Photosmart e-AiO (B110)
- HP Photosmart eStation (C510)
- HP LaserJet Pro M1536dnf Multifunction Printer
- HP LaserJet Pro CM1415fn Colour Multifunction Printer
- HP Officejet 6500A e-AiO
- HP Officejet 6500A Plus e-AiO
- HP Officejet 7500A Wide Format e-AiO
- HP Officejet Pro 8500A e-AiO
- HP Officejet Pro 8500A Premium e-AiO
See more How To Use iPad 2
Originally posted 2011-10-14 10:33:59.


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Peugeot hit by record €5bn lossThu, 14 Feb 2013 4:10 AM
Embattled French auto giant PSA Peugeot Citroen announced on Wednesday a massive net loss of €5-billion ($6.7-billion) for 2012, the worst result in its history.
But France's number one carmaker said it had built the foundations for recovery after cleaning up its balance sheet and implementing a tough restructuring plan.
Peugeot blamed the results on a previously announced €4.7-billion asset writedown last year and the crisis in the European car market.
The loss compared with a profit of €588-million in 2011, while revenue for the year fell 5.2 percent to €-55.4-billion.
The results "reflect the deterioration of the automative industry environment in Europe," chief executive officer Philippe Varin said in a statement.
But he added: "The foundations for our rebound have been laid."
The results were worse than forecast by analysts and overshadowed the previous record loss of €1.2-billion in 2009.
Net debt stood at €3-billion, the company said.
On Monday, the European Commission authorised France temporarily to shore up Peugeot to the tune of a six-month €1.2-billion guarantee.
PSA Peugeot Citroen, which has a strategic tie-up with General Motors (GM) of the United States, is in the midst of a restructuring involving deep job cuts.


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Reviews for
Town Mouse and the Country Mouse
Horn Book Guide Reviews 2013 Spring
These two books from the 1970s appear in modest paper-over-board editions. Both texts are readable and child-friendly; in these picture book reissues, the story is given as much respect and attention as the art. [Review covers these titles: [cf2]Little Red Riding Hood[cf1] and [cf2]The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse[cf1].]


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This job posting is no longer available on Indeed.
Find similar jobs:Dental Receptionist jobs
- A New Dental Clinic jobs
Seeking a highly motivated, multi-taking candidate, on immediate basis to perform dental receptionist/ assistant/administrative duties for the new dental clinic scheduled to open in the first week of February, 2013. Having experience is an asset, but not a bar to the new applicants. Please submit your ONLY through the link http://www.westmore.ca/index.php/careers/job/10/dental-assistant-and-receptionist-m9v-1c3 or fax it at 416-748-5553.
Copy and Paste the Link in your browserhttp://www.westmore.ca/index.php/careers/job/10/dental-assistant-and-receptionist-m9v-1c3


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Things to see and do - Chantilly
Leaving for France
Nearby hotels
Auberge du Jeu de Paume from230 €Book
Campanile Hotel Chantilly from55 €Book
Best Western Hôtel Du Parc from88 €Book
Kyriad Chantilly :
Nearby tourist sites
Nearby Restaurants
Le Jardin d'Hiver
Cotation :
Type de cuisine : Traditional cuisine
La Table du Connétable
Cotation :
Type de cuisine : Modern cuisine
Le Verbois
Cotation :
Type de cuisine : Modern cuisine
Kyriad Chantilly
Kyriad Chantilly
Address : Rue des fougères RN16 F - 60500 Chantilly
from : 45 EURBook
Kyriad Chantilly is located just 6 km from Château de Chantilly and 3.5 km from Chantilly Golf Club. Parc Asterix is 30 km away and Chantily Gouvieux RER Station is 3.5 km from the hotel. Ranked among the best in value for the independent traveller, the hotel is part of a European network of friendly, family-style hotels and restaurants where you will receive a warm and sincere welcome. During your stay you can explore the world-famous Chantilly, a town of 12,000 inhabitants, set in the south of Picardy, proud of its history, inheritance and current dynamism.
Useful Information
- Address : Rue des fougères RN16 F - 60500 Chantilly60500Chantilly
Main services
- Disabled access
- Non-smoking rooms
- Animals allowed