Kercheval: Fossil fuels must be protected. Seriously?

If you’re still not sure the planet is warming and contributing to worsening wild fires, droughts, catastrophic storms, flooding, warming oceans, dying species, and more; or if you acknowledge climate change, but don’t believe we can or should do anything to try to slow or stop the warming, then it must be because you live in a bunker with 50 years of food stored up or are convinced the rapture is imminent and there’s no sense in messing with God’s will. I would pray for you to change, but I have to acknowledge that I don’t believe in the power of prayer to change other people, though it might help me have more empathy for your misguided beliefs.

Hoppy Kercheval writes many columns for the Charleston G-M, and I agree with some of them because he usually makes good arguments and utilizes facts and logic. For instance, on October 5 he wrote about the obesity problem in the US. WV has a 40% obesity rate and the highest incidence of diabetes of any state. His proposed solution focuses on individual choices and on SNAP (food stamps), suggesting that their use should exclude unhealthy, sugary drinks and foods. I can’t really disagree with that. But does he remember the vitriol aimed at Michelle Obama when she tried to get school cafeterias to serve healthier lunches? He weighed in on this issue on 11/26/2011 in the Daily Mail writing, “How did the American people wind up with faceless bureaucrats and elected officials in Washington setting school menus from Maine to Hawaii? Increasingly, what should be local decisions are being made by a supersized federal government that cannot even control its own spending.” I guess the faceless bureaucrats are okay as long as they make decisions you agree with.

This Sept 13, he wrote about economic development primarily in Green Energy in a piece entitled, “Is the Glass Half Full?” The essay quotes Mitch Carmichael, Cabinet Secretary for the WV Department of Economic Development, crowing about the pace of new industrial projects increasing dramatically in 2022. Hoppy opines, “These largely green energy projects, if they reach fruition, will be like rays of sunshine casting a promising light on communities.” “If” carries a heavy load in that sentence, as he does not mention that some of these projects seem designed to utilize as much fossil fuel as possible while proposing to capture the carbon—a dubious proposition. 

He also doesn’t mention that as a Republican delegate in the statehouse and later WV Senate President, Carmichael and his Republican counterparts continually passed legislation to promote fossil fuels and prevent growth in alternative energy until it was demanded by companies that refused to come to WV without access to green energy. He allows Carmichael to claim credit for the new industry in WV, when he should credit Joe Biden, Joe Manchin, and Democrats as well for writing and passing the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), containing incentives for green energy development, with no support from Republicans.

Hoppy contributed an egregious column on 9/27/2023 in this newspaper titled, “Fossil Fuels Must be Protected.” He focuses his ire on Michael Bloomberg’s “Beyond Carbon” initiative. He decries a billionaire contributing money to “bypass Congress, which determines energy policy for the country, and instead (let it) flow to local and state governments, as well as anti-fossil fuel organizations to…finish off the fossil fuel industry.” 

Let’s parse that. Yes, he proposes to bypass Congress, which has barely responded to the crisis for 50 years until Democrats passed the IRA. Most all Republicans and a few Democrats from coal, oil and natural gas producing states have been stopping any action on climate change for decades, and you can’t act on climate without stopping the burning of fossil fuels and the release of greenhouse gasses, primarily carbon dioxide and methane, into the atmosphere with current technology.

And since when don’t economically conservative Republicans like Kercheval celebrate moving decision making to the state and local level and taking power from what they reflexively, and in this case accurately call a “swamp” in Washington, awash with lobbyist money from the fossil fuel industry? Organizations like the Sierra Club work tirelessly to protect the planet from further harm, to solve the myriad problems caused by burning fossil fuels and to promote green energy solutions. His claim they are “anti-fossil fuel” is disingenuous because even Hoppy acknowledges that the transition is already taking place, but then he makes the “War on Coal” argument that efforts to speed the transition are an attack on fossil fuel workers and coal communities. 

It’s time to put that negative thinking behind us. Green energy creates and sustains far more jobs than fossil fuels and former coal communities will benefit from the green energy transition as communities are finally free of the devastating effects of poisoned water, polluted air, danger from sludge impoundments and more. WV needs to stop trying to hold back the transition to clean energy and start welcoming it.

Paul Epstein is a retired teacher and musician living in Charleston

 published by Charleston Gazetter-Mail, Tuesday, October 10, 2023

Big Oil's Right Wing Conspiracy to Stop Renewals Must End Now!

 When it rains, it pours—especially in West Virginia in the 21st century, which is increasingly being defined by the effects of global warming. Climate change plays a role in most everything.

“The Power of Big Oil”, PBS Frontline’s 3 part documentary describes what amounts to a 50 year long conspiracy by fossil fuel companies and right wing think tanks and lobbyists to sow doubt on climate science. Exxon’s scientists were fully aware that disaster loomed and warned industry leaders that the burning of fossil fuels had been impacting the climate since the advent of the industrial revolution. The tipping point has been or will soon be reach, and we are living in a world virtually on fire with melting icecaps, rising sea level, ever more damaging hurricanes, tornadoes, derechos, and the severe thunderstorms that have flooded many WV communities. 

Greenhouse gases, CO2 and methane from producing and burning fossil fuels: coal, oil, and gas are the culprits. But climate change also has impacts on human populations and the movement of people around the world.

Increasingly, immigration from developing countries to western nations is being used to stoke fears that the cultures of their majority white populations are threatened. People don’t just seek to enter the US and Europe for “a better way of life,” they are escaping droughts, fires, environmental damage and wars, causing them to flee for their lives and health of their children. It is often a choice of dying at home or dying trying to cross the desert at our southern border or the Mediterranean Sea in flimsy overcrowded boats.

Scientists warn that pathogens and their carriers will find their way from the tropics to places that were previously temperate. Remember the Zika virus carried by a tropical mosquito whose habitat continues moving farther north?

Many people find themselves reluctant to bring children into a world facing these major challenges (another reason why folks will fight to preserve their right to decide when and how to have children). 

Big oil and coal want to keep the world addicted to fossil fuels. They use their wealth to fund politicians who stop legislation that tries to accelerate the transition to cleaner energy and they advertise the message that any effort to slow the use of the dirty energy that is despoiling our planet will hurt our pocketbooks. But it’s not your pocketbook they’re worried about, it’s theirs. 

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is a human and environmental catastrophe. I don’t know if scientists have ever quantified the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere by the exploding missiles, bombs, and fires wars generate, but when you add the energy needed to rebuild whole cities, it has to be significant. 

This particular war may also have some positive effect, however, on efforts to reduce fossil fuel use. European countries have more than doubled efforts to replace Russian natural gas with renewables. America needs to be doing the same. New investments in fossil fuel infrastructure is a mistake. More oil and gas drilling and building new pipelines won’t add supply fast enough to help Ukraine or lower gas prices during this spike in inflation. Continuing to rely on dirty energy dooms our future; a livable future depends on clean energy. 

The real cost of fossil fuels is much higher than we pay at the pump. We pay with higher health care costs caused by pollution. We paying billions of tax dollars each year on “natural disasters” caused or made worse by a warming planet. Oil, coal, and gas producers should be paying those bills. America could lead the world to put a global price on carbon pollution. We could do it in away that protects poor and middle class Americans from the impacts of rising fossil fuel prices. Our West Virginia leadership should be advocating for these policies, not continuing to allow fossil fuel producers to pay few if any taxes and receive subsidies such as the WV Public Service Commission is allowing to keep coal burning power plants in operation.

Democrats (including Manchin) and several Republicans, passed President Biden’s infrastructure bill last year, which funds some of what’s needed to move our electric grid and transportation toward renewable energy. It’s time to pass the rest of the climate package that Senator Manchin stopped when came out against the Build Back Better package. We must work to leave our children and grandchildren a world in which when it rains, it doesn’t flood; when a forest fire starts, it doesn’t burn for months; where polar ice caps exist and our coasts are not inundated by storms and sea level rise; a world where people in developing nations can live a sustainable life and populations are not forced to become refugees of environmental disaster and war.

Guns Serious, Climate Emergency

Which is a greater threat to our health and safety—gun violence or climate change? President Obama suggests that everyone concerned about the stranglehold the NRA has over Congress should make the support of “common sense gun reform” a litmus test. In West Virginia, this would give us few choices on election day.

The NRA is at the heart of most politicians’ fears of supporting even the mildest restrictions, such as expanded background checks. But they have gotten a lot of help from the conspiracy theory President Obama referred to in a recent town hall meeting that the federal government has a secret plan to register, then confiscate all private firearms in preparation for implementing a totalitarian regime. 

Unfortunately, conspiracy theories and wholesale rejection of science that we used to be able to laugh off as ideas held by tiny slivers of the population are now cynically used by mainstream politicians to garner support from increasing numbers of misinformed, suspicious Americans. And the prime example of that is climate change, which I would suggest is a much more important litmus test for 2016.

Yes, guns in America kill and injure thousands, and reducing that number is an important goal, but failing to reduce the greenhouse gases (GHG) being added to the atmosphere every day has the potential of resulting in catastrophic impacts on a global scale. I should not have to list them: rising sea levels, increased droughts, disease, hyper-destructive weather events, extinctions, populations on the move, and more.

Most Republican politicians, and West Virginia politicians from both parties still either deny the planet is warming, deny that it is human caused, or claim that there is nothing we can do about it. They often say that China and India will continue building coal burning power plants that will offset any of our efforts.

The recent Paris Agreement belies this claim. Almost 200 nations, including China and India, agreed on a plan to implement measures to limit global temperature rise to under 2 degrees Celsius, considered a tipping point beyond which already serious effects become catastrophic. 

No one is calling this agreement perfect. It is non-binding. Each country must set its own goals, decide how to achieve them, report back to the world on their progress every five years, and to the extent they are able, decrease their emissions goal over time. 

As a world leader, historically the world’s largest overall emitter of GHG, and the largest emitter per capita, we have a unique responsibility to make and meet goals under the Paris Agreement. This will not be easy, but it is certainly possible.

Let’s face it—we are addicted to cheap fossil fuels: coal, oil, natural gas. They have literally fueled American prosperity. We see gas fall under $2.00/gallon and cheer. We love our low electricity bills that have been provided by cheap coal. Hydraulic fracturing has brought cheaper natural gas into our homes. But what do they really cost? What will we pay in increased flood damage and worsening storms?  

As a nation, we were addicted to tobacco, and I remember buying cigarettes for $.30 a pack. What did it really cost America in lost time at work, doctor visits, heart disease, lung cancer and emphysema? Today cigarettes cost about $6.00 a pack, and many fewer people are willing to pay that price, which is saving lives. 

If we increased the cost of fossil fuels by applying a fee for their production and importation, we would make them less desirable and set the stage for the development, growth, and acceptance of alternative energy sources. Citizens Climate Lobby (citizensclimatelobby.org) has a proposal to impose such a fee and return all the money collected to households, which would in most cases reimburse them for the increased costs of fuel during the transition to alternative sources.

Find out what the position of candidates for office is on climate change and carbon fee and dividend legislation, and support those who face the future with optimism by dealing realistically with the biggest challenge of our time.

Paul Epstein is a retired teacher, writer, and musician living in Charleston.

Climate Tipping Point?

Have we passed a tipping point on global warming? Or is there still time to slow the warming trend by reducing the burning of fossil fuels? Could predicted effects get worse faster than scientists have predicted? According to recent research released by world renowned climatologist James Hansen and his colleagues at Columbia University, sea levels could rise a staggering ten feet within fifty years instead of three feet envisioned previously.

A warming planet is no longer disputed, even by most Republican politicians. Climate scientists overwhelmingly agree the warming is caused by the extreme levels of carbon in the atmosphere and oceans largely from burning fossil fuels in which carbon has been stored since dinosaurs roamed.

Hansen could be wrong in his predictions, but what if he’s right? What will it cost to move cities to higher ground? What happens to populations forced to compete for food resources and agricultural land as farmland is lost to the sea and drought? Even if Hansen is wrong, what are the costs of rising seas, increased damage from powerful storms, heat waves, droughts, forest fires, and the other impacts of rising temperatures predicted by more conservative scientists over the coming decades? We have spent hundreds of billions in tax money and private dollars on such weather related disasters in recent years. 

Around the world and in some states and municipalities here, alternative energy sources are being developed and tapped to reduce the use of carbon-based fuels on a large scale. Solar panels get cheaper every day and are now competitive with the price of electricity produced by coal burning power plants. Wind power, geo thermal, bio-fuels, waste to energy, fuel cells, are entering boom times. The alternative energy market is producing jobs at up to ten times the rate of the national average. (http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2014/01/solar-jobs-growing-ten-times-faster-than-national-average-employment-growth.html)

Corporations must plan ahead. They want to transition to cleaner energy sources but need a level playing field. In fact, six of Europe’s biggest oil producers including Shell and BP recently called for a world wide pricing system on carbon. They’d rather compete in a predictable marketplace than face unpredictable regulations.

Why a price on carbon? It’s similar to taxes on tobacco products. We know that tobacco use leads to disastrous health consequences: lung cancer, heart disease, lost work time, etc. That costs all of us money, not just those who use it. So we have put high taxes on it, and because of that, smoking and the health costs of smoking for all of us has been reduced.

A revenue neutral carbon fee designed to garner bi-partisan support has been proposed by Citizens’ Climate Lobby (www.citizensclimatelobby.org) and endorsed by former Republican Secretary of the Treasury and State, George Schultz. It would collect fees and return them to American families. 

This proposed legislation sets a modest fee of $15 per ton on carbon rising by $10 each year so that the economy can adjust. Revenue is divided equally among American families (1 share for each adult, 1/2 share per child up to two children), providing the resources to cope with rising fuel prices and consumer goods. The respected firm, Regional Economic Models, Inc. (REMI)4 predicts a family of 4 would receive dividends greater than increased costs each year. By 2026 they’d be receiving $300/month. One million new jobs would be created in the first 4 years in addition to health benefits and a 50% reduction in carbon use over 20 years, far more than currently proposed regulations such as the EPA’s Clean Power Plan. The incentive to increase efficiency and develop alternative energy is obvious.

Our state’s representatives in Congress and most state legislators say that the continued mining and burning of coal is good for WV. They say coal is an inexpensive fuel and warn of job and tax revenue loss if use is limited in any way. But West Virginians are not only paying the costs of climate change, we pay for the negative effects of coal mining on communities: to health, water and air quality, and even threat of destruction from impoundments.  West Virginia could be a leader in alternative energy production and reap the benefits of a job boom in solar, wind, hydro, and other green energy initiatives with the help of forward looking policies.

Our representatives will not change their minds unless they hear from many of us relentlessly. Tell them this is critically important and that you demand action. Carbon pricing legislation does not rule out coal, but assesses the true costs of carbon it contains. Perhaps the industry will find cost efficient ways to reduce or sequester carbon emissions, but until they do, they should pay for the damage they are causing. 

Sixty Degrees Difference from Snorkel to Skis

I went cross country skiing today. The sun was shining and it was in the mid-20’s. One week ago, I went snorkeling in the Virgin Islands. The sun was shining and it was in the mid-80’s. The snorkeling and the weather in St. Croix was more enjoyable than the skiing, but even though I found it difficult to get enthused about going out today to shovel snow and get my old cross country skis out of the garage, I enjoyed the physical activity.

As I swished around the Shawnee Park golf course in Dunbar, WV, I worked up a sweat and found myself smiling and enjoying the exertion, the beauty of the almost unbroken expanse of snow, white and blue before me. 

But snorkeling over the coral reef off Buck Island, hovering above schools of brightly colored fish and interesting coral formations in the warm, clear tropical waters was clearly the more beautiful and interesting activity. Of course, without the effective waterproof sunblock I had smeared over my body before getting on the sailboat for the forty-five minute sail from St. Croix to Buck Island, I would likely have sustained a serious sunburn. But with the ocean breezes, I rarely felt hot during the week I spent there.

View of Buck Island from Point Udall, St. Croix, VI

Warming oceans and increased carbon dioxide in the water is killing coral reefs. And today, a few miles from Charleston, where I live, a train derailed and several tanker cars filled with crude oil from the Bakken shale exploded and continue to burn twenty-four hours later as I write. Some of the oil has fouled the water of the Kanawha River. 

February has been very cold and snowy over much of the country, and because of this, no doubt the climate deniers are saying this proves that the planet is not warming. Actually, extreme weather of all kinds, including colder weather in some places is expected as the arctic winds escape the forces that used to hold them in place around the poles.

I’m becoming increasingly disillusioned about the ability of those of us on the planet who would like to preserve the beautiful places and creatures and plants in the world by reducing and finally eliminating the burning of fossil fuels, and though I know I contribute to the problem by stepping on an airplane to go see some of those places, I’m glad that I have the time and resources to be able to once in awhile. 

Be Part of the Solution

I recently attended the 25^th anniversary of the first environmental conference sponsored by what later became the West Virginia Environmental Council, or WVEC.

It was simultaneously inspiring and disappointing. Inspiring because I was among long-time movers and shakers in the environmental movement in WV like Norm Steenstra, Cindy Rank, Vivian Stockman, Jim Kotcon, Bill Price, and Wendy Radcliff, who  spoke about issues they were working on and passionate about. Disappointing because I was one of only about fifty people in attendance.

One reason this was my first time attending a WVEC conference is that I’ve never considered myself an “environmentalist” or an “activist” on environmental issues.  However, I went because I have come to realize that due to the scope of problems facing our state and our world, all of us must, to some degree, become environmental activists.

The precipitating event for me was the January 9, 2014 Freedom Industries chemical spill which poisoned the water supply of 300,000 people in nine counties of West Virginia including the state capital, Charleston, where I live. I call it Aquageddon. If you experienced it, you haven’t forgotten it. Even if you didn’t, you likely remember the extensive national news coverage of the chemical, “crude MCHM”, about which little was known.  After only a few days, state officials and the Center for Disease Control declared the chemical was present in small enough amounts not to be a health risk.  But even a month or more later, the affected public continued to be highly suspicious of water that had the telltale odor of licorice, which the chemical emits. Questions about what level of exposure might result in long term health risks remain unanswered, and almost a year later there are still people in the affected areas who refuse to drink the tap water.

Prior to Aquageddon, I considered myself a supporter of environmental issues. Given a choice, I always voted for candidates who were more likely to support environmental protection, and on occasion I attended fund raisers, made contributions to environmental organizations, and attended rallies.

In the wake of Aquageddon, I attended rallies and led the singing of “This Land is Your Land,” with new lyrics I’d written about the water crisis and mountain top removal (MTR) mining. I attended public meetings and went to E-Day at the legislature to lobby for the tank storage bill, a bill that passed by a unanimous vote of the WV House and Senate. UNANIMOUS! How often does that happen?

I wondered if this would be a “come to Jesus moment” heralding the beginning of a new day for recognition of environmental catastrophes that have been occurring for decades in West Virginia due to MTR and other lightly regulated industries: poisoned water supplies, flattened mountains, buried streams,  increased cancer rates and other negative health impacts on communities near mountain removal coal mines? Would the legislature take another look at the effects on our water supply and communities caused by “Fracking” in order to decide whether stricter regulations are needed? Would they begin to question the actual cost of burning carbon fuels when damage to roads, water, air, health, tourism, and communities is factored in?

Or was this the Legislature’s version of “giving the Devil his due” in which they would have to be seen doing something because so many rich and powerful people in the state were affected by Aquageddon, but could ignore the by and large rural communities affected by MTR and Fracking. Surprise, surprise, it turns out it’s the latter.

I am not a scientist, don’t like to attend meetings, and don’t want to spend my time walking the halls of the Legislature. But I want to make sure that the environmental heroes who are working to protect us continue to have the resources they need to organize meetings and rallies, to study the impacts that fracking and MTR are having, to take water, soil, and air samples.  Before WVEC was formed, activists from groups working on local issues from all around the state descended on legislators in uncoordinated and overlapping ways. WVEC was formed so the environmental community could speak with a unified voice, sharing information with legislators so they are hearing the facts about the impacts of a lack of sensible regulation on West Virginians. Without WVEC and other environmental organizations, legislators only hear what the industry lobbyists have to say about how laws and regulations might impact their bottom lines.

To help support this critical work, I started a project called AWARE: Artists Working in Alliance to Restore the Environment. AWARE’s mission is primarily to raise funds for environmental organizations in West Virginia, especially WVEC and its member groups, which include the GreenbrierRiver Watershed Association, Ohio Valley Environmental Council, Sierra Club ofWest Virginia,  WV Citizen Action Group, WV Highlands Conservancy, and the WV Rivers Coalition, I hope you will think about what you’re willing to do to help protect our environment, and if it doesn’t include activism, at least make a donation to one or more of these organizations or another like them, or to AWARE, which will distribute the money among them.

Climate Change No Longer Being Ignored

*2 Day Diet progress follows post

Climate Change is back in the news, and it seems like, except for a few die-hards on right wing talk radio, the conversation is finally changing from whether it’s real to what to do about it. It started on May 6 with the release of the National Climate Assessment (I recommend visiting the website), a comprehensive document which confirms that everything most of us saw was happening to be true: the climate is changing; it’s the result of burning fossil fuels; severe weather and droughts are becoming more severe and more frequent; they will continue to get worse unless global emissions are severely reduced (and maybe even if they are); and human health, water supply, infrastructure, agriculture, oceans, and indigenous peoples are all threatened.

And now, after years of Congressional inaction, the EPA has proposed regulations forcing states to confront the emissions from power plants in an effort to reduce carbon emissions by 30% of 2005 levels by 2030. It sounds like a lot, but in fact we are already almost halfway there because of rules in place for new power plants and competition from cheaper natural gas. Contrary to rhetoric from those who scream, “War on Coal” this merely continues the retirement of older coal-fired power plants that cannot meet current standards and encourages a better mix of energy sources. Coal is still expected to supply about 30% of America’s energy needs. These regulations do nothing to control carbon emissions from other sources such as vehicles, homes, and factories. It is not a comprehensive carbon policy.

Republicans and some Democratic lawmakers in coal states like ours complain about EPA overreach, but a recent poll by the Washington Post showed 70% of Americans willing to pay more for electricity to lower carbon emissions. Lawsuits will be filed in an effort to stop or delay implementation. But if lawmakers don’t think we should be regulating carbon emissions, there are proposals for market-based solutions to a problem that even they are finally having to admit exists and must be addressed. The one most likely to be palatable to Republicans is referred to as a “Revenue Neutral Carbon Fee.” It also referred to as a carbon tax, but most Republicans prefer the word fee, even though the recent Supreme Court ruling upholding the individual health insurance mandate equated the two words.

If this were to become law, the cost of emitting carbon would be applied to every household and business in America and also to imports from countries that did not adopt a similar fee. This fee, or tax, would start low, but increase every year for ten years giving businesses a predictable cost curve. And the revenue neutral part means the government would not keep the fees. Instead, it would return the money equally to every citizen of the United States. This would offset the costs for those who use a moderate amount of carbon and would even pay a dividend to some households, who, for instance, do not own a car.

While I would support allowing government to withhold some of the revenue to use to offer aid to those whose jobs may be lost and for alternative energy production, this legislation offers Republicans a way to decrease carbon emissions without expanding government, without regulations, and that is market based. We should urge all of our state and national lawmakers and the candidates to consider this proposal. You can learn more about it at citizensclimatelobby.org/carbon-tax.

My 2-Day Diet Progress Week 30, June 2, 2014 

Beginning weight 11/3/13: 209 lbs.

Height 5'8" Age: 62

Goal weight: 165 lbs.

Total loss goal: 44 lbs.

Beginning waist size: 43 in.

Current waist size: 38 in.

Weight end of this week:  177 lbs.

Gain/Loss this week:  +1 lb.

Total Gain/Loss:  -32 lbs.