Beware: New Jobs for Kansas

Oh, they are getting really coy, those promoters of dirty energy. And they've got my number (and probably yours too). I got a call a couple of hours ago, asking me if I would call Sheryl Spalding to urge her to support more jobs for KS and passage of HB2014, which would bring new energy plants to Kansas. Ah ...they thought they'd reached a dumb, uninformed Kansan. I innocently asked: "Are those coal-fired plants?" The young man answered, "Yes". And I said back, "Never in your lifetime will I support those plants." He hung up. But seriously, you know they are polling, encouraging people to support "more jobs for Kansas", and using those duped consumers to justify passage of a bill few consumers want. But how many of you would have figured out exactly what they wanted you to support? If you'd said, "Yes, I support a way to bring new jobs to Kansas", even without making that call to your representative, you would have been put in the column of people who want those coal plants. And they are gonna use those numbers.

To refresh your memories on the issue: there are some new coal-fired plants up for approaval in Kansas -- again. The efforts to block them, lead in large part by the Kansas Sierra Club chapter, were described in the most recent issue of Sierra, the Club's magazine. For two legislative sessions, the bills authorizing those plants have passed the legislature. Governor Sibelius vetoed them both times. And each time, the legislature failed to over-ride her veto by thin margins. We are poised to have that same battle again: Sibelius has vowed to veto the current bill; a meer forty-plus brave souls in the legislature -- the number needed to sustain her veto -- stand between the people of Kansas and the corporate interests that will steal our health and despoil the planet forever.

Let me be clear, as is well out-lined in this news article, most Kansans oppose the construction of these plants. The plants will do nothing to lower utility rates; their power will be sent out-of-state. We get the construction jobs to build them, a few jobs to run them, and all the pollution with none of the benefits to the local electric grid. Oh, and the legislature is also using these bills to attempt to restrict the ability of the Kansas Dept of Health and Environment to regulate power plant emissions, one of the few protections citizens have if the compromise bill passes.

And one last minor detail -- there is money in the federal stimulus bill to fund clean energy in states that meet certain criteria. If Kansas approves these plants, we will not qualify for that clean energy investment money.

Bottom line: Kansans need to contact their legislators and push them to uphold any veto by the governor. You can find out who your legislators are here. Make your voice heard -- For the Health of It.

Oh Boy- Or: "Decarbonizing"

New word -- "decarbonize". To remove carbon from [fill in the blank]

The first time I heard this term used in a sentence ... a big, long complicated sentence or three...was last night. RFK, Jr. repeated this term all night long during his speech on "Our Environmental Destiny". Today, MSNBC.com posted a troubling article on the possibility that we have already flipped into an "irreversible" climate shift. Oh-oh. As if I don't have enough trouble trying to stay optimistic.

A climate conference is being held in Copenhagen, the goal of which is to update the report from 2007 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the folks who shared the Nobel Prize with Al). The conference is trying to set the stage for U.N. talks scheduled for December that are intended to lead to a new global climate treaty.

The report notes that policymakers must "vigorously and widely" implement tools that will stop global warming and "achieve the societal transformation required to de-carbonize economies". OK. I get the de-carbonize thing. But the possibility that the U.S., let alone anyone else, will "vigorously" implement anything that leads to "societal transformation" sure feels problematic to me. I mean, Rush is actively campaigning to promote failure of the administration ...and he isn't alone.

But the Brits surely get it. British economist Nicholas Stern, a conference presenter and author of a major British government report detailing the cost of climate change, expressed the view that the global recession offered an opportunity to establish a more energy-efficient economy.

"Coming out of this we have got to lay the foundations for a low-carbon growth, which is going to be like the railways, like the electricity, like the motorcars, this is going to be over the next two, three decades the big driver in investment," Stern said.

Stern said green investments make sense because energy-efficient economies will be more sustainable in the future.

"We know from this crisis that if we postpone looking risk in the face, it will bite us much more deeply," he said.

This is exactly what the Democrats and President Obama have been saying. The Republicans, and some dissident Democrats, are singing a different song -- this is NOT the time to spend money, to invest in new technology, to take risks.

Forgive me for believing the scientists. And Kennedy, who described several economies that have actually grown by de-carbonizing. There is historical precedent for undertaking rapid change that on the surface feels too expensive, but that ultimately drives enormous growth in new industries as the economy de-couples from old technologies.

What can we do? I'm just one person, I don't have access to movers and shakers, but I can support groups that are, that will lobby on behalf of change. I can get involved at the grass-roots level to push for green energy and oppose new coal-fired power plants in KS. Check out what the Kanza Sierra Club is doing on March 19. Sign up to attend their Clean Energy Day. If you can't personally lobby, support the Sierra Club's efforts to bring sustainable energy technology to our state; stay informed and write your state representative to uphold the veto that the interim KS governor has agreed to execute. One person can make a difference.