Energy Future Resolution Presented to NC Legislators.

Grassroots show strength as lawmakers listen and press looks on to report event.

 Local ABC affiliate in western North Carolina WLOS-TV camera focuses on speakers at the press conference. The Asheville Citizen-Times, Mountain Xpress, Asheville Global Report and other news media were present.

NC legislators Susan Fisher, Bruce Goforth and Martin Nesbitt receive almost 4000 signatures on the NC Energy Future Resolution at the press conference in Asheville on January 8.

January 8, 2007

When Mary Olson handed nearly four thousand signatures on the NC Energy Future Resolution to three North Carolina state legislators on Monday, January 8, a threshhold had been passed marking the beginning of a new era in environmental activism. This moment represents a recognition of a new urgency and an accelerated schedule reflecting this urgency, to reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions by substituting energy efficiency, conservation and renewable energy technologies for fossil fuel burning and nuclear power. The fact that three mainstream legislators accepted these signatures in a spirit of support and cooperation is significant.

It's also significant that so many environmental and community groups have come together to gather signatures and offer this resolution that calls for such profound change in energy policy. Present at the press conference were representatives from The Canary Coalition, Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), Caring for Creation, Western North Carolina Alliance, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, Clean Water for NC, Environmental Defense, Clean Air Community Trust, Common Sense at the Nuclear Crossroads, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Common Cause NC, Interfaith Power & Light, the Unitarian Universalist Social Action Committee and Southeast Energy and Environment Expo.

The Energy Future Resolution is a dynamic document. There is nothing compromising or ambiguous contained in this proposal. It demands that in evaluating costs for meeting future energy demand, the costs of health and environmental impact be included.  It also requires that the costs of full-fuel cycles, decommissioning of power plants and waste handling be included. It mandates that no new power plant construction be permitted without meeting the criteria of  least-cost in conjunction with this evaluation. The resolution also calls for a restructuring of utility rates so that energy efficiency and conservation will be rewarded.

To someone confronting the nuts and bolts of these issues for the first time it may seem that there's nothing startling or revolutionary about a proposal to include health and environmental impact in evaluating the cost of different methods of meeting future energy demand.  But, sadly, nothing could be further from the truth. In the vernacular of energy politics health and environmental impact are commonly referred to as "external costs." Even some of the most staunch members of the environmental community who have become entangled in the political process most often refer to health and environmental impact as "external costs" of energy production.

But, to whom are these costs external?  The costs of health and environmental impact are only "external " from the perspective of the utility companies, the businesses that build power plants to sell electricity. To the rest of us, the ratepayers, taxpayers, health insurance premium payers and members of the general public who depend on clean air, clean water and a healthy environment, they are just "costs."  For most of us, the cost of our monthly health insurance premium far outweighs the cost of our monthly utility bill. And poor air quality is a principle cause of the rise in the cost of health care and health insurance due to the epidemic of asthma, emphysema, chronic bronchitis and other pulmonary disease.

Even in the literature and webpage content of some of the larger national environmental organizations there are charts, graphs and descriptions of the various energy options that completely ignore  health and environmental impact when comparing relative costs of coal, fossil fuel and nuclear technology with solar, wind, and other available technologies. We'll see values such as solar=28 cents/Kwh, wind =8 cents/Kwh, nuclear=12 cents/Kwh and pulverized coal=7.5 cents/Kwh. But, what does that mean? Whose costs are these? These costs reflect only the construction costs to the power producers.  They don't in any way reflect the cost to the rest of us, obviously, because, if they included the very real costs of health and environment impact, the costs of the full fuel cycle, the costs of decommissioning power plants, coal and nuclear would be off the chart and renewables, energy efficiency and conservation would be the hands-down least-cost options to provide for all our energy needs.

How much time do we have before climate change on planet earth reaches the "tipping point" triggering an irreversible series of global catastrophic events that will alter life-as-we-know-it?

No one really knows. Opinions range from, "This is all nonsense.  There's nothing unusual going on in the context of geological history," to "It's already too late and there's nothing we can do to stop it." 

The vast majority within the scientific community seem to be arriving at a general concensus opinion that is somewhere in the middle, surmising that we have perhaps a twenty-year window of opportunity to reduce the human impact on climate change by dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Those who have taken the time to study the data or have seen Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth" know there's something going on beyond the ordinary ice-age cycle of the earth.  Since the beginning of the industrial revolution there has been an undeniable,  dramatic and accelerating increase in CO2 levels in the atmosphere.  So, to all but those who would seem to be fathoming new depths within the realm of psychological denial, the possibilities are limited to either, "It's too late" or "We don't have much time."

For those who are active in the environmental community the assumption has to be that it's not yet too late and we can still do something to save the planet for our children and generations to come.  But, we have to act quickly. If we don't believe this, why continue with the activities of public education, writing, maintaining webpages, organizing public forums, circulating petitions and resolutions, lobbying and demonstrating for environmental causes?

The NC Energy Future Resolution is the first major legislative proposal to call for a recognition of the real costs when comparing energy options. It is a proposal with profound implications that, if passed and enforced, would result in better health for most of the population, would result in vastly reduced impact on forests, crops and wildlife, would result in tremendous economic opportunity benefitting most citizens, would result in greenhouse gas reductions on a scale that could save the world if adopted on a global scale, if there is enough time.