2009 State of the Canary Address

Good evening. I’m Avram Friedman, the Executive Director of the Canary Coalition.  Thank you all for being here and for being a part of the growing movement to address, in a meaningful way, the issues surrounding clean air and the climate crisis.

This has been a challenging year for our organization, as it has been for most people and organizations affected by the current economic downturn.  We find ourselves in a struggle for survival economically. But, the even larger challenge we face is the one that will determine the direction of our energy future.  As individuals, organizations, as a state, a nation and as inhabitants of this planet we are in the process of making decisions that will determine if we are going to come to grips with the climate crisis and other ecological tipping points in time to avoid the worst consequences of our own wasteful habits and unsustainable, linear systems we’ve developed since the beginning of the industrial revolution.

The struggle is on and is being waged fiercely.  Those who would profit from “business as usual” are doing everything within their enormous power to manipulate elected officials and agencies to maintain the status quo, as they plan to invest hundreds of billions of ratepayer and taxpayer dollars into a new generation of dirty coal and nuclear power plants.  The plan seems to be to ignore the climate crisis as much as possible and to encourage the same level of per capita energy use that has brought us to this point, purely for the sake of increased corporate profits.

Not far from where we’re meeting tonight Duke Energy continues building another dirty coal plant at Cliffside, in Rutherford County .  Against all logic and reason, the plan is to squander $2.4 billion dollars of our limited financial resources to commit us to another 50 years of burning coal.  Coal, derived from mountaintop removal coal mining.  Coal that produces waste ash piles next to major water ways posing potentially catastrophic spills like the one in East Tennessee and Alabama last December.  Coal, one of the largest drains of our fresh water resources. Coal, the primary source of man-made greenhouse gases. Coal, the largest source of mercury contamination, ground-level ozone producing chemicals, sulfur dioxide emissions, acid rain.

But, we are determined to fight back, to stop Cliffside, to change state and federal energy policies, to reduce global energy consumption, to re-direct financial resources into the crucial development of renewable technologies and to preserve a livable world for our children and grandchildren.

We have a plan and it can be done.  In North Carolina a strong coalition of groups and individuals has put together a legislative proposal called NC SAVES ENERGY, to counter Duke Energy’s so-called SAVE-A-WATT program that saves nothing in actuality.  NC SAVES would create an independent agency to oversee energy efficiency measures throughout the state, as opposed to the alternative that would place that responsibility in the hands of the corporations who have a direct conflict of interest in promoting reductions in energy consumption.  NC SAVES has achieved momentum in the state legislature and has strong support.  It may or may not pass in this session, but we’ll come back even stronger next year, if it does not pass this year.

The Canary Coalition has developed a proposal for utility rate restructuring that would universally reward investment in energy efficiency and conservation as it penalizes wasteful energy use.  This type of plan has worked with dramatic effectiveness in other nations and other states in reducing energy consumption. It will work here too, once we overcome the influence of the energy profiteers to get it passed into law.  We’re networking and building wider coalitions to support this plan.  We’re working with a professional lobbyist to influence key players in North Carolina to support the concept of a progressive utility rate structure.

We’re working toward legislation that will remove the legal obstacles to the development of wind energy in appropriate locations in the mountains and on the coast of North Carolina .  The potential for wind to meet a significant portion of energy needs in our state is enormous.

But, the prerequisite to getting any of these measures passed is the mobilization of public opinion and public activity in support of these goals.  In the past year that has been our main focus.

Since 2004 we’ve carried out the annual odyssey of a demonstration known as the Relay for Clean Air on the 100 mile stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway between the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the city of Asheville , North Carolina .  And we’ll do it again this year, on Saturday, August 29^th.  Each year through this epic march we’ve focused national attention on the toxic air pollutants that are killing vegetable, animal and human life in one of the most unique bioregions on earth.  Each year we draw more people into the movement through this action.

In this past year we’ve expanded our activities in coalition with groups throughout the nation.   We helped organize a demonstration in Washington DC , in March, attended by more than 3000 determined people in snow and 18 degree weather, to shut down the Capitol coal plant that heats the House of Congress.  As a direct result of the public pressure generated by this action, Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced that the Capitol Power Plant would stop using coal as a fuel, in a huge symbolic victory against the coal lobby in Washington .

Then, on April 20, we brought the battle home as more than 400 demonstrators came from everywhere in the state and many parts of the nation to converge on Duke Energy headquarters in Charlotte to protest against Cliffside.  Forty-three of us were arrested in the largest act of non-violent civil disobedience on climate change ever recorded in the United States of America .   The Canary Coalition played an instrumental role in organizing this event in conjunction with at least a dozen other groups from North Carolina and nationally, including NC WARN, Carolinas Clean Air Coalition, NC Interfaith Power & Light (a program of the NC Council of Churches), Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, Appalachian Voices, Greenpeace, Rainforest Action Network, Southern Energy Network, Mountain Voices Alliance and others.  The Canary Coalition raised the money and networked with professional videographers to produce a 30-second television ad promoting the event that aired on the internet through Youtube and on all the major news networks on cable TV in the ten-county region surrounding Charlotte for two weeks prior to April 20.   About 350 of these television spots were paid for and aired on CNN, MSNBC, FOX, Comedy Central and local news networks throughout the Charlotte Metropolitan area. Where polling data showed us that prior to April 20 about 70 percent of the population in North Carolina had never heard of Cliffside, there is little doubt that public awareness has been greatly increased since that date.  This is immensely important since polls also indicate that a great majority of the people are opposed to the idea of building new coal-burning power plants in the year 2009.  They just didn’t know it was happening.  Now, they know. 

Yes, civil disobedience has its place and we intend to continue to be civilly disobedient as long as large polluters and government officials maintain irresponsibility on a biblical scale.

We will confront this irresponsibility at Cliffside where Duke Energy wants to build a new coal plant, in Washington and Raleigh where policies are made for better or worse, in Woodfin where we stopped Progress Energy from building a new diesel powered peaking power plant,  and even in the little town of Sylva where local public officials deliberately by-passed the public input process in order to smooth the way for a zoning ordinance amendment to allow Jackson Paper to expand without meaningful scrutiny.  Because of the Canary Coalition the secret is out that Jackson Paper is permitted to burn coal and shredded rubber tires as well as the wood chips the company touts as environmentally clean, safe and friendly.  Civil disobedience comes in many forms, not always by breaking the law.  Sometimes one can perform civil disobedience merely by telling the truth.

Every Sunday night, at 9 pm, we’re asking everyone to join us in civil disobedience as we turn out our lights for fifteen minutes as part of the Boycott to Stop Cliffside.  This boycott is a weekly demonstration to display the growing strength of our movement and I hope everyone here will get into the habit of joining in that action.

Our membership has increased from 2175 last year at this time to 2356 as of today and still growing. This represents an 8% increase over the past year.  This is not as dramatic an increase as the year before when we nearly doubled our membership.  But, we need to recognize the context of these figures.  Almost all other non-profit organizations nationwide have experienced a devastating decrease in their membership due to the state of the economy.  The fact that our organization has continued to grow at all is a tribute to our effectiveness and to the importance people place on the issues of which we are addressing.  Despite the frightening state of the economy, people still care about the future and the work of the Canary Coalition.

I can’t tell you that our financial future as an organization is certain.  We still remain one of the few true grassroots organizations that relies 100% on membership donations to stay afloat.  We receive no government grants and no money from corporate grant foundations who typically attempt to influence the agenda of non-profit groups.  People are still sending us checks, but they are generally smaller checks than in previous years.  Our funding strategy will remain the same.  By increasing membership and holding an occasional fundraising concert, poetry reading or special event, we’ll continue to try to generate the money we need to keep going.  We place the fate of our movement in the hands of the people and the belief that hope, good will and thoughtful action will prevail.  But, then, that’s where the fate of the Canary Coalition has always been from the beginning.

One of the great strengths of the Canary Coalition is the high quality of the people who serve on our Board of Directors.  Tonight we’ll count the ballots that have been sent in over the past several weeks to determine who will fill four positions on the Board as those terms have expired.  It’s important to understand how much these individuals have helped the Canary Coalition over the years.  The organization would not exist without this dedicated Board of Directors. Sometimes it may seem trivial, even to the Board members themselves, because we only have one meeting each year and involvement can seem intermittent or almost non-existent.  But, this is deceptive.  In fact, the Board has ultimate responsibility for the actions of the Canary Coalition.  These folks are putting their reputations and credibility on the line as they lend their names to our cause.  They hire the Executive Director on an annual basis and I have to answer to them.  They serve as my advisers and I always consult this group before making important decisions about the direction of our actions.  So, this is an important decision being made tonight as we count the ballots to determine who will serve on the Board for the next two years.  I want to personally thank all the Board members who have served and all the candidates who have expressed a willingness to serve in this capacity.  And thanks again to everyone who took the time to come tonight.