Here is an opportunity to let state legislators know you concerns about protecting our water from fracking pollution. On Tuesday, June 18, Clean Water Action is providing free rides to Harrisburg for their annual Lobby Day. Sierra Club is a sponsor of this important event. Transportation leaves Market Square at 7 am. Click HERE to register.

When President Obama met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in California, one of the numerous topics to be discussed was clean energy technology. For background, it is worth examining what drives each country to move away from fossil fuels. For every person in the United States the amount of CO2 emitted to generate electricity in 2011 was 17.6 metric tons. That was almost three times the emissions per capita in China. If China were to reach the same living standards as we currently enjoy in the U.S., with its same reliance on fossil fuels, its total tonnage of emitted CO2 for power generation would rise from 8.715 billion tons in 2011 to 23.706 billion tons. That picture raises a number of questions. (more…)

On May 23 Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee’s Chairman Ron Wyden held a hearing on the environmental impacts of shale gas development and best practices. In response to Senator Landrieu, Deb Nardone, Director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Natural Gas Campaign wrote:

There are serious environmental issues with shale gas exploration, production and use. No “best practices” can fully address the environmental, public health, and climate impacts of shale development. Strong regulatory standards can mitigate some of these harmful impacts; however, the Sierra Club is advocating that the nation quickly move beyond natural gas. Best available science shows even with the best controls and requirements in place, continued reliance on natural gas puts us on climate trajectory towards disaster. Natural gas is not a climate solution. It’s not a transition fuel or a bridge – it’s a gangplank to a much warmer planet. (more…)

Photo from the PA DEP

The Mountain Watershed Association and FracTracker Alliance are offering training on FracMapper, an online tool designed to help
municipal officials and citizens track and visualize data related to shale gas extraction operations.

3-5 pm and 6-8 pm, Wednesday, June 26
Dupre Science Building
Saint Vincent College
300 Fraser Purchase Rd, Latrobe PA 15650

At the two hour training, participants will learn to visualize and track permits, wells, operators and violations using a PC and web-based tools such as FracMapper. This systems combines information from many sources including the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

To RSVP for one of the two hour sessions on June 26, 2013 contact: Kathryn Hilton at Kathryn at mtwatershed dot com or 724-455-4200 ex. 4#.

Photo from BillPeduto.com

Following his victory in the Mayoral Primary election, the national on-line environmental magazine Grist interviewed Bill Peduto. Also of interest is a passing reference to old Washington Post article suggesting that Pittsburgh is replacing Portland as the ‘in’ city.

Hearty congratulations to the Allegheny Trail Alliance on the completion of the 150-mile Great Allegheny Passage from Cumberland MD to Point State Park in Pittsburgh. On May 16 the final section, past Sandcastle, was completed. On Saturday, June 15 a formal ribbon cutting will take place at Sandcastle at 10 am and the GAP marker will be unveiled at Point SP at 1 pm. RSVP by Email to PointMadeRide@comcast.net.

All are invited to the FREE showing of the upcoming HBO film “Gasland Part II” at the Soldiers and Sailors Hall in Oakland, Thursday, June 20. The HBO documentary, to be introduced by writer and director Josh Fox, is an objective and factual rebuttal of the criticism of award-winning “Gasland”. Doors open for live music and tabling at 6 pm and the film starts at 7 pm. Organized primarily by Marcellus Protest, with help from PennEnvironment and additional financial contributions from Clean Water Action, Frac Tracker, Sierra Club, Mountain Watershed Assoc., as well as Beaver County Marcellus Awareness, Butler Marcellus Outreach, Center for Coalfield Justice, CURE, East End Food Coop, Green Energy Collaborative, Murrysville Marcellus Community Group, Pittsburgh National Lawyers Guild, SHADD, Southwest PA Environmental Health Project, Three Rivers Community Foundation, and Westmoreland Marcellus Citizens Group. (more…)

Threatened ‘Sandhills’ of Nebraska. Photo courtesy of USFWS

If you have not yet had time to write President Obama about the Keystone XL pipeline, please see what Van Jones has to say on this short video, and then send the President a message urging him to say NO to the Keystone XL.

ACTION: Send a message urging the PA-DEP to provide the strongest pollution limits to all coal-fired power plants.

A new two-minute video from the Sierra Club encapsulates all that is wrong with our reliance on coal for power generation. Part of the problem is the emission of sulfur dioxide, with the Homer City Generating Station in Indiana County having been the largest source of SO2 emissions in the country. Now the plant has installed new scrubbers in accord with a DEP agreement, and the Sierra Club has dropped its lawsuit regarding the permitting of the plant’s upgrade.

Local clean energy advocate Fred Kraybill of Point Breeze recently attended the American Wind Power Conference in Chicago and here is his re-assuring report.

I went to the American Wind Power Conference this year (2013) in the windy city of Chicago. This was my fourth wind power conference in four years. I’ve been a big fan of wind power for many years and have followed the industry closely. I wasn’t sure I would go this year because the short term future of wind power was in jeopardy due to expiration of the wind subsidy, the Production Tax Credit (PTC). (more…)

Given all the news from Oklahoma it is quite reasonable to wonder what impact global warming may have on the frequency and strength of tornadoes in the US. Although the data required to determine any trends is limited, scientists apparently understand that global warming has two opposing effects; warmer sea water means more moisture in air coming north from the Gulf, but the wind shear is expected to be less, resulting in no net effect. For a more detailed account see the Climate Central article.

Photo: Allegheny Defense Project

One of the natural gems of our whole region is Allegheny National Forest, a hundred miles north of Pittsburgh. Now the Allegheny Defense Project and the Sierra Club are in court trying to ensure that the U.S. Forest Service has sufficient oversight of oil and gas drilling in this national forest, and that the public is not excluded from decisions regarding any oil and gas drilling. In September 2012, a U.S. District Judge ruled that the Forest Service has limited authority to regulate oil and gas drilling in the Allegheny NF. As part of a long legal battle, the environmental groups appealed that decision to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. (more…)

Artwork: Mike LaMark

ACTION: Tell President Obama to take fracking out of our international trade agreements.

Can an Australian corporation challenge court decisions upholding fracking moratoria and bans in the US? That could be the case if the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement is approved by the negotiating parties: Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam and probably Japan. Set to be finalized next year, this massive new trade pact is being negotiated behind closed doors without any Congressional oversight, and away from the media. With the TPP in place then transnational corporations would be able to challenge virtually any US environmental law, regulation or court decision that negatively affects their expectation of profits as a “regulatory taking”. The matter would go to an international tribunal that circumvents domestic judicial systems. For a TPP toolkit prepared by the Sierra Club, click HERE. NOTE. The TPP will also ease the export of LNG (Liquified Natural Gas).

Graphic: NASA

In an analysis of more than 4,000 academic papers that considered the possibility of human activity being the root cause of climate change, John Cook of the University of Queensland found that only 0.3 pct disputed human influence and 2.2 pct were unclear. To learn more about climate change see an Introduction for Beginners, Debunking the Myths, NASA’s map of Global Warming, Rising Sea Levels, Chemistry Toolkit, and the weekly news summary at Climate Progress.

The remote mountaintop Mauna Loa Observatory (MLO) in Hawaii is an ideal location for monitoring the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. For 24 hours on May 9 the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere atop exceeded 400 parts per million, or 0.04 pct. That is the highest CO2 level for more than two million years, it is the highest concentration in human history, and is a historically rapid increase of about 120 ppm since before the industrial revolution began in 1750. Passing 400 ppm is also an indication that the current efforts to curb CO2 emissions are inadequate, and we are on course for dramatic changes in the Earth’s climate. (more…)