Jesse Johnson for Governor (of WV) - Sierra Club

I only wish that Jesse were out here to run for Governor of California. I have not found any Green Party candidate for higher office that excites me more. When first introduced to Jesse via his video introduction as a Presidential Candidate from the Reading National Meeting, I had no way to see that he had the ability to run a professional campaign. Having watched from afar as he has moved forward in the West Virginia gubernatorial race, those doubts were pushed asidem and then I found that I was not the only one to be impressed.


Recently, Jesse garnered the endorsement of the Sierra Club in the race for Governor.

“Johnson showed how seriously he takes this issue by speaking to tens of thousands of people nationwide during the last year about the harsh realities of mountaintop removal. His plan for the economy proposes tax breaks and incentives for businesses using renewable energy technology and he has urged that citizens be given a dividend from taxes generated from non-renewables such as coal and natural gas. Unfortunately, Governor Manchin’s support of mountaintop removal has kept West Virginia from moving towards a clean energy future that would benefit the economy and the environment.”

In every case, what I have seen from Johnson is that he has thought through each issue and is prepared to deal with it both rhetorically and practically.

The fight is really about what kind of state West Virginia is, or wants to be. The following from an OpEd by D. Stephen Walker [board member: WV Coal Association] in the Charleston, Gazette tells you exactly why we need Jesse Johnson leading this battle.

Anti-coal extremists and these types of lawsuits also undermine West Virginia's clean coal future and the economic, environmental and social opportunities that will come with it. Coal technologies will help address coal's carbon footprint and offer opportunities for more high-tech, high-wage jobs.

An editorial in the same issue of the Gazette offers a different view of "clean coal."

Supporters of coal like to say that the traditional, plentiful fossil fuel can be part of the nation's energy supply, even as the world desperately needs to reduce emissions from fossil fuels because of climate change.

Coal can be burned more cleanly, they say, and the emissions can be sequestered in the ground instead of emitted into the atmosphere to contribute to global warming.

Yet, if you made a list of the steps required to develop this nonexistent carbon capture and sequestration on a large scale, you would find that few of the steps have actually been done.

The timing is critical now. I wish that Jesse had the funds for a major media buy and just maybe he could get added attention. There are two ways to contribute:

• From the Mountain Party web site: http://www.mtparty.org/donate/index.html
  
• From Jesse's campaign web site: http://www.jesse4wvgov.org/ (Click to enter, click DONATE in top menu).