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).
  

Global Warming: Why it all matters

Let me call attention to a couple of different stories today.

The first came to me when I looked at Dave Roberts' Gristmill blog this AM. Dave makes it a Friday Night practice of blogging a particular piece of music that caught his attention. This week, it touches on global warming, Mountain Top Removal in West Virginia and the connection is Coal. In fact, that is the name of the album from which this selection is taken. Coal, by country singer Kathy Mattea.

One might be tempted to take all of this as an intellectual exercise. After all, how many of us have really had much to do with coal mining. I know that my late sister-in-law, Mary Barnes Rolley, had her MS in Coal Geology from the Univ. of Illinois. That is about as close as I got and I am drawing Social Security.

It is often frustrating when we deal with issues like climate change that are so easily abstracted. I remember with some nostalgia my college days when Dylan was just a rumor of some young guy singing great stuff around the coffee houses and The Times They Are A-Changin' had not yet been recorded. There is no coffee house circuit anymore and potential young Dylans want to jump right to the top as an American Idol. But let me call your attention to the way that Mattea's Bend, OR concert was hyped by the local paper, the Bend Bulletin. The story begins this way...

Here’s a depressing little exercise for you to try: Hop on the Internet, visit Google Maps, and search for “Danville, W.Va.” Once you’re in Danville, click over to “Satellite” view and zoom out a little bit.

See that giant, grayish area west of town? That’s where a coal-extraction company has blown off the top of a mountain to make its job easier.

Now, zoom out more, and follow the trail of grayish spots that pockmark the rolling, green hills of the Appalachian Mountains to the southwest of Danville, extending across West Virginia and into eastern Kentucky.

Every one of those spots represents what used to be a mountain. The mountains are now flat, thanks to the extraction method known as mountaintop removal.

I challenge you do do that exercise.

Here is another challenge. Make a contribution to the West Virginia Mountain Party. They are the Green Party affiliate and they have been fighting this battle since the beginning. Anthing helps, even $10.