A group of conservative Republican leaders has published a credible sounding proposal for slowing climate change, a goal previously championed mostly by liberal Democrats. The proposal, if scientifically and economically valid, could unite those who care about our climate across partisan and culture war divides. We face an increasingly urgent threat to mankind’s future. This proposal deserves immediate objective study and all the collaboration we can muster.
North Carolina’s Republican legislators have passed energy and environmental laws that impede innovation and economic competition by clean energy entrepreneurs. They show little regard for the interests of individual citizens and ignore twenty-first century science. Consider these examples.
In order to build a solar or wind energy installation, the company must own or lease the property where it will be built, comply with local zoning and land use rules, and acquire right of way for transmission of the energy that they produce to customers without use of eminent domain powers or other government authority. A bill (S-843) recently passed by the State Senate’s “small government” Republicans would add a maze of new regulations and barriers including a 1.5 mile setback from the property line and a 35 decibel (human whisper) noise limit at the property line for wind farms. Solar farms would have to be invisible from adjoining property. The bill removes corporate protections for stockholders in wind and solar farms, making them individually liable for damages caused by the corporation. And it requires the corporation to set aside sufficient money to return the land to its original state after the renewable energy site is closed.
State Law is starkly different for production of natural gas or oil via fracking. Corporations do not have to own or lease the property under which they drill. They are allowed to drill horizontally under private property without agreement by the landowner and to put wells on someone else’s land without permission. Payments to the landowner will be set by a government agency and the landowner can’t refuse the arrangement. Local governments are not allowed to regulate fracking via zoning, or in any other way. A government agency can force land owners to accept a pipeline for delivery of oil or gas to market. Executives who violate laws or rules governing fracking can not be prosecuted for anything more than a misdemeanor. Owners of corporations are not personally liable for damages that their companies cause. There is no requirement to return the land and water to it’s original condition after the fracking is completed or set aside money for potential damages.
There is no evidence of substantial or long-term environmental damage by wind or solar farms. Fracking, on the other hand, is a proven cause of well contamination, air pollution, and earthquakes. The energy produced by solar and wind farms is as clean as any that is available. Gas and oil consumption contribute heavily to climate change by putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
North Carolina has few earthquakes but we do have inactive geologic faults. Two decades ago those statements were true of Oklahoma but that state experienced 581 earthquakes in 2014. In that year frackers injected over 64 billion gallons of wastewater under Oklahoma and that is clearly the cause of the earthquakes. (Scientific American, July 2016) It appears that frackers will not be required to pay for Oklahoma’s earthquake damage. It is clear, however that Oklahoma property owners will need earthquake insurance. The price of that coverage is bound to rise along with the number of quakes.
Why would a state legislature allow local zoning and regulation of wind and solar while denying it for gas and oil? Why make individual stockholders of clean energy companies responsible for damages caused by the corporation while immunizing frackers from similar claims? Why is government’s power used to enable environment-damaging industries while discouraging clean energy development?
The success of clean energy producers is visible in the form of solar and wind farms that produce electricity without pollution. Not everyone likes the changed landscape. Huge petroleum, gas, coal, and utility companies have a lot of influence with legislators and they don’t like competition from clean energy.
We need to let the market work by applying the same standards across all energy sectors. If they pollute, they should pay to clean it up. If they need a right of way to get energy to the market, the same laws and regulations should apply to all forms of energy. If they violate safety and environmental standards, criminal and civil penalties should be the same for all businesses.
Legislators who espouse free market principles should be able to collaborate with environmentally conscious colleagues to create fair competition and a cleaner state for all of us. They will if voters demand it.
A friend recently described the life and death of Berta Caceres to me. Today, I’m sharing her story with you along with concerns about America’s role in the affairs of other nations.
Berta Caceras and other human rights advocates with Pope Francis during his visit to Honduras.
Caceres was co-founder of COPINH, an organization created to protect the interests of the indigenous Lenca people of Honduras and to save their natural environment from rapacious development. She and her organization received threats and were victims of violence over the years. The controversy escalated when COPINH was able to stop construction of a huge hydroelectric dam that would have taken water and land historically belonging to the Lenca people. It was jointly sponsored by Honduras-based DESA and Sinohydro, a Chinese company that is the world’s largest dam builder. Defeating that project earned Caceres the 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize (perhaps the world’s most prestigious environmental recognition). It also earned her the enmity of some very powerful people.
On March 2, 2016 Berta Caceres was shot and killed in her bed. The assassins were reportedly graduates of the “Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation” (AKA “School of the Americas”) that is jointly operated by the US Army and the CIA. That school also educated at least 10 military dictators including Manuel Noriega (Panama) and Juan Velasco Alvarado (overthrew the government of Peru). Their training by American professionals included assassination and torture.
In January, 2006, Manuel Zelaya was elected President of Honduras. He ran on socialist principles and soon created closer ties to Venezuela and Cuba. That engendered concern from Honduran and American business interests and from the Bush Administration in the US. In June 2009, Zelaya was kidnapped and taken to Costa Rica by the Honduran military. Pre-arranged support from the Honduran Supreme Court included immediate installation of Pofiro Lobo as President.
“Social cleansing” to reduce the population of ethnic minorities that oppose the government have been reported. This man was thought to be a victim. Read more HERE.
Central American Nations and the European Union called for Zelaya’s return to power but dropped their insistence when the Obama Administration, in the person of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, encouraged recognition of the new regime. The never-stated quid pro quo may have been American acceptance of the regime’s legitimacy and its domestic policies in exchange for their collaboration in a war against drug lords. The Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America reports specifics of 229 politically related Murders under President Lobo. Many who died or disappeared at the hands of government death squads were environmentalists or social reformers.
There are rumors that the dam project will be resurrected with support from banking, land development and construction interests. Assassinations and arrests of opponents continue, as does the drug trade; and Honduras continues to have the world’s highest murder rate.
Mass market journalists have paid little attention to these events, but recently the well respected National Catholic Reporter (US based) has confirmed the story and added that, “The leader of the coup, Honduran General Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, was a graduate of the notorious School of the Americas, a U.S. Army training program nicknamed “School of Assassins” for the sizable number of graduates who have engaged in coups, as well as the torture and murder of political opponents.” Nevertheless, US policy created by Secretary Clinton and still supported by her today is to refuse refugees from Honduras while continuing to accept them from Cuba.
After all the bloodshed, it seems that the US would have learned that training and equipping citizens of other nations to kill each other and overthrow their governments doesn’t help anyone. It certainly did not help Honduras control the drug trade or help Iraq eliminate terrorists and it made lots of new enemies for Americans. We’ve tried it without success in Iran, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Peru, Chile, Cuba, Syria, Guatemala, Nicaragua and probably in some places that I don’t know about. It’s evil. Let’s resolve to never do it again!
Buried deep on page 24 of the undebated “technical corrections” bill authored by North Carolina’s Republican leadership is a provision that takes away all authority for local governments to regulate fracking and oil and gas exploration. My admittedly amateur opinion is that the legislature may have violated the State Constitution which says it part:
Sec. 5. Conservation of natural resources.
It shall be the policy of this State to conserve and protect its lands and waters for the benefit of all its citizenry, and to this end it shall be a proper function of the State of North Carolina and its political subdivisions to acquire and preserve park, recreational, and scenic areas, to control and limit the pollution of our air and water, to control excessive noise, and in every other appropriate way to preserve as a part of the common heritage of this State its forests, wetlands, estuaries, beaches, historical sites, openlands, and places of beauty.
I hope that one of the municipalities that has restricted fracking will pursue the question in court. It’s difficult for me, as a non-attorney, to see how the legislature can take away the powers granted to municipalities by the constitution.
On June 13 of this year, Papa Franciscus (Better known as Pope Francis) sent a letter (encyclical) asking each of us who share Planet Earth to attend to its deteriorating condition; discuss it among ourselves; and make decisions about how to maintain it. Acknowledging that only about a third of humans claim to be Christians and about half of Christians are Catholic; he crafted his letter to speak to all of us about caring for the Earth – and ultimately about caring for each other.
Francis described Creation – our planet and our universe – as a gift to mankind that we will pass on to successive generations. Using biblical language, he pointed out that, “…the Genesis account which grants man ‘dominion over the earth’…” does not warrant “the unbridled exploitation of nature…”Continue reading IS POPE FRANCIS ALSO A PROPHET?→
