CLIMATE HOPE CLIMATE HOPE On the FRONT LINES of the FIGHT AGAINST COAL TED NACE CLIMATE HOPE: On the Front Lines of the Fight Against Coal Ted Nace Copyright © 2010 by Ted Nace Published by CoalSwarm 1254 Utah Street, San Francisco, CA 94110 415-206-0906 [email protected] With the exception of the material listed below under “Adapted Material,” this book is covered by the Creative Commons Deed, a form of “copyleft” that encourages sharing under the following conditions: You are free • to Share—to copy, distribute and transmit the work • to Remix—to adapt the work Under the following conditions • Attribution —You must attribute the work in the manner specifi ed by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). • Share Alike—If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same, similar or a compatible license. With the understanding that • Waiver —Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder. • Other Rights—In no way are any of the following rights affected by the license: 1. Your fair dealing or fair use rights; 2. The author’s moral rights; 3. Rights other persons may have either in the work itself or in how the work is used, such as publicity or privacy rights. • Notice —For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. The best way to do this is with a link to the following web page: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ The full Creative Commons Deed license is provided here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode Adapted Material Chapter 3, “Inside the Swarm” is adapted from Ted Nace, “Stopping Coal In Its Tracks,” Orion Magazine, January 2008, copyright © 2008 by The Orion Society; Chapter 9, “The Education of Warren Buffet,” is adapted from Ted Nace, “The Education of Warren Buffett, Gristmill, April 15, 2008, copyright © 2008 by Grist Magazine; Appendix A, “Protests Against Coal,” is adapted from “Nonviolent Direct Actions Against Coal,” “Nonviolent Direct Actions Against Coal: 2004–2007,” “Nonviolent Direct Actions Against Coal: 2008,” and “Nonviolent Direct Actions Against Coal: 2009,” all published on the SourceWatch wiki. Appendix B, “Coal Plants Cancelled, Abandoned, or Put on Hold,” is adapted from “Coal Plants Cancelled, Abandoned, or Put on Hold: 2007,” Coal Plants Cancelled, Abandoned, or Put on Hold: 2008,” and “Coal Plants Cancelled, Abandoned, or Put on Hold,” all published on the SourceWatch wiki. SourceWatch con- tent is available under GNU Free Documentation License 1.3, a form of copyleft that encourages sharing. For information see http://SourceWatch.org. Cover design: Mimi Heft Cover photo: Kurt Mann Text design: Mimi Heft Page layout: Mimi Heft and David Van Ness Copyediting: David Sweet Errors & Omissions: Ted Nace ISBN-13: 978-0615314389 ISBN-10: 0615314384 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Printed in the United States of America In memory Lovina Anne Kelley Nace 1925–2009 Contents Introduction ࡯ 1 one Th e 80% Solution ࡯ 3 two Time Bombs ࡯ 15 three Inside the Swarm ࡯ 22 four But We’ll Freeze in the Dark! ࡯ 35 five What About China? ࡯ 47 six Hurricane Politics ࡯ 53 seven Kansas ࡯ 62 eight Direct Action ࡯ 73 nine Th e Education of Warren Buff ett ࡯ 85 ten Progress Report: 59 Coal Plants Down ࡯ 97 eleven Unicorns, Leprechauns, Clean Coal ࡯ 110 twelve War Against the Mountains ࡯ 123 thirteen Th e Grandmother Rebellion ࡯ 135 fourteen Cowboys Against Coal ࡯ 146 fifteen Sierra ࡯ 158 sixteen Taking It to the Streets ࡯ 167 appendix a Protests Against Coal ࡯ 183 appendix b Coal Plants Cancelled, Abandoned, or Put on Hold ࡯ 213 Notes ࡯ 225 Index ࡯ 261 Introduction ࡯ On this June day in 2009 the West Virginia mountains watched quietly as mortals squabbled over their fate. Along the scorching hot asphalt of state highway 3 next to the Massey coal processing plant, fl anked by offi cers holding nightsticks, anti–mountaintop removal protesters walked toward the plant gate to deliver a letter to coal baron Don Blankenship. In the south lane a German shepherd police dog, its leash gripped by an offi cer, snarled menacingly while its handler shouted at passers-by to step back. Across the road, a crowd of sweat- ing, red-faced coal miners shouted threats and obscenities and chanted “Massey! Massey!” Suddenly a shrieking woman emerged, striking one of the demonstrators in the face before being seized by police. In the eye of the turbulence the world’s most prominent climate scientist, Dr. James Hansen, stood calmly as police offi cers cinched plastic handcuff s onto his wrists and placed him in a patrol car. For a time the car remained motionless, held in check by the packed throng; then it slowly pushed its way up the road toward the county detention center. Earlier in the day, Dr. Hansen had delivered a speech in which he stated that climate change, left unchecked, would drive half or more of all the species of plants and animals on 1 2 CLIMATE HOPE Planet Earth into extinction. Th e rally had been invaded by dozens of miners who had been given the day off to heckle the speakers. Arriving on loud motorcycles, many with body- builder physiques and shaved heads, the miners had formed an intimidating wall directly behind the speakers’ platform. Th ey shouted insults, unplugged the power cord to the sound equipment, and set off air horns directly into the ears of blue- grass musicians entertaining the rally. When 94-year-old Ken Hechler, a former congressman and West Virginia secretary of state, told the rally about his decades-long eff orts to halt mountaintop removal, the miners shouted at him to get back into his wheelchair. As I watched these scenes of chaos, it was obvious what motivated both sides of the controversy. On one side were West Virginians whose families had long treasured these beautiful mountains, in some cases for over two hundred years. Most Americans, faced with the destruction of their homes, would fi ght just as hard. On the other side were workers who feared for their livelihoods and their families. Th ough they had been manipulated into serving as thugs for an unscrupulous corporate boss, their personal concerns were no less valid. But the head of climate research for NASA? Here was an insider with consummate access to the halls of federal power. Why should such an individual fi nd it necessary to come to an obscure town in West Virginia and face an angry mob, just to deliver a letter? Was the message really so urgent? What it is about coal—just one among many sources of pollution—that would motivate a climate scientist to go to jail? Why had a movement coalesced around these issues, and what had that movement accomplished so far? Th ese are the questions that this book attempts to explore. ࡯ ONE The 80% Solution ࡯ Dana Milbank sounded mystified, or at least surprised. It was a typically lovely summer day in 2008, and the longtime political reporter for the Washington Post had been follow- ing NASA’s chief climate scientist, James Hansen, as he made the rounds of media and government in Washington, D.C.: Diane Rehm’s talk show, congressional committees, and the National Press Club. At age sixty-seven, Hansen, who works in New York City as the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, was a familiar face in the capital. He had been coming to the Hill for at least twenty-fi ve years to talk with bureaucrats, reporters, activists, legislators—indeed, with anyone who would hear him out—and in all that time the core message, while disturbing in its implications, had been remark- ably consistent. But today, it seemed to Milbank, the message had developed a distinct new wrinkle. At least the reporter couldn’t recall hearing it before. With his balding head and slow-paced Iowa deadpan, Han- sen could have stood in for practically any role in a Th ornton Wilder play set in small-town America—repairman, farmer, 3 4 CLIMATE HOPE high school basketball coach—but the persona was decep- tive. For one thing, it masked a world-class intellect. Having begun his career studying the atmosphere of Venus and other planets, Hansen had gone on to apply that expertise to the study of Earth’s own atmosphere and had become one of the early pioneers of the ultrasophisticated “general circulation models” that are now the gold standard for supercomputer forecasting of climate change in the United States, Europe, Japan, and elsewhere. His work has won him acclaim within the scientifi c community, including membership in the elite American Academy of Sciences and award of the Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal, the highest honor bestowed by the American Meteorological Society. Of course, one would expect NASA’s top climatologist to have that sort of résumé. Th e lack of conscious polish added to Hansen’s credibility—and even a charisma of sorts—that had served the scientist well over the years. But even though people were able to see the brilliance behind the self-eff acement, what they didn’t tend to see was more in the realm of temperament: a distinct proclivity for inductive leaps that made some of Han- sen’s more cautious colleagues uncomfortable at times. Climate science has always had to struggle in the popular media with the question, If you can’t even predict tomorrow’s weather, what makes you think you can say anything meaningful whatsoever about conditions at the end of the century? Th at objection overlooks a simple diff erence between meteorology and cli- matology.