Greenpeace

This blog is written by Val Abril, a freshman at the University of North Texas, and a current student in the fall 2011 Greenpeace Semester class. Check out her blog below about her first experiences in the program:

Walking down through the entrance of Chinatown in downtown DC, you don't expect to encounter anything but noodle shops and paper lanterns. Yet, in the midst of the business I happened to find myself in a place like no other around. Although I had been preparing for the moment when I would step through the glass doors of the Greenpeace US Headquarters, I felt extremely nervous as I stood there. What did I have to fear? I was certain the people that were upstairs were just like me! They did not know what awaited them. And even though I did not know what the day (least of all what the semester) would bring,  I knew that I had to have an open mind to any possibilities that might be thrown my way. I was sure that this was the place where I needed to be. Not for me - I needed to be here for the generations to come. I needed to learn how to make a difference in a world where one voice is simply drowned in the sea of corruption.

 The moment I stepped in everything around me told me that I was in the right place. From that very second, time seemed to speed up. It all came in rushing towards me. The new faces that smiled at me, the amazingly open office space, but most of all the activities that our coordinators explained to us. I felt as if I had arrived to a party that had been created for people  just like me. They were all outraged at the carelessness of  corporate polluters. Even though none of us had the same background, we were all here for the same purpose, to learn how to organize people to solve problems that most people aren’t aware of. At least not yet.

Last Friday, Duke Energy announced its plans to close the W.C. Beckjord Power Station by January 1, 2015, citing upcoming EPA regulations, including the Maximum Achievable Control Technology rule (MACT).  This 60-year-old, unscrubbed plant is located about 20 miles east of Cincinnati and has been emitting 69,156 tons of sulfur dioxide, 4,556 tons of nitrogen oxides, and 4,289,107 tons of carbon dioxide each year in addition to mercury and other hazardous air pollutants.

While I’m encouraged by Duke’s recognition of the “regulatory writing on the wall,” Duke needs to take seriously the health of Cincinnatians and accelerate the retirement of this plant.  In Duke's statement about closing Beckjord, the company only cites the cost “to which their customers will be exposed” from installing pollution control, rather than the toxic emissions to which they are exposed to daily. 

According to the Clean Air Task Force, every year that the Beckjord coal plant operates, it causes 140 deaths, 220 heart attacks, over 2,000 asthma attacks and a host of hospital and emergency room admissions. Waiting until 2015 to close this plant is simply not soon enough, especially when Duke has heard from its customers that human lives are more important than profits.

Over the last three months, our coalition partner Ohio Citizen Action has mailed 2,037 personal letters to Jim Rogers, Duke Energy CEO, urging him to close the Beckjord power plant, including cute but deadly serious drawings by children.  

“Duke’s customers have sent the company a clear message that they want it to move away from its reliance on dirty coal plants,”said Rachael Belz, Coal Program Organizer at Ohio Citizen Action.

I agree.  Instead of taking a proactive approach and closing Beckjord immediately, Duke Energy is waiting until the absolute last minute before they have to comply with the new EPA rules. By delaying closure of the Beckjord coal-fired power plant, Duke Energy is making a clear statement that their profits are more important than the health of the citizens of Cincinnati.

Greenpeace will continue to keep the pressure on Duke Energy about Beckjord as well as the nearby Miami Fort Station, located about 16 miles west of Cincinnati. The Miami Fort coal plant shares many of the same characteristics as the Beckjord Station in that it is old, polluting, and will soon become prohibitively expensive to run.

Cincinnatians deserve clean air and they deserve it now.

Across the country, hundreds of activists and Greenpeace volunteers have been scouring grocery stores for unsustainable seafood products in preparation for Greenpeace’s annual seafood scorecard release.

U.S. consumers buy a large portion of their seafood from grocery stores, but companies like SUPERVALU (with banners like Bristol Farms, Albertson's, Save-a-Lot and Cub foods) still lack a comprehensive sustainable seafood sourcing policy and are selling red list seafood that is overfished and caught with destructive practices.  

I visited two Bristol Farms locations, one in Beverly Hills and the other in South Pasadena. Both stores had multiple red listed fish products on their shelves. Doing detective work on endangered species, I felt like a spy uncovering illicit goods. But the mind-boggling part of the experience is that you don’t have to dig through mislabeled packages or read long ingredients lists – these endangered and unsustainable fish are in plain view.

 (Photo courtesy Alexis Soto)

It’s pretty simple to find a list of endangered seafood. Not only can we use this to inform our purchasing practices, but we can also easily influence stores by speaking to the management and expressing our concerns. It’s important to remember that we fund them and they don’t exist without our support. We need to wake up before it’s too late and take endangered fish off our grocery store shelves.

With the new Greenpeace scorecards coming out this month,grocery stores have the opportunity to implement sustainable seafood policies before their names are besmirched by the blood of orange roughy and Chilean seabass. Due to consumer pressure on these key issues, companies like Trader Joes,Whole Foods, Target and Costco have already improved their purchasing practices.  Speaking to store managers and demanding sustainable seafood policies is a simple, quick way to spark meaningful change.