Greenpeace

On 10/10/10 people from virtually every nation on earth stood together to send a message to world leaders:  it’s time to get to work and move forward with policies which reduce dangerous climate change.

In Austin, TX residents rallied against the state’s deepening dependence on dirty coal, the leading source of global warming pollution in the United States.   Despite the fact that Texas already consumes more coal than any other state, there are currently 12 new coal plants in some phase of permitting or construction across the state.  This would almost double the number of dirty coal plants polluting Texas.

To the Austin residents who participated in the “Global Work Party”,  building any new dirty coal plants is simply unacceptable.

At the Austin “Global Work Party” community leaders addressed a major underlying reason for why Texas continues to rely on dirty coal: our politicians’ campaigns are funded by dirty energy companies.  In the entire U.S. Congress, the top two recipients of dirty energy money are Texas Senator John Cornyn and Texas Congressman Joe Barton.  Together, they’ve received almost $4 million in campaign contributions from polluting energy companies.

These are the same guys that voted on federal energy policy which gave 72 billion dollars of tax payer money (in the form of subsidies) to dirty energy companies between 2002 -2008.  In that same period of time federal subsidies for traditional renewable energy sources were only $29 billion dollars.

Another reason we continue to rely so heavily on dirty coal is that our current policies allow the dirty energy corporations to keep all of the profit while passing off the true cost of their polluting industry to the rest of us.  For example, coal ash is the waste leftover after a coal plant incinerates coal.  It’s filled with toxins and heavy metals such as lead, arsenic, and mercury.  Rather than treating coal ash as a hazardous substance, it’s currently less regulated than the garbage that comes out of our homes and businesses.  Therefore, coal companies oftentimes dispose of this toxic coal ash the cheapest way possible; they dump it in giant unlined pits.  When it rains these heavy metals seep into our groundwater and contaminate our lakes, rivers, and streams.

With dirty energy companies buying off our politicians, it’s no wonder that federal policies encourage our continued reliance on polluting 19th century technologies.

The only thing more powerful than organized money is organized people.  Work Party participants urged Texas politicians to move us in a new direction.   With clipboards in hand they hit the streets of Austin collecting petition signatures asking the EPA to regulate coal ash a hazardous substance.

If you think that coal ash should be regulated as a toxic substance, please make your voice heard and submit your own comment to the EPA.