Forrest for the Trees

Last month, Fox News weeper Glenn Beck managed to force green jobs advisor Van Jones from his perch in the Obama administration.

Beck got his scalp but he did little to discredit Jones’ fundamental idea: That the twin economic and environmental crises are intertwined and can – and must – be addressed together.

One of the problems with modern environmentalism has been the notion that the economy and the environment are in tension. Powerful corporate interests and right-wing politicians play on this meme.

Texas Republicans and oil/gas/coal/chemical corporations, for example, are attacking congressional action on climate change as a death sentence for low-income Americans.

Jones helped dissolve that false dichotomy.

In his book, Green Collar Economy, Jones laid out a sweeping set of prescriptions to lift people out of poverty while addressing environmental problems.

In keeping with his pragmatic philosophy of finding ‘what works’, the book extolls the maturation of green entrepreneurship and investor interest in renewable energy technologies while also exploring more radical, bottoms-up efforts that try to completely rethink the way our country works.

The media and politicians tend to focus on the former. But there’s some exciting stuff going at the grassroots. One example of the grassroots approach cited in Green Collar Economy is that of green worker cooperatives, businesses owned by the employees that operate in an ecologically-sustainable manner.

Last night, at a Central Austin church, a prime mover in the American green worker coop movement, Omar Freilla, explained how to put the concept into action.

UT journalism prof and moon-lighting agitator Bob Jensen introduced Freilla as a “bit of a strange character.” Strange, Jensen said, because Freilla has lived in the U.S. his whole life and believes in democracy, including democracy in the workplace.

Freilla, a 35-year-old Dominican man, was a tad more modest. As Freilla explained, he grew up in the South Bronx at a time when the area became synonmous in the American consciousness with “urban ghetto.”

Unlike many of his peers, he escaped the burning buildings and grinding poverty, earning a master’s degree in environmental science at Miami University in Ohio. When Freilla returned to the South Bronx, he plunged into environmental justice work, his passion.

The really interesting twist in Freilla’s career came in 2003 when he launched Green Worker Cooperatives, an organization that incubates ecologically-sustainable, worker-owned businesses.

Freilla said he took a look around South Bronx and saw high unemployment, despair, disempowerment and polluting industries that no one else wanted – heavy manufacturing, diesel-spewing bus depots, etc – sitting side-by-side with neighborhoods. He also saw mountains of waste.

Why not put people to work reusing that waste, he thought. Freilla decided to go one step further: Why not put workers in control of the business? They’ll own it, run it, and keep the profits in the community.

Or as GWC’s motto says: “Creating ‘green collar’ jobs and worker ownership in the South Bronx…because your work shouldn’t kill you, your community, or the earth.”

The first up-and-running green worker co-op founded by GWC is ReBuilders Source, a discount retailer of surplus and used building materials.

It’s a “different kind of business,” said Freilla last night, “an alternative to the traditional system we’ve all grown up with and cannot be named – it starts with a ‘C’.”

Worker-owned co-ops may indeed challenge American capitalism but like any other business they have to be viable. Founders of GWC-sponsored co-ops must have a business plan, seed money, and at least 16 weeks of intensive training.

Just getting ReBuilders off the ground took five years.

Freilla is now working on several other co-ops, including a solar products manufacturing company, a diner that uses local and organic ingredients, and a vegetarian food processing business. Given the devastating economic downturn, he believes the time is right for the green co-op idea to spread.

“Wherever there are communities where people have been left out of the picture, where people have been dealing with environmental burdens, or are suffering from poverty and there aren’t enough jobs, people are still bubbling with ideas and want to see something different – people are calling us up,” Freilla told the Austin Chronicle.

After Freilla’s speech, Austin activist Carlos Perez de Alejo discussed efforts to jumpstart green worker co-ops in Austin.

The group behind the push, Third Coast Workers for Cooperation, will work to launch one or two co-ops and then gradually move into more of a support role, providing technical assistance, publicity, and training for member co-ops.

“What we’re talking about is workplace democracy and spreading democracy beyond the voting booth,” Perez said.

In development are a catering company committed to using local/seasonal ingredients and a green building co-op composed of construction workers affiliated with the Workers Defense Project.

Austin, Perez says, is well-suited for worker-owned cooperatives.

“Austin is uniquely set up to be supportive of something like this in that there’s already a culture that supports local independent businesses and has a long history of compassion for the environment. I don’t think it’s a huge step to add workplace democracy to that.”

Here’s an interview I did with KPFT’s Ann Raber this week. The topic is Austin Energy’s ambitious plan to ramp up renewables from 12 percent to 35 percent by 2020. The interview will air on KPFT in the Houston-Galveston area.

Updated

It seems Sen. Hutchison is giving Rick Perry a run for his money when it comes to dubious claims about climate change legislation.

At a stop in Big Spring on Monday, Kay railed against cap and trade, warning that action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would wreck the Texas economy, raise prices, and cause massive job losses. Sounds familiar.

The volume of distortions, screwy statistics and faulty logic in her remarks (as thoroughly reported by the Big Spring Herald) is dizzying. Let’s start with one of her sweeping claims.

Even the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) administrator says it will do nothing to stop the global emissions, and wouldn’t even help the environment because no other country is doing this.

I’ve asked the Hutchison campaign to clarify her remarks here. I don’t know if she is referring to something EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has said.

In any case, the whole point of Waxman-Markey is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to mitigate climate change. No one has ever claimed that a congressional cap-and-trade effort would “stop the global emissions.”

That’s a red herring, plain and simple.

The core of Waxman-Markey is a cap on domestic greenhouse gasses: a 17 percent reduction by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050. Truth be told, this is probably far from enough to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Still, it’s better than nothing and almost certainly will have some positive effect on the environment.

Hutchison also claims that “no other country is doing this.” Doing what? I don’t know but I’ve asked the KBH campaign to clarify what she meant. Presumably, Hutchison is implying that other nations aren’t tackling climate change.

Wrong.

Many countries have been begging the U.S. to take action for at least two decades, most recently at the UN meeting last week. Does anyone recall the Kyoto Protocol?

Even right-wingers in Europe are pushing for immediate action to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Some are already well on their way.

Sweden, for example, imposed a carbon tax in 1991, which has, along with other programs, resulted in a 10 percent cut in C02 emissions (from 1990 levels) despite a 50 percent economic growth rate.

The main thrust of Hutchison’s comments, though, dealt with the economic impacts of cap-and-trade. Let’s zoom in on some of her specific assertions.

“It will be especially hard on Texas,” she said. “The estimates the [Texas] Comptroller has put out are Texas could lose as few as 170,000 jobs and as many as 470,000 jobs because this bill would do so much to raise the price of everything.”

The comptroller study to which she’s referring has become the go-to source for Texas conservatives looking to sprinkle their climate fear-mongering with statistics. But consider the source. The report’s primary author is Dr. Michelle Foss, the Chief Energy Economist for UT’s Center for Energy Economics.

Sounds pretty academic, right? Not really. Foss has a PhD in political science, not economics. She co-owns a coal seam gas company and has worked for Shell Oil, ConocoPhillips, and many other oil/gas companies and utilitiies. She’s also presented at climate change denial conferences. In short, Foss is not a dispassionate analyst.

Not surprisingly, the assumptions used in Foss’s analysis of Waxman-Markey’s economic effects come, in part, from another sketchy analysis by the National Black Chamber of Commerce, an offshoot of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a recipient of funding from Exxon-Mobil.

Hilariously, the peer-review for Foss’s study comes from the climate-denying, Exxon-funded Heritage Foundation, the Exxon-funded American Center for Capital Formation and the National Association of Manufacturers.

Recall that the primary “think tank/academic” presenters at the recent “Cap and Trade Summit” were… drum roll… Michelle Foss, the Heritage Foundation, and the American Center for Capital Formation. These folks must see a lot of each other on the climate-bashing circuit.

The most glaring flaw in Foss’s jobs analysis is that she didn’t include any of the jobs created by Waxman-Markey. As stated on page 5 of the report:

These model results do not incorporate any assumptions of specific benefits for Texas associated with ACESA. For instance, CEE and CPA did not attempt to capture job creation and economic output associated with growth in industries, such as those associated with renewable energy technologies.

Ironically, a wind company just installed one of the largest wind farms in the nation near Big Spring, a beneficiary no doubt of federal and state rewewable energy policies.

Another Hutchison claim:

It’s estimated your home electricity bill will go up 90 percent because of this legislation. So every family is going to have higher costs, as well, for all of the energy they use.

Once again, I’ve asked the Hutchison campaign to provide a citation for this statistic. It certainly doesn’t square with studies by the Congressional Budget Office and the EPA.

The most recent EPA analysis (yes, I’ve read it) found that the average household would see their costs rise $80 to $111, or about 48 cents per day. Consumer spending on utility bills will be 7 percent lower by 2020 due to energy efficiency measures in the bill, according to EPA.

Other economists have estimated the economic benefits of the bill to likely exceed the costs by as much as nine-to-one.

But, whatever. When it comes to climate change, there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between Kay and Rick. Both prefer to do nothing.

 

Update: I received a response from Courtney Sanders, a spokesperson in Hutchison’s Senate office. I had asked Sanders to provide clarifications for her factual assertions (see above) and to answer whether she agrees with Perry that climate change isn’t caused by human activity.

The entirety of the response is as follows:

Forrest – check out these two sites. They should clarify.

Thanks!

CS

http://www.heritage.org/research/energyandenvironment/wm2450.cfm   

http://tinyurl.com/ydglpg4

I’m still trying to get Hutchison’s office to respond to my question regarding her stance on the facticity of climate change.

Updated

I’m reading through the results of an eye-opening air quality study that found potentially dangerous levels of carcinogens from natural gas activity in DISH, Texas (h/t TXsharon).

If you recall, this is the little burg in Denton County that changed its name in 2005 from Clark to DISH™ in order to score free satellite TV for its citizens.

Actually, the town should be re-branded Atmos Energy or Chesapeake Energy to reflect its distinction as the epicenter of Wild West-style natural gas production in the Barnett Shale.

As Calvin Tillman, the mayor of DISH, explains on his blog:

We have three metering stations, 11 compressor stations, and over 20 pipeline, in less that 2 square miles. We are hard working honest people who have been dealt a raw hand by the pipeline industry.

And:

As you all know DISH, TX is the dirty little secret that the pipeline industry wishes to keep quiet. We are pretty much ruined here, but it is not too late to spread the word on what has happened here, so others may not have to deal with the horrible things that we have here.

Skeptical of claims from the natural gas industry and state regulators that the odors in DISH were harmless, the town officials launched their own investigation.

Does the air in DISH simply stink or is it toxic too? To find out, they commissioned Wolf Eagle, an engineering consultancy, to take air samples at seven locations downwind from a complex of compressors and test them for the presence of chemicals.

The results, while far from comprehensive, are sobering.

The Wolf Eagle study “confirmed the presence in high concentrations of carcinogenic and neurotoxin compounds in ambient air near and/or on residential properties.”

High levels were detected for sixteen different chemicals. Five of the locations sampled had concentrations of toxins that exceed TCEQ’s Effects Screening Levels (ESLs), scientifically-based benchmarks below which no health or safety effects are expected.

In one location, for example, the air sample contained 10 chemicals that exceeded the ESLs.

Benzene, a known cancer-causing agent, was found to be 8.7 times greater than the long-term ESL; carbon disulfide, a reproductive and developmental toxicant, was 10.7 times greater than the short-term standard and 107 times greater than the long-term ESL; Naphthalene, a potentially cancer-causing chemical, was present at 3.6 times the long-term ESL; and so on.

The study concludes, naturally, by calling for further study.

So, what’s next for DISH? I’ve emailed Mayor Tillman and will post his response when I receive it.

Update: Mayor Tillman’s response:

Thanks for your inquiry. I had no idea when we had this study performed that the results would be so disturbing.

Obviously,we had concerns that prompted the study, and expected the results to be bad, just wasn’t prepared for results this bad.

Due to the overall number of chemicals (16) that exceeded both short term and long term exposure limits, and the level of toxins detected, (one was 107 times the long term exposure limits), immediate action needs to be taken.

My position is that the operators involved in this facility need to shut the site down until they can operate it responsibly. The town is reviewing the data and is looking at all legal options at this point.

On Tuesday, as noted in a post yesterday, three state agencies invited a bunch of Exxon-funded climate denialists and representatives from carbon-intensive industries to a day-long bash-a-thon of congressional action on climate change.

Gov. Perry gave the opening address, subtly calling the Waxman-Markey bill a “monstrosity” and an “impending meteor strike on the Texas economy.”

It was a remarkable event, laying bare how far the state’s Republican leaders are willing to go to protect the industries they’re supposed to regulate. This was clearly a preview of what’s to come when the Senate takes up climate change legislation next year.

My guess: The campaign is going to look a lot like health-care reform, with corporate interests pouring money into Astroturf groups and Republican leaders stirring up their base into an apocalyptic fury.

Yet, the MSM totally missed the story. Based on a search of the Lexis-Nexis news database, only one 480-word story (Matthew Tresaugue, Houston Chronicle) appeared in the dailies about the summit. The Capitol press corps instead chose to keep pushing the non-story story on Gov. Perry’s recession remarks.

The summit, apparently, was just an opportunity for the political reporters to ambush Perry and keep the pseudo-story alive.

For example, Jason Embry in the Austin American-Statesman:

“Anyone who has listened to my remarks who’s not just a rank political hack knows that in almost every one of my remarks, I have talked about the seriousness of this recession, how it’s impacting people,” Perry said at the Capitol after a brief speech on federal climate-change legislation.

If you want to nail Perry for saying crazy stuff, ask him about his views on climate change.