Moving Susquehanna Valley Forward

Film Underscores Impacts of Climate Change

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Last night, CommUnity Zone and Susquehanna Valley Progressives co-sponsored a screening of Al Gore’s latest film, An Inconvenient Sequel at The Campus Theater in Lewisburg.

The film is a sequel to An Inconvenient Truth, which was released a decade ago and brought climate change into the heart of popular culture.An Inconvenient Sequel, shows just how accurate many of the predictions made in the first film were and, more importantly, how close we are to a real energy revolution.

120 people came out to watch the film and  a few dozen came to the subsequent discussion, which was moderated by local climate advocate Peterson Toscano and included panelists: Rob Altenburg of PennFuture and Dr. Nino Antadze, a visiting professor at Bucknell University .

Donations (a total of $371!) were collected at the film for the hurricane victims in Puerto Rico as these powerful hurricanes are becoming more and more prevalent due to warming air and water temperatures. 100% of the funds collected will be contributed to United for Puerto Rico. United for Puerto Rico is an initiative brought forth by the First lady of Puerto Rico, Beatriz Rosselló in collaboration with the private sector, with the purpose of providing aid and support to those affected in Puerto Rico by the passage of Hurricane Irma and Hurricane María.

The film underscores the devastating impacts of climate change, the resolve of many political, civic and religious leaders (on all sides of the political aisle) to take action, and the need for more to be done.

Al Gore and his organization, Climate Reality Project, are coming to Pennsylvania later in October to host the 36th Climate Reality Leadership Corps activist training in Pittsburgh. Over the course of three days, world class scientists, communicators, and climate experts will join former US Vice President and Climate Reality Founder and Chairman Al Gore to train citizens to become Climate Reality Leaders, who organize their communities for action on the climate crisis. Several local advocates plan to attend.

Susquehanna Valley Progressives is a nonpartisan organization united for the betterment of the whole community. We envision a community that empowers individuals to be engaged in and educated on the democratic process; promotes equality and appreciation of diversity; improves the living and working standards of all that live in Susquehanna Valley and actively protects our natural world. Learn more at SVProgress.org.

The CommUnity Zone unites area nonprofit organizations and the people in our community through collaborations to conduct and support community education and build capacity to sustain and improve a quality of life for all community residents. We are particularly interested in ways to empower all voices in the achievement of personal goals. Learn more at CommUnityZoneLewisburg.org.

In Defense of Quigley

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John Quigley was forced to resign as Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) over a terse email he sent to environmental advocacy groups regarding inaction on key environmental policies.

It’s important to note that Quigley took his role as DEP Secretary seriously and was dedicated to protecting Pennsylvania and Pennsylvanians. In a state where industry has considerable influence over laws and rule making, he was trying to fulfill DEP’s mission to “protect Pennsylvania’s air, land and water from pollution and to provide for the health and safety of its citizens through a cleaner environment.”  He was…doing his job.

Specifically, Quigley had been facilitating the lengthy and tedious process of overhauling Chapter 78, regulations which oversee oil and gas operations, and working to finalize Pennsylvania’s Clean Power Plan–an effort to reduce carbon emissions.  Two lofty goals in a state where natural gas and coal have dominated the energy scene and millions of dollars are spent each year to sway legislators in their direction.

The Chapter 78 revisions have been under works for over five years and began before Quigley was appointed Secretary. The process included two public input periods (drawing nearly 28,000 comments) and twelve public hearings.

The two major objections raised by conservatives in regards to the rules are: insufficient clarification between large-scale and smaller operations and missed filing deadlines. However, it is hard to take even these criticisms seriously when republicans have been working to obstruct the rule-making process long before it was ever near completion.

The new language eventually will go before the Independent Regulatory Review Commission (IRRC) for final review and approval. The legislature could potentially block the rules though the Governor has the ability to veto that action.

Quigley’s email was sent the day after both House and Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committees passed bi-partisan resolutions repudiating the new regulations and urging IRRC to reject them.

Republican Senator Gene Yaw, majority chair of the senate committee, made the motion to pass the resolution, claiming that the DEP had circumvented the regulatory process.

Senator John Yudichak, a democrat from Luzerne County, supported Yaw’s resolution. Many in the environmental community believe Yudichak was behind the campaign to remove Quigley. Why would a fellow democrat work so hard to remove the governor’s appointee?  It is believed that Yudichak’s loyalty lies with the coal and gas industry in his district. He has been a vocal opponent of stricter oil and gas regulations and also voted to delay Governor Wolf’s Clean Power Plan. Far from an environmental-friendly legislator, he scored only 38% from Clean Water Action’s most recent scorecard.

Quigley was pushing too hard (and by pushing too hard, I mean he was doing what we should expect him to do as DEP Secretary) to finalize regulations that the conservatively controlled legislature has been against all along.  He was putting the health and well-being of the people and the Commonwealth above special interests. He was trying to keep people and communities safe.

Legislators like Yaw and Yudichak do not seem to be too concerned about our water or air; they don’t care about a changing climate…they seem only to be concerned about the profitability of energy companies.

I was very impressed and grateful when Governor Wolf appointed Quigley to serve as DEP Secretary knowing his reputation as Mayor of Hazleton and former Secretary of the Department of Conservation & Natural Resources.

Now, I find myself disappointed. I see the Governor surrendering to a political witch hunt that gives conservatives another opportunity to obstruct good sound environmental policy.

John R. Faraguna is President is a founding member of the Susquehanna Valley Progressives.

Determined to Stop Reckless Development of Brush Valley

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With many similarities to the ill-conceived and unpopular plan from fifteen years ago, an initiative to build a prison in the pristine Trout run section of Brush Valley is once again being advanced. And like the original plot, this scheme it is just as, if not more, confusing.

The difference this time is that instead of a Federal prison, County Commissioner Clausi believes Brush valley is the best location to construct a new county prison; a project he has long supported, even before the sudden destruction of the Sunbury county prison.
What remains the same are the facts: Brush valley is an environmental diamond in the rough, whose value as a natural resource far outweighs any need to destroy it; there are many better locations available, (preferably in Sunbury); and as before, the public opposes it.

In an attempt to determine what could possibly be the reason Brush Valley seems to be the ONLY place prisons can be built, the Brush Valley Preservation Association (BVPA) is seeking documents detailing correspondences between Northumberland County and the owner of Brush Valley, Aqua America.  In addition, we’ve requested information concerning the County’s prison insurance policy. These documents are clearly public information, vital in understanding this situation. But, unfortunately, using a strategy that looks like it was torn from a previous administration’s play book, the county is dragging its feet in releasing these records.  We truly hope the county will learn from the failed actions of those previous commissioners, and honor our requests in a timely manor.

And now, most disturbingly of all, it has come to light that an investigation into a possible arson plot at the prison is underway. How such a plot, if real, could be connected with the desire to build a prison in Brush Valley is not yet clear. But even the accusation of arson is deeply troubling.

Yes, the  push to once again waste the taxpayer’s money by needlessly destroying Brush Valley is back, more perplexing than ever. It made little sense before, and even less now.
Fortunately, something else is back: our determination to stop it.

I am only one, but still I am one

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Many of us in some quiet moment ask ourselves whether our life has had meaning or what our life has meant to this point. We are capable of looking back at our past and projecting our possible futures. This is a very human process. The search for meaning is an ongoing process. Some may look to books like Dr. Victor Frankel’s Man’s Search for Meaning. A Book that may provide a few answers to some. Even in the last year of my seventh decade I still don’t have any solid answers to these questions.

One thing that appears certain, whatever the meaning of life, is that in all of life’s many forms the greatest drive is the continuation of the species. While the human species is also driven to reproduce, we also seem to be driven to destroy ourselves and the life around us. Our actions and our actions alone now pose a threat to the future of our species and many of our fellow creatures. Through a combination of our ignorance, greed, thoughtlessness, selfishness, and laziness the life on this planet has entered the planet’s sixth major extinction period.

Ignorance of this fact is no excuse for not acting to protect future generations of our own kind and all other life forms. Life forms on which we are absolutely dependent. We are not the creators of life and have no right to be the cause of life’s destruction. We have developed a culture whose only goal seems to be the acquisition of more and more of everything. Our drive to acquire appears to be insatiable. We take no notice of the destruction that results from the production of ever more stuff in our personal quest of acquisition. We are busily laying up treasures which moth and rust corrupt. Chris Hedges has written

If I were to ask which has more value, a pound of gold or a pound of good soil, the probable choice of most would be the gold. Yet we can live and thrive without gold but life for us would be impossible without good soil. We are now heedlessly supporting a system of agriculture and economics which is destroying the planet’s fertility. Our country has already lost over a third of its topsoil. Every bushel of corn grown by this system results is the loss of forty-four pounds of top soil. We take fertile ground and bury under asphalt. Our industrial agriculture’s only goal is profit, not the long term health of the land. We us pesticides and herbicides so liberally that much runs off to poison or lakes and streams. Billions of pounds of animal waste adds to this toxic brew. We have created vast dead zones in the Chesapeake Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.

We not only poison the soil with our vast array of readily available chemicals, we poison our own bodies. There is much debate over abortion in this country, but those fighting to end all abortions seem to be unconcerned about the toxic substances that enter these same embryos and fetuses. With little thought or testing we now subject the life of our planet with over 80,000 man-made chemicals.

Our corporations are amoral entities that pursue profits by externalizing as many costs as possible. They fight any attempt to prevent their polluting our air and water. If corporations really were people, they would be classified as psychopaths. They never feel guilt or remorse for their destructive actions. They do all they can to absolve themselves of responsibility. Ever hear any Wall Street bankers apologize for collapsing the economy? Monsanto now produces seeds for plants are really pesticides. We are all lab rats in the experiment on the safety of GMO’s. Chris Hedges has written “the mania for ceaseless economic expansion and exploitation has become a curse, a death sentence.”

It is a matter of observable fact that life is rapidly vanishing from the planet as a direct result of our actions. This is not speculation or a matter of opinion. It is an observable fact. It is we who are clearcutting the great rainforests on earth and the greatest diversity of life on the planet. We value cheap hamburgers more than life’s diversity. It is we who are stripping the oceans of the world of life far faster than they can recover. It is we who are causing desertification around the world. Our demand for every more beef has caused the destruction of hundreds of thousands rangeland acres.

The mere fact that there are environmental organizations makes a statement about the nature of our civilization and culture. Why would a sane culture need them? Environmental groups though they win a battle here and there are losing the fight to protect the planet. What I find most disturbing about the “big green” groups, many of which I am a member, is their failure to take on directly our type of capitalistic economic system which feels free to pollute and destroy the planet and is based on ever more consumption. These groups nibble around the edges but don’t want to offend any of their members by taking on the system.

Sooner or later the majority of the population may demand that we deal with climate change and all the other environmental issues we face. But will it be too late? Will we have passed so many tipping points so that we will not be able to stop the freight train of climate change, species loss, soil degradation, contamination of land and water, and the changing of the composition of our atmosphere?

I am asking you to take on the fight to preserve our biosphere and our species. I ask because I believe we have a moral obligation to posterity. The founding fathers often talked about posterity, but is something seldom heard from today’s politicians. They and our corporate leaders are only fixed on the next quarter’s profits and the latest stock market index. They only care about the accumulation of more wealth by the wealthy. A wealth accumulated by the exploitation of the planet and most of its people. Are we too comfortable with our life to take up this fight? Are we too concerned with the accumulation of more stuff? Are we too comfortable hiding in ignorance and denial?

I certainly don’t know the answers to questions for each individual, but it is clear where most of in our society stand. Unless there is a general demand from the population for action to protect our grandchildren and their grandchildren, our political leaders won’t act. They are too wedded to the powerful who are consumed with their wealth and power.

Edward Everett Hale wrote “I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. ” Henry Thoreau wrote that we are a society of one, and so we can change our society of one now, we don’t have to wait for the whole society to change. So it is up to us to begin the change needed to protect the life of the planet and in so doing hope to change the society as a whole. We can take contentment in knowing that we have chosen to act, not in a selfish way, but in a way which is true and moral. We can think beyond ourselves and to those who will follow us.

To the deniers I leave you with a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a leader of the underground church in Nazi Germany. “Folly is a more dangerous enemy to the good than evil. One can protest against evil; it can be unmasked and, if need be, prevented by force. Evil always carries the seeds of its own destruction, as it makes people, at the least, uncomfortable. Against folly we have no defense. Neither protests nor force can touch it; reasoning is no use; facts that contradict personal prejudices can simply be disbelieved- indeed the fool can counter by criticizing them, and if they are undeniable, they can just be pushed aside as trivial exceptions. So the fool, as distinct from the scoundrel, is completely self-satisfied; in fact, he can easily become dangerous, as it does not take much to make him aggressive.”

Basic Rights, Basic Necessities

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“The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic, and esthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania’s public natural resources are the common property of all of the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people.”

These are the words of Article 1, Section 27 of the Pennsylvania Constitution.  Former state senator Franklin Cury was the catalyst and author of the amendment. Its intention, in Cury’s own words, was to establish “a legal right to a decent environment under the state constitution” and “effectively change the balance of legal power and give environmental quality (and the human race) at least an even chance in the coming years.”

The devastation our own area had experienced through the unregulated extraction of coal was Cury’s inspiration for the amendment.  Lifeless streams, orange with acid mine drainage, abandoned strip mines, mine fires and huge banks of culm deposited throughout the region…just some of the legacy we all still bear from the golden age of coal. How could the coal industry destroy large supplies of water and acres of land without consequence?

Fast forward several decades and now we are asking how the natural gas industry can be permitted to contaminate water supplies, deforest Penn’s Woods, pollute our air and contribute to the greatest calamity of our time…climate change?

In Pennsylvania, over 7,100 active wells exist. Each of these wells require 400 tanker trucks to carry water and supplies. In just the few years that the industry has been active, over 35.5 billion gallons of Pennsylvania’s fresh water has been combined with more than 284 million gallons of chemicals (including known carcinogens) and pumped into the ground.  There are numerous communities where residents can not or will not drink their water because of safety concerns.

During the production and distribution of natural gas, our air quality is also threatened through intentional and unintentional releases of methane. Methane has a 20 times more powerful impact on our atmosphere than carbon dioxide. For this reason, gas drilling not only depletes our ozone layer but also exacerbates climate change.

We have been afforded the constitutional right to clean air and water, yet communities in Pennsylvania are finding these very basic necessities of life threatened. Our constitution protects our public natural resources, yet nearly half of our state parks and forests are leased for drilling. The purity and aesthetics of our environment are safeguarded through this amendment yet, thousands of miles of pipelines traverse the state just beneath our forests, farms, rivers and communities.

The Pennsylvania Environmental Defense Foundation (PEDF) has filed a lawsuit in an effort to defend our state parks and forests, ensure the proper investment of Oil & Gas Lease Funds (OGLF) and fortify our environmental amendment.

Governor Wolf’s moratorium on any additional drilling in our state forests is a welcome policy change; if Corbett would have had his way, additional state lands would have been opened up for drilling in an attempt to satisfy budget shortfalls last year. Thankfully, PEDF’s lawsuit halted Corbett’s plans.

The lower courts have ruled against PEDF’s argument regarding OLGF but has reaffirmed the Department of Conservation & Natural Resources is ultimately responsible for the stewardship of our state parks and forests.

Our state constitution ensures the protection of our most basic rights–to breathe clean air and drink clean water. An individual’s constitutional right should trump corporate profits and should be upheld and protected, even if doing so is not the easiest path or even the most popular.

When does a constitutional right become a guaranteed freedom? When will our communities be free from water and air pollution? When will our state parks and forests be free of industrial infrastructure that threaten their pristine nature? When will our Commonwealth serve as a true trustee to our natural resources, safeguarding them for future generations?

It is up to us to ensure that these rights are taken seriously by our elected officials. Let’s stand together and tell our legislators and the governor that they must ensure the protection of these basic rights, our basic necessities.