CSU's 100 Views of Climate Change looks at the subject from all angles

Until John Calderazzo showed me his web site, I didn't know that there were 100 views of climate change.

That's the name of his site, 100 Views of Climate Change. It's an official Colorado State University site, one among hundreds at this place that started its life as Colorado A&M -- the big white Aggie "A" still lurks on the mountain above town.

John teaches in the CSU creative writing program which is part of the English Department. He is a writer of creative nonfiction which, put simply, means that he uses fiction writing techniques in his published books and articles and essays about volcanoes, rain forests, watersheds, etc. He takes his facts as seriously as he takes his technique. His book on volcanoes is fascinating. He once taught in China and had written extensively about Asia. Recently, he climbed his first big mountain, a 19,000-footer in Mexico. Pretty good for a guy who won't see 60 again.

I had a chance to visit with John when he was in Cheyenne for the Literary Connection put on by LCCC. He served as my first adviser when I went to CSU in 1988 as a thirty-something corporate dropout. We had a lot in common, including Florida roots, and he was only a few years older than me. We worked on several free-lance writing projects together. It's always good to see an old friend.

As is true with many Boomers in their sixties, John is not sitting in his office counting paper clips and marking off the days until retirement on a wall calendar. Well, he may be doing that but he's also bringing the climate change debate to CSU, Fort Collins, Colorado's Front Range and the Rocky Mountain West. He and his wife, Sue Ellen Campbell, are doing this together. Sue Ellen is also a published writer, professor and environmentalist. The duo has seen first-hand the depredations of climate change. They have written extensively on the subject.

When it was time to do something about it, they thought that they might as well start close to home. So many scientists at this university. Climatologists, soil biologists, ecologists, bioethicists, agronomists, water hydrologists and so on. And sometimes, to translate the work of these scientists, in come the artists, writers and performers.

No reputable scientist disputes the fact that global climate change is a real thing. However, the topic of "global climate change" sparks as many storms as a spring Rocky Mountain low pressure system. Policies that address climate change would affect almost all the ways that we've done business in the West for 100 years. They would affect coal mining, oil and gas drilling, coal-fired plants, transportation, infrastructure, home construction, and almost any other topic you could think of. Just the term "climate change" sends Wyoming Republicans into a tizzy. It's likely they work in the energy industry. It's certain that much of their election war chests come from EnCana and Peabody, etc. Many of their constituents work in the energy industry and make better money doing that than they would in almost any other endeavor. Local business groups and chambers of commerce welcome energy companies and energy jobs. The mayor of Gillette was just in Washington, D.C., telling a congressional committee to send more energy jobs his way.

So, it's not surprising that any hint of doing something about climate change causes berserkity to break out all over.

Chris Drury: "Carbon Sink: What Goes
Around Comes Around"

Here's a recent case in point from Wyoming's lone four-year university. A very talented artist, Chris Drury from the U.K., designed and installed a public art work on the UW campus. It's entitled 'Carbon Sink: What Goes Around Comes Around." It's made of real Wyoming coal and real beetle-killed trees from Wyoming forests. The burning of one of these things -- coal -- undoubtedly caused the warming planet which led to the pine bark beetle surviving winters which led to the killing of the trees. All of the parts will eventually return to the earth from whence they came, which is one of the messages of the piece. A giant circle of coal and wood spinning across a university lawn on its way back to the source. This also is our fate. The fate of humankind, of course, will be determined by the way we treat the planet.

Here's how the project was described on the UW Art Museum blog:

Chris Drury's Carbon Sink: What Goes Around Comes Around places beetle-kill pine and coal -- both natural resources in Wyoming -- in a formal structure derived from a mushroom spore, twisting into a vortex to suggest the natural process of decay, decomposition, and transformation.  Typical of the artist's work, who routinely connects natural phenomena from the macrocosmic to the microcosmic, the whirling deep, dark, and beautiful reflective properties of the coal play off the raw wood that has been charred so the materials merge at the center.

Some Wyomingites were not amused (snippets from stories about the installation from both the New York Times and The Guardian via Inhabitat): 

The coal industry immediately took offense: “They get millions of dollars in royalties from oil, gas and coal to run the university, and then they put up a monument attacking me, demonizing the industry,” stated Marion Loomis, the director of the Wyoming Mining Association.  

Two legislators also jumped into the fray -- Republican Representative Tom Lubnau and Gregg Blikre from Cambell County, site of the massive Powder River Basin coal mine. 

“While I would never tinker with the University of Wyoming budget – I’m a great supporter of the University of Wyoming – every now and then you have to use these opportunities to educate some of the folks at the University of Wyoming about where their paychecks come from,” stated Lubnau.

Read more here: Chris Drury’s “Carbon Sink” Art Installation Strikes Nerve of Wyoming Coal Industry Carbon Sink by Chris Drury – Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World 

As it turns out, it was a tempest in a teapot. No coal-crazed Republican legislators attacked the UW Art Museum budget. But we'll have many more of these. Some will be a lot more serious.

Chris Drury is obviously a thoughtful man in search of meaningful discussion of a big subject.

Maybe UW needs a dose of 100 Views of Climate Change. CSU is right down the road...

It's official -- Tea Party now in charge of the G.O.P.

We knew all along  that the Tea Party was steering the G.O.P. during this so-called "budget showdown." Anti-abortion zealots and climate change deniers are shutting down our government. It's as if my crazy neighbor, Tea Party Slim, was in charge of telling us all where to work and how to dress and who to vote for and which church we must attend (or else).

Go to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/07/tea-party-roadblock-polls_n_846122.html

Coming soon -- Wyoming coal-powered iPods

Did you know this:

Burlington Northern Santa Fe railway estimates that 500 pounds of coal are blown from each rail car for every 500 miles traveled?

Just one of the interesting facts in a Grist post and in a Sierra Magazine story about plans to ship Wyoming coal to China. The key element for the plan is to upgrade the Columbia River port in Longview, Wash. Environmentalists and the state government are resisting. May not be too much longer before money talks and the impasse is broken.

I'm reminded of that John Prine song, "Paradise:"

And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well I'm sorry my son but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away

With a few changes of place names (apologies to Mr. Prine), here are the lyrics:

And daddy won't you take me back to Campbell County
Down by the Powder River where Paradise lay
Well I'm sorry my son but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away 

To make iPods in China.

Campbell County isn't exactly paradise. And the Powder River was appropriately named. Many who live and work and ranch and write and sculpt there like it well enough. I have friends and colleagues in Gillette who think I live in the ugly part of the state.

Mixed feelings here about coal. The more Wyoming coal sold, the more royalties the state collects. The state coffer expands and my job is secure. It may be too much to hope for a raise, as the Wyoming Legislature is notoriously tight-fisted and, with its new Tea Party members, not in the mood for a spending spree.

All this to make iPods for the children of America? My children included?

There's the rub. China makes stuff we want and -- possibly -- need. We ship them coal thousands of miles and they ship us back iPods. I look around my study and see PCs and a digital camera and my DSL modem and surge protector and phone and photo frames and who knows what else. The only thing in this room I can vouch for as totally "Made in the U.S.A." is me, aging rapidly, and my mutt Coco stretched out on the floor for her mid-morning nap. Coco has a microchip (probably made in China) embedded in her hide. If needed, we can find her electronically if she ever disappears.

The articles are worth reading. Access them through your Wyoming coal-powered PCs.

Old King Coal not such a merry old soul

Laramie River coal plant near Wheatland 

China burns half of the world's coal production every year. It pollutes its air and kills its people, making heart disease the nation's number one killer. China's fossil-fuel habit is one of the main culprits of global warming.

Wyoming and Montana companies dig thousands of tons of coal from the ground every day. Our power plants can't burn all that coal to send power to Colorado and Texas and Utah. Other U.S. plants can't burn that much coal. Many states, Texas included, are scrubbing plans for new coal-fired plants.

To fill China's endless coal appetite, and to contribute to the further spread of cardiopulmonary illnesses, our states want to export more coal to China. There's money to be made, too. Not only for the coal companies, but for severance taxes which pay the salaries of government workers such as myself.

But Washington state is getting in the way of progress.

The Cowboy State and The Treasure State want to ship their coal directly to Asia through a port in Cowlitz County, Washington (a.k.a. The Gateway to Mt. St. Helens). Officials in the county have approved an upgrade to its Columbia River port, but environmental groups say not so fast (from the Casper Star-Tribune). 

On Tuesday, the Washington Department of Ecology petitioned to intervene in the appeal filed by Earthjustice. Ecology spokeswoman Kim Schmanke said the agency wants a seat at the table because it may be asked to approve other permits for the project.

Gov. Brian Schweitzer plans to travel to Washington state next week to seek support for the project. He said he's going to tell state officials it's irrational for them to oppose a port to export Montana coal when utilities that serve Washington state burn Montana coal.Freudenthal said Thursday that he would not expect Schweitzer to accomplish anything but making the trip. 

Freudenthal doubts Washington state officials will receive advice from someone from another state any more than Wyoming officials do when they get similar visits from an outsider. 

The immediate problem, Freudenthal said, is how to get the port exporting Wyoming coal. The larger issue is the need to figure out carbon capture and sequestration in order to receive support from the "rational" environmental groups, he said.

Meanwhile, Gov.-elect Matt Mead is working on a letter of support to send with Schweitzer next week, Mead spokeswoman Susan Anderson said Thursday. Mead takes office Monday. 

Freudenthal said people need to realize that the coal industry is "at risk" whether they agree that climate change is real or not. "This is about coal production, market share and jobs," Freudenthal said.

We're going to see more of these conflicts as we attempt to switch from fossil fuels to alternative energy sources that don't melt the ice caps and lead to the flooding of port cities from Seattle to San Diego. Red states want to ship their coal to China but the coastal blue states won't let them. No alternative but to send it to Houston and then on to the Panama Canal and then on to China. But that route would add time and miles and make the whole enterprise less cost-effective. The states could send the coal to Vancouver, B.C., which shipped about 26 million tons of coal to China this year. But how would that look, red-state Wyoming shipping its coal from Socialist Canada?

Even George Will is getting into the act. In a column this week, he could barely contain his glee that millions of tons of global-warming-contributing coal could be shipped out of a port adjacent to the Green Capital of the U.S. and maybe the world -- Portland, Oregon.

Cowlitz County in Washington state is across the Columbia River from Portland, Ore., which promotes mass transit and urban density and is a green reproach to the rest of us. Recently, Cowlitz did something that might make Portland wonder whether shrinking its carbon footprint matters.

I wonder why conservatives take such delight in destroying the planet? The fundies are all convinced that the end is coming anyway so why fight it? Doesn't matter to them if it's flood or fire. But George Will isn't in this Know Nothing camp. He's smarter than that. While he will no longer be with us when Washington Post columnists commute by gondola, one wonders why he doesn't care for the future of his family or your family or my family.

George Will makes his living by being the conservative curmudgeon in the bow tie. He's also a language scold and a know-it-all baseball fan. That's his platform and to turn Green (or even hint at it) at this late date will cost him.

He provides several quotes from James Fallows' recent cover story about coal in The Atlantic. In "Dirty Coal, Clean Future," Fallows makes the case that we can only get out of this hydrocarbon dilemma by trusting in China's new technologies to burn coal cleaner. The only way out is through. I just read the synopsis, but it seems as if Fallows would give a green light to the shipping of coal from Washington state. And the more we can ship, the better.

I'll read the article and respond. Meanwhile, here's a few parting words from George Will:

If the future belongs to electric cars, those in China may run on energy stored beneath Wyoming and Montana. 

And so run the hopes of the Govs of Wyoming and Montana.