GPOK members Jean McMahon and Huti Reynolds have been in contact with the Eco Action Committee of the Green Party since they heard from the Oklahoma Sustainability Network last January that a 950-megawatt coal-fired power plant was in the works to be built at Red Rock, Oklahoma.

They got support and resources from a great group called the National Energy Justice Network, the only national group dedicated to no more coal plants.

July 1, they heard from James Branum, GPOK state Secretary, and Fannie Bates, an Oklahoma City activist:

What is arguably the most important environmental decision made by/for the current generation of Oklahomans is about to happen and I am, as usual, amazed/chagrined that it is going virtually unnoticed. First the immediate facts which OG&E has made public:

On Monday, July 2 and Tuesday July 3, Oklahoma Gas & Electric will be before the Oklahoma Corporation Commission seeking pre-approval to build a new coal-fired power plant at the existing Sooner Power Plant near Red Rock, Oklahoma. The hearings begin at 8:30 a.m. and will be held in Courtroom 301 on the third floor of the Jim Thorpe Building at 2101 N. Lincoln in OKC. The proceedings will be adjourned for the July 4th holiday and will reconvene on Monday, July 9. All interested parties may appear at the hearings to make public comments.

It proposes to build what it “contends” (OG&E’s language)is a “state-of-the- art” 950 megawatt coal-fired power plant in collaboration with PSO (Public Service Company of Okla.) and the Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority (OMPA). These three entities will share costs and ownership of the plant (OG&E 42%, PSO 50%, and OMPA 8%), which is estimated to cost approximately $1.8 billion to build. OG&E will build the plant and operate it when it is complete.

According to OG&E, rate changes to recover the cost will be phased in from 2007 to 2012-average cost per month increase for OG&E customers is estimated to be “a cumulative total” of $4.66 per month.

OG&E lists the following contact information regarding the application: OG&E at 1-800-272-9741. The Commission’s web site is www.occeweb. com or you can send written comments addressed to:
OG&E Red Rock Approval
c/o Office of General Counsel
Oklahoma Corporation Commission
P.O. Box 52000
Oklahoma City, OK 73152-2000

The Chairman of the Corporation Commission is Jeff Cloud. Bob Anthony and Jim Roth are the other two commissioners. Their address is as above.

So Huti and Jean rushed down to Oklahoma City on July 2. The OG&E lawyer noticed their Green Party T-shirts and spoke with them, as did the judge, “for some time,” Jean reports.

“I think the main point is, however she (the judge) decides, it will be contested. She apologized that public comments had been postponed for that day.”

Jean and Huti returned the following Monday for the public portion of the hearing — Jean in her famous polar bear suit that got some media attention. “We made our public statements. I believe it was useful for the Green Party to get info out via the media that environmental groups in Oklahoma do oppose coal-fired plants Our fellow citizens may think everyone loves coal by listening to the corporate press.”

Here is statement from the Green Party:

The U.S. is blessed with tremendous renewable energy potential, enough to meet the entire electric demand of the country. We call for a Manhattan Project-level of commitment to developing clean renewable energy technologies—technologies that do not create pollution in the course of generating electricity. These can include wind, solar, ocean power, geothermal, and small-scale hydro. Since even clean renewable energy can have negative environmental impacts, care must be taken to minimize such impacts. Clean renewable energy does not include nuclear power, any sort of combustion or process in which by-products are ultimately combusted, or hydroelectric dams that block entire rivers.

The period for public input closes July 23. It is unknown when the decision will be made.

Recent studies show that climate change is accelerating and serious points are being passed much sooner than expected. It will soon be too late.

Steven D at Booman Tribune has collected the latest reports into a grim picture:

We’ve Passed the Tipping Point on Global Warming

[…] We are witnessing changes that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago. Changes that were not predicted to occur for several more decades are showing up now, as you read these words of mine. Temperatures and sea levels rising faster than our climate change models predicted. Glaciers vanishing before our eyes. Ice melting in the interior of Antarctica in a region the size of California, where ice has never melted before in recorded history.

[…]

All while Exxon continues to pour millions of dollars into the coffers of conservative think tanks which seek to deny that global climate change is occurring. All while the Bush administration continues to mount a diplomatic offensive to prevent any global action on steps to reduce carbon emissions and other green house gases. […]

Also at the top of the list of those willfully ignoring reality and refusing to act (except to make things worse!), is Oklahoma’s Senator Inhofe.

Click through to the original post for links to studies, articles, reports and other documentation.

The Center for Biological Diversity has just released a new report “Politicizing Extinction: Bush’s Dangerous Approach” which details the current administration’s negligence regarding species protection.

Bush Administration Sets All-time Record for Denying Protection to Endangered Species: Zero New Listings in Past Year
Report Documents Rampant Executive Interference in Protection of Rare Wildlife

WASHINGTON— Today marks exactly one year since the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service last protected any new U.S. species under the Endangered Species Act. Fittingly, on this same day, the House Natural Resources Committee is holding important oversight hearings on implementation of the Endangered Species Act by a recalcitrant Bush administration. The last time the agency went an entire year without protecting a single species was in 1981, when the infamous James Watt was Secretary of Interior. There are currently 279 highly imperiled species that are designated as candidates for listing as threatened or endangered and that face potential extinction.

“The Bush administration has closed the doors on endangered species,” said Noah Greenwald, conservation biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity. “With the pressing threats of rapid habitat destruction and global climate change, it’s an outrage that not a single new species has been protected by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for an entire year.” Read the rest of this entry »

This is a post from JMBzine, the blog of Oklahoma County Green James Branum, an organic gardener, who caught an interesting article in the New York Times:

NY Times: Feeling Warmth, Subtropical Plants Move North

. . . Already, some states are facing the possibility that the cherished local flora that has helped define their identities — the Ohio buckeye, the Kansas sunflower or the Mississippi magnolia — may begin to disappear within their borders and move north.

By the end of the century, the climate will no longer be favorable for the official state tree or flower in 28 states, according to “The Gardener’s Guide to Global Warming,” a report released last month by the National Wildlife Federation.

. . . Groups that cater to gardeners have hastened to keep up. In December, the National Arbor Day Foundation released an updated version of the United States Department of Agriculture’s Hardiness Zone Map, which shows the lowest winter temperatures in different parts of the country and is used by gardeners to determine which plants can survive in their yards.

Using data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Arbor Day map indicates that many bands of the country are a full zone warmer, and a few spots are two zones warmer, than they were in 1990, when the map was last updated. . .

Pretty interesting stuff. The problem is that the complexities of what is to come, are to hard to fathom. We human beings have such a limited capacity to understand the fullness of creation and frankly I don’t think we have the slightest clue of what we really have unleashed. To imagine a world where bluebonnets no longer grow in Texas… that is a bleakly sad thought and yet it could be reality in my lifetime.

Arborday.org: Differences between the 1990 and 2006 hardiness zones (it is crazy that my grandparent’s farm which used to be in a small pocket of zone 6 in western Oklahoma is now in zone 7, and that far southern Oklahoma is now in zone 8 — the same zone that Austin is in.)

Arborday.org: Video that highlights the zone changes

Here’s a great little story from the OU Daily about the Oklahoma Food Cooperative and how students can eat well and support local farmers and ranchers — and check out the graphic by Cody Mulcahy.

Thinking globally, shopping locally

[…] Waldrop said the co-op exists for three main reasons. He said the food tastes better because it is taken better care of once it is harvested locally; it is environmentally sustainable because it does not have to be shipped long distances; and its revenue supports rural areas and local farmers.

“People want to support rural areas because they are disappearing quickly,” Waldrop said.[…]