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The Social, HEALTH AND ECONOMIC Impact of Coal Putting Faces on the Consequences of America’s Addiction to Coal
The Social, HEALTH AND ECONOMIC Impact of Coal
Putting Faces on the Consequences of America’s Addiction to Coal
Presentation Overview• Overview of NAACP ECJ Program • What is Environmental & Climate Justice?• Disproportionate Exposure• Disproportionate Impact• The Injustice of Coal and Communities of Color• North Omaha Station and North Omaha Profile• Planning the Strategy• Short Video: Reverend Dear in Chicago• What Are Affected Communities Doing?• What Do You Want To Do?
Disproportionate EXPOSURECogentrix Plant, Portsmouth, VA
Disproportionate EXPOSURECrawford Plant, Chicago, IL
Points of injustice Cesar Chavez High School, Houston, TX
WIDE spread exposure River Rouge Community Park, MI
Subsistence Fishing Out of a Toxic Soup
Disproportionate IMPACT
Antoine—Always watching, seldom playing
CLIMATE CHANGE
We need to take control!We need to take control!We need to take control! Of this climate!<Repeat>
It’s getting hot! Yeah it’s heating up!!
The climate’s changing! How it’s affecting us!!
You mean the floods storms, droughts, and fires.
And heat related deaths in the US is getting higher!
Now who at risk? You at risk? So what you doin’?
Neighborhoods affected by all this air pollution…..
It’s not amusing. It’s a problem . It’s solution!
Decreasing carbon footprint…..it’s really not hard to do it.
I been going green since I was a little kid. In my hood the heat is killing kids!
Get Your Green Classhttp://soundcloud.com/getyourgreen123/green-team-climate-control
I speak for the climate. Yeah, I’m the earth’s ventriloquist!
Those heat waves, I know you feeling it.
Stop burning that coal. Use propane when you grilling it cause it could harm your respiratory
Ask these politicians for change. They ain’t doing nothing for me.
They pollute around my area cuz we ain’t in they category!
We need to take control! Of this climate!Ladder to prosperity…I’m ready to climb it!
This country’s morals, laws…..Somebody help me find it
Our eco-death certificate. They ready to sign it!
And I ain’t having that, especially not around my habitat! And that’s mainly where it happen at!
They acting upon us. So that’s the reason why we acting back.
Protesting, lobbying,….. Going green is my hobby, man.
Stop drilling for fossils. Worry ‘bout tomorrow!
Keep going at this rate, the whole earth going be in sorrow. No resources to borrow.
I said let’s take control of our climate and your carbon footprint, please try to decline it!
It’s getting hot! Yeah, it’s heating up! The climate’s changing! How it’s affecting us….
IMPACTS---EXTREME WEATHER
HurricanesDroughtFloods
EarthquakesTropical Cyclones
LandslidesWildFires
Heat or Cold Wavesand much more….
Disproportionate IMPACT
Surge in Damaging Tornadoes
Port Gibson—Grand Gulf
Hurricane Irene
Hurricane Sandy
Disproportionate IMPACT
Who’s Making the Decisions?
Who is Recovering/Returning?
Food Insecurity in the USCorner Store Supermarket
Feast and Famine in Urban America
Corner Store Supermarket
NORTH OMAHA STATION
STATS• Capacity: 627 MW• Built: 1954• 2007-10 average SO2 emissions: 13,358 tons
• 2007-10 average NOX emissions: 6,272tons• 2011 CO2 emissions: 3,460,600 tons• 2005 Mercury emissions: 216 lbs
21,92921,929
Who Is Breathing North Omaha Station Pollution
• Residents in 3-mi radius : 43,133• Average income: $13,858 (70% of Nebraska
average)• People of color : 56.7%
Coal Blooded Grade: F
Death and Disease Attributable to Fine Particle Pollution From North Omaha Station
(SOURCE: Clean Air Task Force—Abt Associates)
Type of Impact Annual Incidence Valuation
Deaths 14 $100,000,000
Heart attacks 22 $2,400,000
Asthma attacks 240 $13,000
Hospital admissions 10 $240,000
Chronic bronchitis 9 $3,900,000
Asthma ER visits 15 $6,000
??What Are Our Stories??
PROFITS OVER PEOPLE
Anti-Regulatory Investments
Company
Total Spent on Lobbying in 2010
Southern Company
$13,220,000
Edison International
$13,080,000
American Electric Power $10,313,196
Duke Energy
$4,800,000
Dominion
$2,050,000
First Energy
$1,865,000
Xcel Energy
$1,720,000
DTE Energy
$1,500,000
Fighting Renewable Energy
• Southern Company successfully opposed a plan to create a national electricity market in 2004 and has dedicated significant money and effort to fighting the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), which would require utilities to purchase 15% of their power from renewable sources by 2020.
CNN NEWSROOM-Hurricane Issac
MALVEAUX: And Senator, finally, why is it that Plaquemines Parish did not get that support for a levee?
LANDRIEU: Because the Corps of Engineers has a formula that they use to determine where they are going to build or reinforce the levees, based on economic impact ….you get less points if there is less of an economic impact……
CEO Compensation for 2010 at Companies Owning the Top EJ Offenders
Company CEO Name CEO Compensation
Edison International Theodore F. Craver Jr. $9,536,038
Dominion Thomas F. Farrell II $16,924,385
DTE Energy Gerald M. Anderson $5,601,383
Duke Energy James E. Rogers $8,815,181
Xcel Energy Richard C. Kelly $9,956,433
Southern Company Thomas A. Fanning $6,019,151
First Energy Anthony J. Alexander $11,627,657
[i] AFL-CIO CEO Pay Database, Accessed November 2011 http://www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/paywatch/ceou/industry_2011.cfm
Our Overall Economic Plight• While the national rate of unemployment during February
2012, was 8.3% that rate is nearly double of African Americans at 14.1%.
• A report by the Pew Research Center revealed that the wealth
divide between whites and people of color hit a record high in 2009, with the median wealth of white households 20 times higher than black households
Deepening Disparity
• The average CEO compensation for these companies in 2010 was $9,782,889 while the average worker in these companies made $33,840.
• On average the CEOs at these companies were compensated at 289 times the rate of compensation for the average worker.
ADDRESSING COAL POLLUTION
Additional Key Considerations
Revenue
Jobs
Electricity
Options
• Pollution Controls
• Conversion to Cleaner Forms of Energy
• Plant Closure
What Is Our Aim—What Do We Want?
What Are We Going To Do?
OPPORTUNITIES
What are these numbers?
$40 Billion1.1%
.001%
Energy Efficiency
Wind Energy
Solar and Geothermal Energy
Promoting Local Ownership
• Local ownership programs can create two to three times as many jobs per megawatt produced. And these local jobs keep over three times as much money and wealth in a community compared to big companies.
Forming Objectives
What Will Get Us to What We Want?
• Who Has Power Over What We Want?
• What Will Influence Those in Power?
Objectives
Objectives cont’d
Objectives, cont’d
MAKING THE PLAN
Tactics
• Direct Negotiation• Town halls with testimony• Postcard/letter writing campaign• Shareholder resolution• Advocacy Day on Capital Hill• In-district educational visits to congressional representatives• Demonstration in front of power plant or corporate offices of owners• Legal/Litigation Action• Engaging with EPA and other regulatory agencies and instruments• Boycotts• Media blitz for public awareness and support raising as well as
shaming of the perpetrator: op-eds, radio/TV interviews, new media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.)
Educating Ourselves In Florida
Educating Ourselves In Chicago
Rising Up—Taking Action!
Communities Across the Country Are Recognizing the Impact of Coal On Their Wellbeing and They Are Launching the Resistance! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLlJPVi8uao&feature=plcp
Rising Up—Taking Action!
Advancing Just Policy
Confronting Plant Owners—Calling for Corporate Responsibility
Legal Action--MATS Intervention
Curtailing Financing
What are Our Individual and Group Assets?
• Knowledge
• Skills
• Relationships
• Institutions
• Allies
Summarizing Our 6 Month Plan
Jacqui PattersonDirector, Environmental and Climate Justice
443-465-9809
410-580-5794
Thank You!
