When you honestly stare down the barrel of the global warming gun that is being held to our heads, the disaster that is unfolding even more quickly than most predicted is overwhelming. We environmental activists are people used to taking on large problems and whittling away at them until they are solved. We saved the bald eagle from extinction, cleaned up Love Canal, brought back wolves to Yellowstone and much of the northwest, saved the grizzly bear from extinction in the lower 48, and millions of other successes. But all of it is for NOTHING if we cannot get the global warming problem turned around. And that problem is daunting. However, we now have a target that gives us at least SOMETHING to hope for. Keep the damn fossil fuels in the ground. Period. Whatever it takes. Or what? Or witness the cessation of most of life on earth within a few generations. Yes, it's that bad. Please read on for ONE BIG WAY YOU CAN HELP. It only takes writing a letter or email right now, and here's the explanation of what that important letter is about.
A smart, caring group called 350Missoula.org made me agonizingly aware that we have no hope of avoiding a 2 degree earth temperature rise, and the associated damage to major life support systems that is already beginning to be seen. However, they are passing along calculations from 350.org that offer meaningful action to alleviate the desperation and hopelessness in anyone who honestly reflects on the colossal mess our species is making on this planet. Here’s what they told me:
We might have a chance at preventing the FOUR degree rise predicted currently.
Here is what that chance depends on:
To prevent the 4 degree rise that would basically destroy most of the natural systems life on the planet depends on, more than TWO-THIRDS OF THE WORLD'S IDENTIFIED FOSSIL FUEL RESERVES MUST STAY IN THE GROUND (and all of the as yet unknown ones, too). We must do this or the whole precarious balance that has been our livelihood on this tiny dust speck in this infinite universe falls apart. Period. No weasel room. No do-overs.
Keeping 2/3 of the known reserves in the ground may not even be enough. Now it has been discovered that the ice sheets in the Greenland Fjords are melting much more quickly than was thought, and if they all melt, we can expect a calamitous 21 foot sea level rise sooner than later (http://www.dailykos.com/...). But the 2/3 goal gives us something to shoot for. Maybe we can even do better than 2/3 if we try. The coal divestitures are apparently working, and coal stock prices are collapsing. (Thanks, The Guardian! http://www.theguardian.com/....)
Please follow below the squiggle to see how you can help a huge chunk of it stay in the ground, the proposed largest coal mine in the U.S., Otter Creek mine in Montana.
Here’s one of the places we need to START KEEPING THE COAL IN THE GROUND: Otter Creek, Montana.
Site of proposed Otter Creek coal mine, southeast Montana. Would be the largest coal mine in the U.S. We're talkin' strip mine, baby, and I mean STRIP IT ALL OFF, ship it to Asia, burn it, and warm our beautiful planet a bunch more.
PHOTO CREDIT: Jane Pargiter, EcoFlight
The proposed Otter Creek Mine would be the largest coal mine in the United States, shipping an estimated 1.3 trillion tons of coal to Asia to burn-burn-burn, and produce 2.6 billion tons of greenhouse gases!
HERE’S HOW YOU CAN HELP KEEP IT IN THE GROUND RIGHT NOW: Write an email regarding the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Tongue River Railroad. This is a spur that would have to be built to haul the coal from Otter Creek. The Draft EIS is out for comment RIGHT NOW. Comment deadline is August 25. There are many potential effects this railroad would have, and it is up to us to force the federal government to adequately consider them. The websites below help by discussing many of these impacts, but the HUGEST one is that it will contribute to the cumulative effect of global warming, thus killing the planet. Just sending a quick note about that little fun fact will be very helpful.
The full Draft EIS is available to read here: http://www.tonguerivereis.com/...
Comment directly to the federal Surface Transportation Board here: https://public.commentworks.com/...
Here are three websites from different groups working crazy hard to keep the Otter Creek Mine from happening. They are all very informative and will help you with ideas as to some issues you might want to address in your comments, including impacts to communities that the increased coal train traffic and coal dust would impact, the shipping ports on the west coast, and oh yeah, the dual cumulative effects of flooding all coastal cities and trashing Earth’s entire life support systems – there’s that.
1) http://350missoula.org/...
2) http://meic.org/...
3) http://earthjustice.org/...
I wake up in the middle of the night sweating, tossing, turning. During the day, the nightmare recedes as I do the regular things in life – work, cook, wash dishes, water the garden, survive the blistering summer and fight the weeds and grasshoppers taking over my drought-stricken property.
But in sleep, the nightmare returns. I see my planet, the only home I know in the entire universe, its lovely snow and ice melting into a huge, frothy puddle of warm, mucky backwater, with fish floating belly-up, the rotten stench infiltrating every pore. And I know it is not a dream. It is the reality we have brewed up for ourselves as we continue to burn, drill and burn, mine and burn, burn, burn, burn. OH MY GOD, IT’S ACTUALLY HAPPENING. I must write my compatriots and ask them to help KEEP THAT COAL IN THE GROUND.