Due to the evolving COVID-19 pandemic situation, we are sensitive to our constituents during this challenging crisis…
Sierra Club COVID Operations Update
The Sierra Club National Office guidelines below were last updated in September 2021. With the Omicron variant spreading fast even among the fully vaccinated and boosted, HBG suggests added caution pending updated guidelines.
Update On In-Person Gatherings “Based on feedback from employees and in consultation with our safety staff, we have decided to extend the Sierra Club’s current Covid response plans through February 28, 2022. Given the current Covid situation, we recognize the need to offer continued flexibility for you to balance and manage your individual needs. We will continue on the path we launched in July--slowly reopening our offices, methodically ramping up events & in-person activities, and being cautious in travel planning. Doing so patiently allows our mission-critical work in these areas to continue.
It is our hope that the expansion of vaccine access to young children this fall and winter will enable us as an organization to quickly ramp back up our operations--and scale back our response--in the spring. Barring any unforeseen complications, we expect to share an update with you all by February.”
Virtual meetings and events: Online (via Zoom) Tennessee Chapter ExCom Business meetings Online (via Zoom) Harvey Broome Group ExCom meetings Online (via Zoom) Harvey Broome Group Program Meetings - note online program meeting info below
January 2022 (Virtual) Program
SR 86 Wildlife Underpass. Image by Arizona Department of Transportation CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
What: North America's Wildlife Corridors, Russ Manning When: Tuesday, January 11, 2021, 7:00-8:30 PM Where: Virtual via Zoom.Please RSVP through this Campfire Event Link. You will receive information on how to connect to this program and be notified via email if there are any changes.
Author Russ Manning will discuss his ongoing exploration and research into efforts across North America to preserve wildlife connectivity. From the Yellowstone to Yukon and Algonquin to Adirondacks Corridors to our own region’s I-40 Pigeon River Gorge Wildlife Crossing Project and the Cumberland Plateau, work is underway to ensure ecological networks remain intact to preserve the continent’s biodiversity. With a book in preparation, Russ is posting excerpts from completed chapters on his website northamericancorridors.com.
Note: Consult the HBG website Calendar for updates to our calendar. Questions regarding HBG events should be addressed to HBG Chair Jerry Thornton (gatwilcat@aol.com).
A Tribute to Mac Post, Axel Ringe, and You By Todd Waterman
Axel Ringe (left) and Mac Post at the January 2019 and January 2020 Chapter ExCom meetings respectively. Photos by Todd Waterman.
Due to term limits, two of the Harvey Broome Group (HBG)’s four At-Large Delegates to the Tennessee Chapter Executive Committee (ExCom) – Chapter Chair Mac Post and fellow long-time stalwart Axel Ringe – sadly must step down in 2022 under Sierra Club’s six-consecutive-year Chapter ExCom term limit rule.
Mac says when he was elected Chapter Chair in 2018, he hoped to bridge factionalism within our Chapter. He would be “a guide on the side, rather than a sage on a stage.” “I enjoyed watching all the various people stepping up and working together. I saw that really blossoming in my time.” Distinguished new At-Large Delegates joined the ExCom, including HBG members Don Barger, retired Southeastern Director of the National Parks Conservation Association, and Mac’s fellow retired ORNL climate scientist Virginia Dale, who said she wanted to work with Mac again. Mac’s been gratified to see Virginia’s Land Use Conservation Committee, plus five other impactful Bill Moll-initiated Conservation Committees and four Regional Conservation Committees, all flourishing in virtual meetings. Axel Ringe feels Mac “brought peace to the Chapter. He was a unifying influence.”
Axel, too, has done much to build our Chapter. After serving for many years on HBG’s ExCom, then the Chapter’s, he in 2013 became Chapter Conservation Chair, “my dream job.” Mac says Axel brought broad conservation interests to the Chapter, and “worked long and hard to get Chapter conservation issues going.” When Axel passed the Conservation Chair torch to Bill Moll in 2019, Bill said he’d never have volunteered without Axel’s promise of support.
Neither Mac nor Axel is about to quit volunteering. “Nothing’s going to change,” Axel says, “except I’m not going to be on the ExCom anymore.” He’ll keep putting his lifetime of scientific and legal experience to good use as Chapter Water Quality Committee Chair and coal ash point person. He’ll keep working with other organizations, TDEC, and the EPA. He’ll remain HBG’s Conservation/Political Co-Chair.
Mac, as Chapter Fundraising Chair, hopes to engage more volunteers to broaden the Chapter’s donor base. He’ll still plan monthly HBG programs, while searching for a new Programs Chair. As a retired researcher into the role of terrestrial ecosystems in the global climate cycle, he very much wants to teach others about the significance of intact natural ecosystems and the services they provide for the sustainability of our human-modified environment as well as for biodiversity. He’ll keep guiding us on hikes through varied ecosystems. And, his first love: as Chair of Knoxville’s Inspiring Connections Outdoors (ICO), he’ll be leading inner-city kids on expeditions into nature’s many wondrous realms.
But Mac and Axel would agree it’s all of us volunteers, caring and joining together, who make the Tennessee Chapter a mighty force for good. They’re glad Chapter ExCom term limits open up opportunities for volunteers like you to join together to be champions for nature and justice.
Sierra Club’s Major Climate and Justice Victories in 2021 (video)
Screenshot from video. Image credit Sierra Club National.
Celebrate the positive impact Sierra Club members have made across the United States this year in this one-minute video.
A Question on Climate By Todd Waterman
Robert G. Kennedy poses at his hotel in Uganda with Gideon Security - not the same Gideon, he says, that provides hotel room Bibles. Image courtesy of Robert G. Kennedy
A few years back I went to a Friends of Oak Ridge National Labs slideshow by my always fascinating engineer friend Robert G. Kennedy III on the engineering and diplomatic challenges of building Tetra Tech geothermal power plants in places like Chile and Africa. There were earthquakes to contend with, red tides, sporadic internet, Gideons with AK-47s, and charging elephants. “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy,” he quoted Clausewitz.
I knew Robert knew a lot about a lot: renewable energy, environmental protection, microcomputing, interstellar travel, climate science. So, I had a Q&A question. “We’ve all seen the IPCC’s curves predicting how scary our future climate will be depending on how well we do at reducing CO₂. But those predictions don’t factor in the rapid fall in price of renewables and storage. If they did, which prediction do you think would be most likely to come true?”
“You’re not going to like my answer,” Robert began. “First, those predictions keep getting worse as we find out more.” Then on the globe he’d brought, he spread his fingers across the top. “Second, up here in the Arctic, the tundra is thawing. And in the tundra is as much carbon as is in the atmosphere right now. As it thaws, microbes convert it to CO₂, causing more warming, which causes more tundra to thaw. That’s not even to mention all the thawing methane, which for 20 years causes 85 times more warming than CO₂, causing still more thawing.
“Those are feedback loops. And feedback loops always run to completion. If that happens, we’re screwed.”
KUB posts intentions with respect to disconnections for non-payment.
They also include their suggestions for “assistance” for those in need, and how those of us in better circumstances can assist those in need via “Project Help."
For utility companies in other counties and municipalities in Tennessee, e.g., Alcoa, LaFollete, Lenoir City, Maryville, Clinton, and more, links to pandemic response policies can be found here.
Federally Funded Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) This federal program provides federally funded assistance in managing costs associated with: home energy bills, energy crises, weatherization and energy-related minor home repairs.
Sierra Club and Sunrise Movement organizer Rick Herron’s father, Roy, created this campaign for his West Tennessee hometown, which was hit hard by the recent tornado.
In Roy’s words: “Many of the homes destroyed or severely damaged housed folks who didn’t have anything extra to lose. For example, the woman who lived across Main Street from my brother had invested everything she had fixing up that old house. Then COVID hit. The restaurant where she worked closed. She got behind and last month couldn’t pay the insurance on the house. She’s grateful her granddaughters were not killed by the tornado, but today she put everything she still owns in her front yard.”
“A few years ago, Governor McWherter and Representatives Fitzhugh and Maddox and I created a non-profit. We now are accepting donations to help our neighbors most in need. Two donors already have pledged to cover all the administrative expenses so that 100% of every donation goes directly to those in desperate need. I would be grateful if you would consider joining us in trying to help.”
Manchin’s opposition to Build Back Better bill undercuts Biden’s climate agenda: The legislation included hundreds of billions for electric-vehicle charging stations, as well as tax credits for wind and solar projects. Anna Phillips, The Washington Post, December 20.
“President Biden’s climate agenda suffered a massive setback Sunday after Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) pulled his support from Democrats’ spending bill, potentially dooming the legislation amid warnings from scientists that the world is running out of time to prevent climate change’s most catastrophic effects.
“Manchin’s comments on “Fox News Sunday” put at risk a $555 billion package of tax credits, grants and other policies aimed at lowering greenhouse gas emissions that would rank as the largest clean-energy investment in U.S. history. The legislation’s passage would have helped Biden meet his goal of cutting America’s greenhouse gas emissions in half compared with 2005 levels by 2030.
“The senator, who had been the chief Democratic obstacle to the White House’s sweeping policy initiative for nearly six months, said he could not support the bill because of his concerns about inflation, the growing deficit and the need to focus on the omicron coronavirus variant.
“Without a reduction of that speed and scale, the United States would fall short of the targets it committed to under the 2015 Paris agreement, potentially locking in a future of increasingly destructive forest fires, deadly floods and droughts. Already, record-breaking hurricanes and fires are testing the federal government’s ability to respond to overlapping disasters.”
"Jeff Masters and Bob Henson, meteorologists who blog for a Yale climate Web site, wrote, 'Never in the century-plus history of world weather observation have so many all-time heat records fallen by such a large margin [as in the Northwestern heat wave]'”
"The reason, of course, is the climate crisis: within days, researchers had demonstrated—with the modeling techniques of the new attribution science—that global warming had made such a heat wave a hundred and fifty times more likely…
“The world is clearly more fragile than the models have led us to believe. And that’s what was terrifying about 2021.”
Gaby Sarri-Tobar and Marquita Bradshaw speak at TVA Towers at the Take Back TVA Rally and the Good Jobs for All Rally, respectively (Todd Waterman photo)
“Every day skyrocketing utility bills throw millions of families into debt. In the Tennessee Valley, where customers pay some of the highest electricity bills in the nation, that can mean losing electricity altogether.”
“These struggles will only worsen as the COVID-19 pandemic, rising gas prices and climate-caused extreme weather put even greater strain on our energy system and our pocketbooks. The future looks bleak unless we confront the climate emergency by transitioning to affordable, accessible 100% renewable energy.”
“So how does the Tennessee Valley Authority, our country’s largest public power provider, respond? By gutting its energy efficiency programs and stifling renewable energy growth at every turn. By funneling millions in ratepayer funds to anti-environment trade groups, such as the Edison Electric Institute. By trading dirty coal for more toxic fossil-fuel generation, which disproportionately harms low-wealth communities and communities of color.”
“Some climate models predict that the currents will decline by as much as 45% this century. And evidence from the last ice age shows that the system can eventually switch off or go into a very weak mode, under conditions that global warming may be replicating.”
“If that happened, it would likely be a climate disaster. It could freeze the far north of Europe, driving down average winter temperatures by more than 10 °C. It might cut crop production and incomes across the continent as much of the land becomes cooler and drier. Sea levels could rise as much as a foot on the Eastern Seaboard, flooding homes and businesses up and down the coast. And the summer monsoons over major parts of Africa and Asia might weaken, raising the odds of droughts and famines that could leave untold numbers without adequate food or water.”
A collection of multimedia snapshots documenting climate change effects already happening in 193 countries around the world, impacting cultural traditions, natural landscapes, agriculture, and more.
Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier ice shelf could collapse within five years: The loss of its buttressing ice shelf could hasten the demise of the “Doomsday Glacier.” Caroline Gramling, Science News, December 13.
Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica. Image by sjrankin CC BY-NC 2.0.
“The demise of a West Antarctic glacier poses the world’s biggest threat to raise sea levels before 2100 — and an ice shelf that’s holding it back from the sea could collapse within three to five years, scientists reported December 13 at the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting in New Orleans. Thwaites Glacier is ‘one of the largest, highest glaciers in Antarctica — it’s huge,’ Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the Boulder, Colo.–based Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, told reporters. Spanning 120 kilometers across, the glacier is roughly the size of Florida, and were the whole thing to fall into the ocean, it would raise sea levels by 65 centimeters, or more than two feet. Right now, its melting is responsible for about 4 percent of global sea level rise.”
“In remarks on Saturday addressing the devastation, Biden said he wanted to know to what degree the climate crisis might have been a contributory factor. ‘The specific impact on these specific storms, I can’t say at this point. I’m going to be asking the EPA and others to take a look at that,’ the president said in an afternoon briefing in his home town of Wilmington, Delaware. ‘But the fact is that we know everything is more intense when the climate is warming. And obviously it has some impact here.’
“On Sunday, Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), was asked in a CNN interview if she thought the climate crisis intensified the power of the tornado that traveled more than 200 miles. ‘I think it [the incident] is incredibly unusual. We do see tornadoes in December, that part is not unusual. But at this magnitude I don’t think we’ve ever seen one this late in the year. But it’s also historic. The severity and the amount of time this tornado, or these tornadoes, spent on the ground is unprecedented,’ she said. She added more generally on extreme weather: ‘This is going to be our new normal, and the effects that we’re seeing from climate change are the crisis of our generation.’”
The Millions of Tons of Carbon Emissions That Don’t Officially Exist: How a blind spot in the Kyoto Protocol helped create the biomass industry. Sarah Miller, The New Yorker, December 8.
Gonoike Biomass Power Plant. Image by Σ64 CC BY 4.0.
“[At the 1997 summit that led to the Kyoto Protocol,] The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (I.P.C.C.) classified wind and solar power as renewable-energy sources. But wood-burning was harder to categorize: It’s renewable, technically, because trees grow back. In accounting for greenhouse gases, the I.P.C.C. sorts emissions into different ‘sectors,’ which include land-use and energy production. It’s hard to imagine now, but at the time, the I.P.C.C. was concerned that if they counted emissions from harvesting trees in the land sector, it would be duplicative to count emissions from the burning of pellets in the energy sector…
“The result was what many scientists call the ‘carbon accounting loophole.’ By international agreement, if a nation or industry burns megatons of wood, thereby emitting megatons of carbon, it can be defined as a largely carbon-neutral event. ‘The wood biomass energy claims of carbon neutrality are incorrect and misleading,’ Beverly Law, a professor of global climate-change biology at Oregon State, told me. ‘It can worsen climate change even if wood replaces coal.’”
Gambling ‘America’s Amazon’: Alabama’s largest utility plans to bury a heap of toxic coal waste in one of North America’s most biodiverse river systems. Experts say it will put one of the nation’s most pristine wetlands at risk. Isabelle Chapman, CNN website, December 5.
“About 400 miles southwest of Kingston, a coal ash lagoon — which holds almost four times as much sludge as what spilled in Tennessee — is sitting in the Mobile–Tensaw Delta, one of the most biodiverse areas of the United States, with flora and fauna not known to exist anywhere else on Earth. Environmentalists, community members and scientists fear the pond could someday unleash a Kingston-like catastrophe on southern Alabama and say leaving the coal ash in the delta is shortsighted and dangerous.
“‘We’ve got an A-bomb up the river,’ John Howard, who lives in Mobile County and said he has been fishing in southern Alabama for decades, said. ‘It’s just waiting to happen.’ Chapman opens her story with sickened Kingston cleanup worker Ron Bledsoe’s account of the spill.”
Meet an Ecologist Who Works for God (and Against Lawns): A Long Island couple say fighting climate change and protecting biodiversity starts at home. Or rather, right outside their suburban house. Cara Buckley, New York Times, December 3.
“[Bill] Jacobs is an ecologist and a Catholic who believes that humans can fight climate change and help repair the world right where they live. While a number of urban dwellers and suburbanites also sow native plants to that end, Mr. Jacobs says people need something more: To reconnect with nature and experience the sort of spiritual transcendence he feels in a forest, or on a mountain, or amid the bounty of his own yard. It’s a feeling that, for him, is akin to feeling close to God.”
“‘We need something greater than people,’ said Mr. Jacobs, who worked at the Nature Conservancy for nine years before joining a nonprofit that tackles invasive species — plants, animals and pathogens that squeeze out native varieties. ‘We need a calling outside of ourselves, to some sort of higher power, to something higher than ourselves to preserve life on earth.’”
“The state's environmental regulatory agency will allow the Tennessee Valley Authority to discharge more pollutants from its coal-fired Kingston power plant into the Clinch River under a modified permit approved this week …
"TDEC released its decision to approve the modified permit one day after the public comment period closed. At least 60 comments were submitted in writing or during a public hearing, and all opposed the modification. Additionally, the Sierra Club submitted a letter asking TDEC to formalize a requirement that TVA cease coal combustion by Dec. 31, 2028. That letter included 198 signatures in support of the request."
(Anila Yoganathan is Jamie Satterfield’s replacement at KnoxNews).
“Not all deaths are created equal. In February 2020, the world began to panic about the novel coronavirus, which killed 2714 people that month. This made the news. In the same month, around 800,000 people died from the effects of air pollution. That didn’t. …
“‘It’s past time to begin addressing the climate challenges we face both at home and across the world.’ Sen. Joe Manchin wrote that sentence in an op-ed published in the Charleston Gazette-Mail on March 8, 2019. At the time, he was the ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. More than two-and-a-half years later, he’s chairman of that committee. He’s uniquely positioned to shape climate policies needed to improve the health of the country, including his home state of West Virginia. But will he do that?”
“On Nov. 3, the North Carolina Department of Transportation announced that when it begins to replace the Harmon Den bridge on Interstate 40 between Asheville and Knoxville later this month, a wildlife underpass will be included in the construction.
“Just 48 hours later, the House passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill including $350 million for a wildlife crossings pilot program that will provide grants to states, tribes, local communities, federal agencies and other land managers seeking to improve habitat connectivity by implementing wildlife crossing structures.
“What’s going on? Lagging behind Europe, Canada and many others, the United States is realizing its need as well as its ability to change the roads that imperil both the animals and the humans who dare to navigate them.”
*** A democracy with informed citizens requires the professionalism that we have historically expected of credible news sources. Most “local" newspapers today are asking folks who access their online news stories to purchase a subscription to their paper. This is understandable generally, and reminds us that we should do our part to pay for the resources that result in publication of local news. Those of us who use summaries of published print news, as we do, are no exception, and we ask the same of our readers. However, we also believe that a person who only wants to see an occasional article published in a newspaper should not be required to subscribe. So if you believe that you are in the latter category - only an occasional reader - you may be able to read an article without a subscription if you "browse anonymously" or clear your browser cache before activating a link to an article. This may help you avoid many "pay walls" at these news sources (some sources restrict access even with anonymous settings). Another approach is to search for alternate source on the particular news item. But we recommend that our readers who find themselves accessing an online news source on a regular basis subscribe to an online version of the paper, which is generally much cheaper than a print version.
Can't donate now? Sign up for Kroger Community Rewards. Kroger donates a portion of what you spend to the Harvey Broome Group as long as you designate HBG as your preferred charity.
Here's how:
1. Go to theKroger Community Rewards web page 2. Register (or Sign In if you already have an account.) 3. Enroll in Community Rewards (or Edit if you're already enrolled.) 4. Enter HBG's Community Rewards Number 27874.
That's it. Swipe your Kroger Card when you shop and know that you're helping protect your environment.
Founded by legendary conservationist John Muir in 1892, the Sierra Club is now the nation's largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization -- with more than two million members and supporters. Our successes range from protecting millions of acres of wilderness to helping pass the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Endangered Species Act. More recently, we've made history by leading the charge to move away from the dirty fossil fuels that cause climate disruption and toward a clean energy economy.
The Harvey Broome Group (HBG) is one of four Sierra Club Groups within the Tennessee Chapter. HBG is based in Knoxville and serves 18 surrounding counties. HBG's namesake, Harvey Broome, was a Knoxvillian who was a founding member of the Wilderness Society and played a key role in the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
