Sadly, our revered newsletter editor, Julie Elfin, can no longer edit our monthly newsletter. If you think you or someone you know would make a good editor, please email Jerry Thornton (gatwildcat@aol.com) and Todd Waterman (jtoddw@gmail.com ). Joanne Logan will ease you into the publishing software, and Todd will help with submissions, photos, copy-editing, etc. Web design is an awesome skill to learn, and here you can learn it for free!
Thank you!
What should we cover in our next issue? Send pitches to the editor atjtoddw@gmail.com
HGB & TN Chapter Meetings
March 12, 2024 Program
Why Trust Models? The Process of Building Confidence in Projections of Climate Impacts
Speaker: Dr. Scott Painter, Oak Ridge National Laboratory When: Tuesday, March 12 12, 2024, 7:00-8:30 PM Where: Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church 2931 Kingston Pike, Knoxville TN.
HBG Business, Activities, and Outings
March 16, 2024. Hike, Seven Islands State Birding Park
2809 Kelly Lane, Kodak, TN 37764 - Knox County
Leader: Ron Shrieves
Seven Islands is in its 10th year as a state park, and is unique in that it is the first "birding park" in the state. The park (440 acres) is bordered on three sides by the French Broad River. Birders have reported over 200 species of birds in the park (they're not all there at one time!). Deer also abound here. For those who are interested in birding, the leader will answer questions about how to get started.
Our hike route uses a combination of trails, including one on a ridge top with good views of the Smoky Mountains, and others overlooking the French Broad River. The distance will be 6.2 miles, with options for individuals to shorten the hike via numerous trail connections. Rated easy, with one hill to climb (about 140 feet of elevation gain).
Driving distance is 20 miles from downtown Knoxville. If you have binoculars, bring them, along with water and snacks/lunch. If you have a camera, you might want to bring it. Rated easy. Well meet at 8:30 AM the Cracker Barrel parking lot just off I-40 at exit 398, and carpool or caravan to the Park from there. The leader will be parked on the far side of the restaurant in a silver Honda CRV. if you drive by yourself to the park entrance, please be there by 9:00 AM.
A Successful Conservation Education Day on the Hill
By Todd Waterman, with updates from Scott Banbury
For Conservation Education Day (CED) in Nashville on Wednesday, February 28th, at least 72 lobbyists, from a consortium of environmental organizations – the Tennessee Environmental Council, Sierra Club, Tennessee Conservation Voters, Harpeth Conservancy, and Tennessee Interfaith Power and Light – met with 51 or more of our state legislators in Nashville.
Conservation Education Day's goal is to effectively inform our lawmakers on the profound environmental, economic, and other impacts of carefully chosen impending bills, knowing some legislators will then agree with our concerns and vote accordingly. Most who we visited appreciated their constituents' traveling to Nashville, and warmly welcomed us and listened carefully to our concerns, making lobbying them a rewarding experience.
As in recent years, the effort was masterfully orchestrated by Bill Moll, Conservation Chair of the Tennessee Chapter of the Sierra Club.
We'd emerged well prepared from an in-person/virtual lobby training the night before. Bill, professional lobbyist Stewart Clifton, Sierra Club lobbyist Scott Banbury, and environmental attorney/lobbyist Grace Stranch had taught us the do's and don'ts of respectful, relationship-building lobbying. Then they and sustainable packaging specialist Gary Cohen briefed us on the environmental and other impacts of the below three bills which we'd be explaining to our Senators and Representatives.
For 2024, we would lobby on these three bills:
1. SB0573/HR0550: The Tennessee Waste Reduction and Recycling Act (TWRRA), which we'd ask them to support. While it did not pass alone, it will be rolled into comprehensive solid waste legislation to be worked out by a newly created task force this summer. Learn more about it here.
2. SB0726/HB1255: Monitoring for PFAS by industry sources and wastewater treatment plants, which we'd also ask them to support. While it was sent to the Senate Energy General Subcommittee for this year, we are well positioned to move forward with it in the new session next year. Read more about our work on the issue here.
3. SB0631/HB1054: Wetlands Classification, which would have removed about half of Tennessee's wetlands from protection, and which we'd ask them to oppose. We prevailed on this:
Read "Developer-backed bill to end wetlands protections shelved by Tennessee Senate"
By Anita Wadwani, Tennessee Lookout, March 7, 2024
Gratified HBG members pose with Senator Richard Briggs, R-Knoxville, from left, Todd Waterman, Dana Moran, Alice Thornton, Senator Briggs, Jerry Thornton, Ellen Faby, and Kent Minault.
48 of the 72 2024 Conservation Education Day lobbyists pose near the end of our lobby schedule.
Saving Dean’s Woods, Act Two
By Jerry Thornton, HBG Chair
The rain gods held off as 12 Harvey Broome Group members and friends braved the chilly morning of February 24th to extract invasive, exotic weeds from Dean's Woods, a UT property in South Knoxville that is renowned for its springtime display of native wildflowers. This was the second time HBG has worked these woods. Last December, 20 people helped out. The smaller turnout this time was likely due to the threatening weather and our failure to get the word out. Over a three-hour period, the "Gettin' Dirty Dozen" cleared about half an acre on a steep hillside of about a ton of English ivy, winter creeper, Amur honeysuckle, Japanese honeysuckle, privet, and Mahonia (Oregon grape). The tricky part was carrying the pulled vegetation across Spring Creek to a site on Woodson Drive where the UT Composting Facility would pick it up and compost it. There is no bridge, so one has to carefully rock-hop while juggling a large load of plants. Using Jerry Thornton's large tarp, new volunteer Ed Dudrick gathered huge loads of pulled plants into a large bundle and carried load after load across the creek! My thanks to Ed and all the others who worked so hard to help restore this special place to its natural grandeur. HBG will not have "Act Three" until next fall because the springtime flora are already beginning to appear and it is not good to tromp around when the wildflowers are trying to grow. We saw a few Virginia bluebells and wild geraniums starting to peek through the leaves.
Kent Minault's Valentine to the TVA Board
Few environmentalists made it to TVA’s February 13th Listening Session, since simultaneously as it happened 400 protesters were packing TVA’s competing Cheatham County hearing on its planned new gas plant and pipeline there. But Kent Minault’s Listening Valentine comment disarmed (and cracked up) the TVA Board.
Public meeting with TVA - Summary by Emily Sherwood
On February 14th, about 400 folks from Cheatham County and neighboring communities packed an overflowing gym at the local middle school in Ashland City, TN. This public meeting with TVA was the result of months of community leaders requesting that TVA come back to Cheatham after a lackluster scoping public meeting last summer.
Despite TVA cutting off the microphone while multiple community members were speaking, their message was clear: do not build a methane gas plant and pipeline on pristine agricultural land in Cheatham. Folks raised concerns related to property values, water quality degradation, light and noise pollution, climate change, and more.
Many folks who spoke during the listening session portion of the meeting have lived and farmed in the area for generations. They were joined by folks from neighboring communities, activists, local mayors, and staff members sent by Senator Marsha Blackburn, Senator Bill Hagerty, Representative Gloria Johnson, and Representative Mark Green.
This win for the Cheatham County community could not have happened without the hard work and dedication of local community group, Preserve Cheatham County, which formed in the summer of 2023 with the help of organizers and volunteers from Sierra Club and Appalachian Voices.
400 gas plant and pipeline protesters overflowed the bleachers at TVA's Feb. 13 Cheatham County Town Hall
Events and Actions
SEEED's Urgent Roof Repair Campaign
Our partner SEEED (Socially Equal Energy Efficient Development) has put a roof over many folk's heads. It’s our turn. SEEED is less than a fourth of the way to its $12,000 goal. Donate at this link.
The South Deserves Clean Energy, Tell TVA to Choose Solar!
As the rest of the country moves toward a clean, renewable, and safe energy future, your power provider -- the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) -- wants to move the agency backward by building a methane gas plant and pipeline to replace the Kingston Coal Plant.
Through an Environmental Impact Statement, TVA's CEO is proposing to lock us into decades more of dirty fossil fuel energy and higher bills!
This is not a done deal! As part of the environmental statement process, TVA started a comment period process to listen to the region that they serve. Now is your time to demand TVA's Board of Directors prioritize our energy future and the safety and natural beauty of our communities by transitioning to clean energy.
It's great news that TVA is making plans to stop burning coal at Kingston, but it doesn't make sense to replace coal with another fossil fuel: methane-leaking, CO2-emitting gas power plants and miles of pipelines. Alternative energy sources, such as solar power, are safe for both the environment and the people who live and play in close proximity to energy infrastructure. A recent report shows that transitioning to energy efficiency and renewables in a similar community will produce more jobs locally than moving to dirty methane gas.1 There's still time to make your voice heard! Your power provider has a responsibility to listen to the region that it serves. This comment period is an opportunity to tell TVA's Board what you want for your energy future.
Advocates applaud introduction of new legislation to increase public participation in Tennessee Valley Authority planning process Press Release, Appalachian Voices website, March 8, 2024
“Washington, D.C. – Today, Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn. and Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., introduced new legislation to improve the Tennessee Valley Authority’s long-term energy planning process. The TVA Increase Rate of Participation Act proposes changes to increase public participation in the federally owned utility’s integrated resource planning process, while also requiring the utility to take into account certain factors to ensure the plan will result in clean, sustainable, reliable and affordable energy for people in the Tennessee Valley region.”
HBG Activist Maggie Longmire to be this year's East Tennessee Writers’ Hall of Fame inductee for songwriting East Tennessee Writers’ Hall of Fame Facebook Page, March 7, 2024
“Much of Maggie's current songwriting focuses on climate change and other environmental issues.
“Celebrate Maggie and the other 2024 inductees at the Hall of Fame Awards Gala on April 19". Here's the link to purchase tickets. Facebook photos
Opinion: I’m a climate scientist. If you knew what I know, you’d be terrified too Opinion by Bill McGuire, CNN, March 7, 2024
"If the fracturing of our once stable climate doesn’t terrify you, then you don’t fully understand it. We’re experiencing, in our lifetimes, a heating episode that is probably unique in the last 4.6 billion years.
"My answer is always to join a group of like-minded people and to work with them to drive institutional and systemic change. In every case, this has had a galvanizing effect, replacing hopelessness with hope; inertia with action."
Fury after Exxon chief says public to blame for climate failures: Darren Woods tells Fortune consumers not willing to pay for clean-energy transition, prompting backlash from climate experts by Dharna Noor and Oliver Milman, The Guardian, March 4, 2024
“ ‘For decades, they told us that the science was too uncertain to justify action, that it was premature to act, and that we could and should wait and see how things developed,’ said [Naomi] Oreskes. ‘Now the CEO says: oh dear, we’ve waited too long. If this isn’t gaslighting, I don’t know what is.’
“No new major oil and gas infrastructure can be built if the world is to avoid breaching agreed temperature limits but Exxon, along with other major oil companies currently basking in record profits, is pushing ahead with aggressive fossil-fuel expansion plans.”
U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry is giving up the job title — but not the fight By Ari Shapiro, William Troop, and Kai McNamee, NPR, March 7, 2024
Kerry is perpetually optimistic on climate. Even if Trump returns.
“If you want to achieve net zero by 2050, then it's going to cost about $2.5 to $5 trillion a year for the next 30 years. No government in the world has that money put on the table, but the private sector does.”
The ‘greenest’ car in America might surprise you: A new report says a plug-in hybrid can beat out the greenest of electric vehicles By Shannon Osaka, The Washington Post, February 29, 2024
Report: record levels of ‘forever chemicals’ in NE Tennessee sewage sludge used as crop fertilizer By Anita Wadhwani, Tennessee Lookout, February 26, 2024
“ ‘As we continue to add PFAS to the environment, we don’t know what their impact will be,’ said Dan Firth, chair of the Sierra Club’s solid waste and mining committee and co-author of the report. ‘But if we wait before we start looking at them, it’s going to be too late.’
“In some instances, high levels of the chemicals in fertilizers have led to farm closures in other parts of the country. ‘That will happen in Tennessee if we’re not very careful,’ Firth said.”
Why industry is blocking the push for more energy efficient homes: Home builders have used their political muscle to prevent states and cities from adopting the latest code, which would lower the climate impact of new houses By Anna Phillips, The Washington Post, February 21, 2024
Tennessee’s Legislature has forbidden local building codes stronger than state codes. Gift link.
UT-Battelle donates $186,000 to support SEEED’s green construction program
Oak Ridge National Laboratory press release, February 20, 2024
ORNL is donating $186,000 to building SEEED’s third solar home, and will share its “expertise in the energy-efficient design of high-efficiency materials and equipment.”
We’ve Made a Cosmic Choice for Earth’s Oceans: As far as humanity is concerned, the transformation of our seas is “effectively permanent.” By Marina Koren, The Atlantic, March 7, 2024.
“For us, the effects of climate change will be ‘effectively permanent.’ Our oceans, on the grandest scale, can take a lot—but we can’t. “The idea of that permanence is chilling. … As I’ve written before, Earth has the only good oceans that we know of.”
We Can Still Resist a Pipeline to Hell (Gift Article)
Opinion by Margaret Renkl, The New York Times, Feb. 19, 2024
Last week, 400 people turned out in idyllic – and deep red – Cheatham County to tell TVA, “NO! No gas plant. No gas pipeline.” That happened thanks to outstanding, inclusive organizing by Sierra Club, Appalachian Voices, and the new Preserve Cheatham County. But will TVA and the Tennessee Legislature respond with justice? Gift link. Full Hearing video
Sign the Petition: Tell TVA No Methane Gas Plant and Pipeline
At Last, Official Appreciation for Kingston Cleanup Survivors
Todd Waterman, Facebook Album, Feb. 16, 2024
Photos, videos, and commentary on the December 22 Kingston 15th Anniversary Ceremony in Kingston, including the reading of the Roane County Commission’s proclamation and comments from Kingston coal ash spill cleanup survivors Janie Clark, Betty Johnson, Jamie Satterfield, Brenda Edmonds, Jason Williams, Jessica Waller, and Julie Bledsoe.
Critical Atlantic Ocean current system is showing early signs of collapse, prompting warning from scientists
By Laura Paddison, CNN, February 9, 2024
"As they slowly increased the freshwater in the model, [the researchers] saw the AMOC gradually weaken until it abruptly collapsed. It’s the first time a collapse has been detectable using these complex models, representing 'bad news for the climate system and humanity,' the report says.
"The impacts of the AMOC’s collapse could be catastrophic. Some parts of Europe might see temperatures plunge by up to 30 degrees Celsius [54 degrees Fahrenheit] over a century, the study finds, leading to a completely different climate over the course of just a decade or two."
***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. You can click on the gift link, which assumes that you plan to "gift" the journal or magazine or newspaper to someone, or you can "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.
Sierra Club Defenders Need You!
Fundraising Corner with Susan Johnston
Many thanks to the Defenders who have sent in their donations to help fund the Tennessee legislature’s only full-time lobbyist for the environment, Scott Banbury. To add your own contribution to this very important cause, simply make a secure online donation here,or mail your check to:
TN Chapter Sierra Club, Attn: Defenders
PO Box 113
Powell, TN 37849
The Defenders is a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(4) organization and donations are not income-tax deductible.
