Nuclear power is a gamble we don’t need to take. Studies show that the
UK can meet its energy needs and tackle climate change without resorting
to nuclear power or burning fossil fuels – all that is lacking is the
political will.
And the U.K. is way north of Georgia.
Georgia gets a lot more sunlight and has plenty of wind off the coast.
All that is lacking here, too, is the political will.
If Atlanta won’t lead, why not Valdosta and Lowndes County?
Erin Hurley provided the very model of how to give a speech:
I’m the president of
Students Against Violating the Environment at VSU.
I’m here representing
200+ members of SAVE, that consists of students, faculty, community members.
We are deeply concerned with environmental issues and
we are networking together to make this city a more humane and
sustainable community
for future generations.
As a student, I feel I have the right to be able to breathe clean air
at the college I attend.
With this biomass plant possibly being built here,
the future for generations to come are in jeopardy, and we want to protect our fellow and future students’ health.
Please take into consideration the future health of this university
and its community,
and don’t sell grey water to the proposed biomass plant.
Erin Hurley, President of
SAVE, Students Against Violating the Environment, speaking at
Regular meeting of the Valdosta City Council, 24 March 2011,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
She said who she was, who she represented, how many, what they were for, what they wanted, quickly enough that attention didn’t waver, slowly and loudly enough to be heard, and briefly enough to transcribe, with pathos, logic, and politic. Even the mayor looked up at “As a student….”
It seemed like a good idea at the time when the west Texas farming
town of Littlefield borrowed $10 million and built the Bill Clayton
Detention Center in a cotton field south of town in 2000. The charmless
steel-and-cement-block buildings ringed with razor wire would provide
jobs to keep young people from moving to Lubbock or Dallas.
For eight years, the prison was a good employer. Idaho and Wyoming paid
for prisoners to serve time there. But two years ago, Idaho pulled out
all of its contract inmates because of a budget crunch at home. There
was also a scandal surrounding the suicide of an inmate.
Shortly afterward, the for-profit operator, GEO Group, gave notice that
it was leaving, too. One hundred prison jobs disappeared. The facility
has been empty ever since.
Such publicly owned networks can offer services that incumbents don’t,
such as the 1Gbps fiber network in Chattanooga, Tennessee, run by the
government-owned electric power board. And they sometimes have more
incentive to reach every resident, even in surrounding rural areas,
in ways that might not make sense for a profit-focused company.
According to this map of
Community Broadband Networks
by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance,
quite a few small cities in south Georgia have municipal cable networks:
A small example of following up on citizen suggestions,
but who knows? maybe it’s a sign of much more to come.
In the comments by council members at the end of the 24 March 2011
Valdosta City Council session, member Tim Carroll thanked
George Rhynes for his suggestion to put district numbers
on council members’ name plates so citizens could more easily
tell which was their council member.
Caroll raised his plate up so everyone could see
it has a number on it, too, now.
Other Council members also commented on various things.
Regular meeting of the Valdosta City Council, 24 March 2011,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
It’s an opportunity for those of us who are not currently
searching for our next meal to help those who need jobs,
and thereby to help ourselves, so they don’t turn to crime.
Like a burned-over longleaf pine, we can come back from this recession
greener than ever, if we choose wisely.
Switchgrass seemed like a good idea five or ten years ago,
but there is still no market for it.
Not just strictly organic by Georgia’s ridiculously
restrictive standards for that, but also less pesticides
for healthier foods, pioneered as nearby as Tifton.
That’s two markets: one for farmers, stores, and farmers’ markets
in growing and distributing healthy food, and one for local
banks in financing farmers converting from their overlarge
pesticide spraying machinery to plows and cultivators.
Similarly, biomass may have seemed like a good idea years ago,
but with Adage backing out of both of its Florida biomass plants
just across the state line, having never built any such plant ever,
the biomass boom never happened.
Meanwhile, our own Wesley Langdale has demonstrated to the state
that
In a long-running email discussion that started with a post
by Valdosta City Council member James R. Wright about switchgrass
for biomass, Councilmember Wright wrote two messages on Saturday,
26 March 2011, each asking questions of Dr. Michael Noll.
The first one contained this paragraph:
Economic development is a high priority on the mind of many people. If
you read the local paper you will see page after page of foreclosures,
failing businesses, and unemployment at a all time high. Please explain
to me how we can address these problems through energy needs?
The
initial writeup in the VDT quoted CCA as being all coy
about if a need arose from the state they would be ready
to deploy the private prison in Lowndes County:
“This is (for) a future need that we don’t even know what it’ll
be yet,” Frank Betancourt, CCA’s vice president of real estate
development said. “There’s no ground breaking to announce. When the
need (for a facility) does arrive, we can be the first ones to offer
(our services).”
CCA has been a great partner with us for nearly a decade now. Coffee
Correctional Facility and Wheeler Correctional Facility certainly meet
the standards of the Georgia Department of Corrections. I particularly
appreciate CCA maintaining exemplary accreditation status with both
the American Correctional Association and the National Commission on
Correctional Healthcare. I look forward to a continued long relationship
with them.”
—Commissioner James E. Donald, Georgia Department of Corrections
And over in Decatur County people actually asked about this, and were
told
Continue reading →
Karen Noll of WACE, Wiregrass Activists for Clean Energy,
asked the Valdosta City Council not to sell wastewater
to the proposed Wiregrass Power LLC biomass plant.
She presented
“500+ signatures from community members and organizations”
asking for that.
She also said
“…furthermore a response to our request each
member of the council is expected before the next council meeting.”
WACE, Wiregrass Activists for Clean Energy, at
Regular meeting of the Valdosta City Council, 24 March 2011,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
Saturday I heard somebody bragging about how fast the Internet is in Atlanta.
That would be maybe a tenth of the speed it is in Tokyo.
But still blazing fast compared to the broke-down wagon in a muddy ditch
speeds we get in south Georgia:
I wrote that article more than a year ago, and Internet speeds in rural
Georgia have not improved much if at all.
This isn’t just about playing Farmville.
It’s about communicating with your relatives,
about competing in business,
Continue reading →
Nuclear power is a gamble we don’t need to take. Studies show that the UK can meet its energy needs and tackle climate change without resorting to nuclear power or burning fossil fuels – all that is lacking is the political will.
It’s an opportunity for those of us who are not currently
searching for our next meal to help those who need jobs,
and thereby to help ourselves, so they don’t turn to crime.
Like a burned-over longleaf pine, we can come back from this recession
greener than ever, if we choose wisely.
