Kermit the Frog is correct, you can be green too, if you try!
Submitted by Randi Pokladnik, PhD, Enviro. Scientist, Tappan Lake, OH
During the recent “lame duck” session, Ohio’s predominantly Republican legislature and Governor DeWine rushed to pass HB 507. The amended bill prohibits communities from banning pesticides within city borders and allows state lands and parks to be leased for oil and gas development. The legislation would also “create a broad new legal definition of ‘green energy’ that would include natural gas.” An anonymously funded, pro-natural gas, dark money group, the Empowerment Alliance, helped Ohio lawmakers spin the narrative that natural gas is ‘green.’
Seems like there are also Democrats willing to spin this narrative of methane as being ‘green’ energy. The group, “Natural Allies for Clean Energy Future” has been running TV ads during programing in my area. They claim that gas is “necessary to accelerate our clean energy future.” In January, they recruited a new Democrat to greenwash the industry: Tim Ryan (D-Ohio). This 501c4 organization says it wants to “better inform the public and policy makers about natural gas” but labeling gas as ‘green’ energy does not change the scientific facts: the combustion of methane produces carbon dioxide, and methane itself is a potent greenhouse gas.
The bio-geo-chemical processes that created the methane gas and coal deposits in the geographic area of Ohio took place millions of years ago, when carbon sources such as ancient plants and animals decayed in anaerobic conditions. Coal has a higher percentage of carbon than methane; therefore, it produces more carbon dioxide per BTU when burned. However, both substances are fossil fuels that contribute to climate change, and both have limited supplies.
Methane produces lower carbon dioxide emissions when burned but that benefit is overshadowed by the fact that extracting methane via high pressure hydraulic fracking releases enormous amounts of methane gas into the atmosphere. These emissions can be from leaks of storage tanks, compressor stations, blowdowns, pipelines, and flaring.
A report published in “Energy Science and Engineering” states“ natural gas (both shale gas and conventional gas) is responsible for much of the recent increases in methane emissions, and because of this have a higher greenhouse gas footprint than coal or oil. Pound for pound, the comparative impact of methane is 25 times greater than carbon dioxide.
Actual ‘green’ energy sources differ dramatically from fracked methane gas when it comes to infrastructure needed, energy costs, and environmental externalities. After initial construction, renewable energy projects such as wind turbines and solar panels require little resource inputs. Their energy sources are limitless and free and the carbon footprint is minimal. “Utility-scale renewable energy prices are now significantly below those of coal and gas.”
Fracking requires extensive infrastructure and constant inputs of resources such as water, sand and chemicals used to extract the methane. When it comes to the energy costs of fossil fuels, consumers are at the mercy of an industry which consistently makes record profits while it receives $20 billion a year in subsidies. Ohio’s southeastern counties provide examples of how fracking has turned rural communities into sacrificial industrial sites.
Pipelines mar wooded hillsides, well pads rise over the landscape, thousands of trucks loaded with carcinogenic chemicals, frack sand and toxic produced-water travel our roads every day. Local residents are exposed to air and water emissions from the process which releases hazardous air pollutants and contaminants water.
In February 2018, a gas well in Belmont County experienced a blowout. The well released methane gas for 20 days before the leak could be contained. The total emissions from the 20-day event were estimated to be equivalent to the total annual emissions of several countries or 120 metric tons per hour.
Given the significant contribution of methane gas to climate change and the environmental destruction caused by fracking, it is hard to understand why any educated person would call this energy source “green”. The only time “green” can legitimately be used to describe methane gas is when pointing out it is a potent greenhouse gas.
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See Also: Ohio Leads On ‘Green’ Energy By Embracing Methane Gas – Steve Hanley, CleanTechnica, January 24, 2023
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Meet the man fueling clean energy opposition in the Midwest
From the Desk of Michael Thomas, Heated World, February 9, 2023
This is a special joint edition of HEATED and Distilled, a newsletter written by Michael Thomas.
Kevon Martis and a group of fossil fuel-funded allies have led a decades-long campaign to sow fear and misinformation about renewable energy. It’s working.
Last year, Heather Hodge heard about a proposed clean energy project in her rural Michigan community. Not too long after, things started to get ugly.
It started in October 2022, when Hodge—who works for a biotechnology lab in nearby Lansing—heard about a proposed utility-scale solar farm in the townships of Conway and Cohoctah. If built, the project would provide enough clean electricity to power about 30,000 homes.
“I’m thinking, ‘Oh, solar is coming through, it’s gonna be a done deal,’” Hodge told HEATED and Distilled. After all, 90 percent of Michiganders support solar energy, and only three percent strongly oppose it. And her area had a history of approving local energy projects.
But as she began expressing excitement about the project, Hodge found that some of her neighbors were fearful. At a local high school basketball game, someone told her the project could give her cancer. Shortly after that, Hodge saw a Facebook post from a local parent claiming it would dramatically reduce property values.
Then, at the first public hearing in December, Hodge read that only five out of the 40 people that spoke about the solar farm were in support. And in addition to fears about property devaluation and cancer, multiple residents said they were worried that the solar farm would contaminate the water supply. One woman argued the panels would engulf birds in flames.
Fear and misinformation in Michigan ~ Heather Hodge, a scientist by training, began looking for data to back up the claims. She soon discovered that most people’s fears were unfounded.
No peer-reviewed research linked solar panels with cancer. Three peer-reviewed studies concluded that solar farms don’t impact property values. A concentrated solar farm in the Mojave Desert had burned birds—but the proposed project in her area was a photovoltaic farm that doesn’t get that hot. And no studies have found a link between solar farms and water contamination.
But Hodge’s neighbors still seemed to be getting even more fearful—and angry. So she attended the next public hearing on January 5.
That hearing, she said, was even more heated than the first. The large crowd booed and heckled a local member of Sierra Club Michigan, Mike Buza, who spoke in support of the project. “I was terrified [to go up and speak],” Hodge said. But she managed to go up and express her support.
Afterward, Hodge said three men angrily stared at her. “Each one was like, yeah, that’s the traitor,” she said. Hodge also saw another man follow Buza out of the room, before accusing him of being a paid actor and saying God would punish him for what he had done.
The anti-renewable crusade of Kevon Martis ~ Following the meeting, Hodge reflected on the experience in confusion. Why did so many of her fellow community members believe this solar farm would cause cancer, contaminate their water, and destroy their property values? Why had so many people turned out to these meetings? And why was everyone so angry?
Hungry for answers, Hodge went on Facebook, where she discovered multiple groups dedicated to opposing the project. After joining the groups, she found they were full of articles and claims made by the same person: Kevon Martis.
Hodge didn’t know it at the time, but she had accidentally discovered the public face of one of the most influential anti-renewable efforts in the country.
Aided by a small group of allies—many of whom receive money from the fossil fuel industry—Martis has helped pass dozens of laws that ban or severely restrict clean energy development in towns and counties across the Midwest. In order to pass these laws, he’s used misinformation and fear-based tactics that wind up dividing entire communities.
Though Martis’s crusade hasn’t been covered much by national media, clean energy advocates say it’s actively hamstringing the fight against climate change in the Midwest.
A clean energy executive told HEATED and Distilled that if Martis gets to a community before them, their projects are almost certain to be blocked by the local government. The executive asked for anonymity in fear of being targeted by Martis.
A personal dispute sparks a decade-long war ~ Martis declined to be interviewed for this story. In an email to HEATED and Distilled, he expressed offense at being described as an opponent of clean energy. “Objective ‘journalists’ don’t lead with insulting pejorative phrases like ‘opposition to clean energy,’” he wrote. At the bottom of the email he added “#fail #bias”.
But according to multiple residents of his small town in Michigan and a former local government official, Martis’s anti-renewable crusade began as a relatively mundane personal dispute. John Tuckerman, a Lenawee County Commissioner from 2003 to 2015 who has known Martis for more than a decade, said Martis was running a small construction company in Riga, Michigan in 2010, and wanted to rezone a part of the town to build new homes.
But Martis was overruled by the town planning commission, Tuckerman said, and shortly afterwards the commission approved plans for a wind energy project on the land.
“He was angry,” said Tuckerman.
Shortly thereafter, in 2011, Martis and a group of people in town formed Interstate Informed Citizens Coalition (IICC), a nonprofit dedicated to fighting clean energy projects. Martis’s co-founder at IICC, Joshua Nolan, represented Martin County Coal Corporation in a lawsuit that same year.
Disinformation was a key part of IICC’s strategy from the beginning. As a part of their first campaign, the group bought a TV ad that claimed a proposed wind farm in southeast Michigan could “harm your families’ health, significantly reduce property values, and damage TV and radio signals, possibly depriving your family of important safety alerts.”
The misleading ad helped IICC secure its first victory. In July 2011, Riga passed one of the country’s most restrictive wind turbine ordinances, effectively banning wind energy projects in the area.
Martis quickly expanded the campaign, eventually helping pass similar ordinances in nine other towns and counties. But his work was only just beginning.
Martis meets with climate deniers — and his impact grows ~ The following year, Martis attended an event in Washington D.C. with some of the country’s most influential climate deniers. There, he swapped ideas with organizations like the Heartland Institute and Americans for Prosperity, which receive much of their money from the fossil fuel industry.
According to a leaked document from the event, Martis’s objective in attending the event was to “seek funding for lobbying efforts in Lansing.”
It’s unclear whether or not Martis found any funding. (Neither Heartland nor Americans for Prosperity returned a request for comment). But shortly after, IICC successfully helped block a law that would have required utilities in Michigan to generate 25 percent of their energy from renewables by 2025.
Martis and IICC also started paying witnesses thousands of dollars to testify against a renewable portfolio standard in Ohio, according to a leaked email obtained by Energy and Policy Institute. That clean energy law eventually failed as well.
Martis and IICC also began increasing the temperature of their attacks against environmentalists. At a 2013 wind energy conference, he and another IICC member dressed up as a “Big Green Lie” and “Death Turbine” to convince people on the street that wind energy was dangerous.
When Peter Sinclair, a clean energy advocate in Michigan, criticized Martis in a letter to an editor, Martis edited a picture of Sinclair’s face onto the body of a doll and posted it to Facebook. Martis has done this to multiple opponents.
Today Martis serves as a County Commissioner in Lenawee County, a position he’s held since last summer. He continues to run advertising campaigns asking residents to block solar and wind projects and regularly spreads misinformation on Facebook.
He’s also a senior policy fellow at E&E Legal, which has received funding from coal companies like Peabody Energy and Arch Coal. The think tank is best known for its infamous attacks on climate scientists and its widespread climate denial campaigns.
Anti-renewable hatred gets violent ~ Martis has said his overall strategy is to sow fear among pro-renewable politicians. In a recent Facebook post, Martis wrote, “Your county commissioners will not be moved by facts. They will be moved by political fear.”
But it’s not just politicians who have been moved by Martis. Communities are now at each other’s throats.
Tuckerman, the former Lenawee County Commissioner, has attended town meetings for decades. Before Martis showed up, he said town and county meetings were rarely contentious. But all of that changed after 2011 when IICC launched, he said.
Suddenly, Tuckerman said he and other elected officials began to receive threats when they voiced support for clean energy projects. He said farmers who signed leases were regularly called out in public meetings and verbally harassed.
In a 2020 Facebook post, Martis wrote, “The true cost of 40-50 or 60% wind generation in any given state must include the cost of a new Capitol building.” The post included a picture of a burned-out truck that anti-wind activists in Australia destroyed in a protest. E&E has not returned a request for comment about the post.
This kind of rhetoric has permeated the tone of public hearings on renewables in Michigan. Buza, who says he has attended more than 100 town and county meetings, said it’s not uncommon for people to leave in tears now. On a few occasions, he said, supporters of clean energy projects have had to be escorted out to their cars by the police.
“The tone of it is a lot angrier, a lot more threatening,” he said.
Still, supporters of clean energy like Heather Hodge remain undeterred. In January, planning commissioners in her town voted to place a 12-month moratorium on solar development, killing the proposed project. But after the moratorium expires, Hodge said she plans to continue advocating for solar. She hopes other clean energy advocates will join her.
SOURCE: https://heated.world/p/meet-the-man-fueling-clean-energy/