Faith leaders and environmental groups want West Virginia to implement policies aimed at cutting carbon emissions and slowing the pace of climate change.

According to federal data, temperatures in the Mountain State have risen one degree Fahrenheit since the beginning of the 20th century. While it may not seem like much, warming temperatures are a troubling trend.

Jon Clark, Appalachia regional coordinator for the Citizens' Climate Lobby, said a carbon tax would send a price signal to the market utilities should be investing in technologies to capture the carbon they emit.

"It costs polluters nothing to keep dumping," Clark pointed out. "They're polluting into the atmosphere for free, so where's the incentive to invest in carbon capture and sequestration? Putting a carbon tax in place would actually be a long-term incentive to reduce it."

Some state officials disagree. This week West Virginia's Attorney General, along with his counterparts in a handful of states, sent a letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, arguing a proposed rule to require companies to disclose all their direct greenhouse-gas emissions, and other climate-related data, is an attempt to "intimidate boardrooms" and "put profit secondary to political interests."

Ron English, president of the NAACP Charleston Branch, spoke at a recent conference focused on how climate change is affecting the everyday lives of West Virginians. He said faith communities have a responsibility to take action.

"And what we do, from the center of our very being, is to ask ourselves three questions: What is our intent? How are we guided by integrity? And what is the anticipation of our impact?" English urged.

A report released earlier this year by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stressed countries need to take rapid and immediate action to curb greenhouse-gas emissions in order to avoid the most disastrous impacts of climate change.

Climate-change groups are calling attention to the environmental destruction linked to the wood pellet industry - even as California is considering a proposal to build two plants. The U.S. is the biggest wood pellet exporter in the world - mostly to Europe.

Laura Haight, U.S. policy director for the Partnership for Policy Integrity, wants the European Union and the U.K. to change their policies.

"In Europe, they treat burning wood as renewable energy and heavily subsidize it. And they're importing massive quantities of wood pellets to fuel their power plants," she said. "And a lot of that is coming from the United States. That's where a lot of our forest destruction is happening. "

More than 100 groups recently wrote
to European Union leaders asking them to prohibit subsidies for wood that comes from living trees. Wood pellet companies claim they only use waste wood from logging or dead wood in the forest that fuels wildfire. But investigations have produced proof that companies have clear-cut forests in the southeastern U.S.

Haight added that burning wood for energy is terrible for the climate.

"There's a large release of carbon dioxide emissions into the air when you burn it. And at the same time, you're removing the tree that is helping us lock in our carbon and so you're both increasing emissions and reducing our capacity to store carbon," she said.

Two wood pellet plants - the first of their kind in California - are proposed for Lassen and Tuolumne counties. The plants would be built by Golden State Natural Resources, a public benefit corporation whose board members are local county officials.

Elly Pepper, deputy director of international wildlife conservation, Natural Resources Defense Council opposes the projects.

"It would be bad for the air, bad for the wildlife and lands, bad for the communities. And it would be basically California assenting to bioenergy as a renewable energy source when it's most definitely not," Pepper said.

The company did not respond to a request for comment but says on its website that the plants would quote "procure and process sustainably sourced excess forest vegetation into a pelletized renewable fuel source to replace the use of coal."

Thousands of lives are cut short every year because of air pollution from coal-fired power plants in Wyoming and across the United States, according to a new Sierra Club report.

Rob Joyce, energy organizer for the Wyoming chapter of the Sierra Club, said harmful toxins released from burning coal have been linked to a number of health issues, including increased asthma attacks and acute bronchitis, and in severe cases can contribute to an increase in heart attacks and premature deaths over time.

"The report also shows that while those living closest to the coal plants typically bear the worst impacts, once those pollutants are in the air they can travel long distances, and impact communities hundreds of miles away," Joyce explained.

Researchers found pollution from America's coal-fired power plants is responsible for 3,800 premature deaths a year.

The report listed PacifiCorp's Jim Bridger facility, operating since the 1970s in southwest Wyoming, as among the nation's most deadly. PacifiCorp has said it will continue operating two of the site's four units at lower capacities to reduce pollution levels, until they are converted to natural gas as early as this year. The other two units will go offline in 2037.

Joyce acknowledged while the transition away from coal-fired electricity will be good for public health, it added economic uncertainty to communities and state agencies deeply tied to the old fossil fuel economy.

"We need to be creative in our approach to prepare for these changes so that families can sustain themselves," Joyce stated. "And also so that the land, water and wildlife that everyone in Wyoming really values can continue to be enjoyed by everyone."

Just 18% of premature deaths from coal occur in the state where the power plants are located, and Wyoming is among the nation's top five exporters of coal-fired air pollution. Joyce added the report exposes just how dangerous the continued use of coal is for communities, public health and the climate crisis.

"The bottom line is that a transition to clean, renewable energy is not only good for combating climate change, but it will also immediately improve public health and save lives," Joyce contended.

Researchers with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine spent two years studying the nation's supply of native seeds, and found significant shortfalls.

A new report shows that in order to respond to climate disruptions and keep ecosystems intact, significant work is needed to bolster seed production and distribution.

Vera Smith, senior federal lands policy analyst with Defenders of Wildlife, said native seeds are critical for post-wildfire rehabilitation and other recovery efforts.

"Our insufficient supply," said Smith, "is a major barrier to ecological restoration and other revegetation projects that we need to do across the nation in order to keep our lands healthy, natural and resilient to climate change."

When seeds from plants that are native to a region impacted by wildfire are not available, nonnative species are planted instead. But these species frequently are not able to adapt and thrive in foreign soils.

If those plants fail to put down roots, rains can erode hillsides and make the recovery of watersheds that people, wildlife and plants depend on much more difficult.

The report calls for concerted action between Tribal Nations and the U.S. Departments of Interior, Agriculture and Defense to build a more robust native seed supply chain as climate change brings more frequent and extreme weather events.

Smith said significant investments, including funding in the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, are needed to get the job done.

"They need to build national seed warehouses that can meet their needs," said Smith. "They need to have robust national plant programs, they need to have botanists and ecological restoration specialists on staff."

Native plants are also more drought tolerant than nonnatives. Smith said native seeds and plants are the foundation for healthy ecosystems and the environment.

"And our native wildlife evolved to live with these native plants," said Smith. "It's what they eat, it's what keeps them alive. And if we lose our native flora, we risk losing our native wildlife."




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