Photo added Feb 4, 2013  -  By Jill Stein

TV footage shows a nice clip of the Green-Rainbow Party contingent at the rally to stop the New England tar sands pipeline. (click here to view)  It includes Rick Purcell and Wes Nickerson leading a chant and carrying our banner.  Green-Rainbows brought Green flags and Maine Greens brought signs saying "Political change, not climate change: Vote Green Party".  People were carrying them all over the parade. Maine Greens also collected hundreds of names and contact info.

January 12, 2013: There are at least three anti-fracking bills poised for filing in the Massachusetts Legislature.Two have the backing of the Massachusetts Sierra Club: (1) the bill to ban fracking in Massachusetts; and (2) the bill requiring electricity companies that use natural gas to certify that the extraction process didn’t poison any drinking water. Representative Sean Garballey will be lead sponsor for both bills and several legislators have already agreed to sign on as co-sponsors.

The third bill, which Representative Denise Provost intends to file, would impose a moratorium on fracking in Massachusetts.

By Steve Randall, Larry Ely and Rob Crowner

“So I want to start with Genesis 8, verse 21 and 22. ‘Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.’ I believe that’s the infallible word of God, and that’s the way it’s going to be
for His creation.” – U.S. Rep. John Shimkus (R), chair of the Subcommittee on Environment and Economy, denying global warming.

The pages of New Yorker magazine and other publications have for
decades featured the final crisis of human civilization as farce. Cartoon
images of religiously inspired ascetics carrying terse placards announcing
the end time provide comic relief in a world full of real troubles by invoking
our common sense scientific rationality. But the quote from Rep. Shimkus
illustrates something else in the pronouncements of some pundits.

The Mount Tom Coal plant in Holyoke has been in operation since 1960. It has been polluting Holyoke, Pioneer Valley and Western Massachusetts for 52 years.  By Polluting I mean every Human, Animal, Plant, and Water Body has been subjected to mercury pollution every year, as well as arsenic, lead and acid gases putting every living species at risk.

The Mount Tom Coal Plant's current owners are FirstLight Power Resources and GDF Suez North America. The plant can generate 146,000 kilowatts, or enough to meet the electrical demands of a city twice the size of Holyoke. The plant can burn 1.200 tons of coal daily. From 2007 to 2009 First Light installed $55 million worth of air pollution-control equipment after the state determined it was the second largest polluter in the state. Talk about the Wheels of Government moving slowly. The Plant discharged muddy storm water over 5 months during the construction work in violation of a federal permit. The EPA fined the Owners  over $170,000 and the EPA settled with them for $40,814 for violating the federal clean water laws. Proof money can buy you Love. In Nov, 2011 the Plants union officials said that half of the plant's 60 employees will be laid off because the plant is not operating often enough to warrant its present level of Staffing. I hope you are keeping track, Polluting, breaking federal laws, and now laying off workers. Its is time to STOP the madness, and time to START the process of Boldly Going Beyond Coal in Holyoke.