The grain required to fill a 25-gallon SUV gas tank with ethanol could feed one person for a year, and widespread production of the alternative fuel could exacerbate hunger in developing nations. Carbon trading concentrates pollution in poor communities, and as nuclear energy moves in to replace fossil fuels, radioactive contamination will intensify in low-income areas.
These grim stats and projections were highlighted Friday afternoon by Rising Tide, an activist network working to address “the root causes of climate change,” during their Rising Tide Spring 2007 Roadshow presentation held at UNCA. This same group was responsible for hanging a banner from a billboard to protest the Woodfin power plant. (The “two punk kids” who got arrested during that media stunt were invoked in Xpress pages in a recent Sternberg commentary and featured later in a CIBO-sponsored television ad.)
The group’s presentation on the flaws of proposed, market-based solutions to climate change was broken up with a few acoustic melodies by radical folk singer Evan Greer. “It’s really hard to deal with talking about this topic on a daily basis,” Greer told the crowd. Citing a projection he’d heard that South Florida could be underwater in 50 years, he said it was hard to imagine. “A lot of us were just in South Florida,” he said, fiddling with his guitar strap and shifting his weight from one bare foot to the other. “And some of us fell in love with people there.”
— Rebecca Bowe, editorial assistant
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