Altamaha Riverkeeper Opposes Plant Washington, Record Drought Continues, and The Balanescu Quartet This Weekend On Sustainable Georgia

One of the great challenges before us as a civilization is how to come up with a way to fuel our machines in ways that don’t despoil the environment, compromise our immune systems, or bankrupt our economy. That’s a tough nut to crack, and just because the price of gasoline has dropped to under two dollars a gallon does not mean that we can forget about the challenge. For example, if you were designing and building an electricity-generating plant in 2008 would you be building one that burns coal to accomplish that?

On Georgia Earth News this week we feature the return of Pierre Howard to the helm of the Georgia Conservancy, bankrupt developers winning court fights along the coast, and positive changes in green building standards. Isla Earth brings word of sustainable house trailers in Mississippi. We’ll check in with Altamaha Riverkeeper Executive Director Deborah Sheppard about a controversial coal-fired energy plant slated for Washington County and it’s possible effects on the Oconee Watershed, a watershed currently suffering the effects of a drought that has water levels across the state at record lows . In spite of it all, we hope you have much to be thankful this thanksgiving week, and that Sustainable Georgia is one more of those things.

This week’s Sustainable Georgia Shout Out goes to the Center For A Sustainable Coast, whose Executive Director David Kyler took us to task this week in an email, complaining that we're giving short shrift to the potential for wind energy generation off of the Georgia Coast. We’ll take that issue up in a future program. The Center For A Sustainable Coast, based in St. Simons Island, has fought coastal development, and has fought offshore oil drilling off the east coast. This past Spring, Common Cause honored Kyler and the Center as part of their annual Democracy Awards. Like Common Cause, The Center for A Sustainable Coast is dedicated to holding those in power accountable. While their latest battle against the Cumberland Harbour was lost in the courts this week, as we noted in Earth News, the Center For A Sustainable Coast will continue to fight to protect the tidal marshes of the Georgia Coast.

Our recycled music this week is from the Balanescu Quartet.