Anti-Biomass Incineration Campaign Coordinator in Jeopardy

Dear Bio­mass Busters,

As most of you know, I have been a coor­di­na­tor for the nation­al Anti-Bio­mass Incin­er­a­tion Cam­paign for the past cou­ple years. This year the amaz­ing Saman­tha Chir­il­lo joined me as co-coor­di­na­tor, based in the bio­mass bat­tle­ground state of Ore­gon. Togeth­er, work­ing with all of you great bio-masochists, we’ve pushed back hard against dirty bio­mass incin­er­a­tion local­ly, state-wide, nation­al­ly, and internationally.

The Anti-Bio­mass Incin­er­a­tion Cam­paign — whose pri­or­i­ties are decid­ed by grass­roots mem­bers like you — has played an instru­men­tal role in call­ing nation­al atten­tion to the harm­ful health and envi­ron­men­tal impacts of bio­mass energy.

We’ve painstak­ing­ly built our Bio­mass Oppo­nents email list of hun­dreds of peo­ple across the U.S. who are active­ly strip­ping the green­wash off of bio­mass energy.

We‘ve worked with com­mu­ni­ties from Ore­gon to Indi­ana to Flori­da to Ver­mont to fight incin­er­a­tor proposals.

We‘ve orga­nized nation­al actions like Nation­al Bioen­er­gy Truth Day to pres­sure elect­ed offi­cials, as well as month­ly con­fer­ence calls with guest speak­ers on every top­ic under the sun relat­ing to bio­mass incineration.

We‘ve pub­lished The Bio­mass Mon­i­tor newslet­ter, the world’s #1 web­site track­ing the bio-mess, and com­piled a library of hun­dreds of sci­en­tif­ic doc­u­ments all just a click away.

What folks might not be aware of is the fact that my paid work only amounts to 3.5 hours a week. Since those scant hours haven’t been any­where near enough to car­ry out my var­i­ous dai­ly duties, I have also donat­ed hun­dreds of vol­un­teer hours over the years. Saman­tha, too, is in a sim­i­lar boat.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, due to an inabil­i­ty to secure grant fund­ing, the posi­tion of Anti-Bio­mass Incin­er­a­tion coor­di­na­tor for Ener­gy Jus­tice Net­work is in jeop­ardy. As of Jan­u­ary 1, 2014, I will be step­ping aside as co-coordinator.

But it’s not all bad news. If we raise $5,000 through your dona­tions, we’ll be able to keep the tal­ent­ed, ded­i­cat­ed, and unique­ly expe­ri­enced Saman­tha Chir­il­lo on board as cam­paign coor­di­na­tor for 2014. 

I can hon­est­ly say with­out exag­ger­a­tion that Saman­tha is one of the most qual­i­fied peo­ple in the coun­try to coor­di­nate the Anti-Bio­mass Incin­er­a­tion campaign.

Samantha’s orga­niz­ing back­ground has ranged from oppos­ing dirty ener­gy, to for­est pro­tec­tion, to the labor move­ment, to fight­ing pes­ti­cides, to food secu­ri­ty, to cli­mate adap­ta­tion. She has heaps of prac­tice bring­ing togeth­er dis­parate voic­es to uni­fy their pow­er for the com­mon good.

Saman­tha received her M.S. in Biol­o­gy in 2005 and her Mas­ter of Pub­lic Admin­is­tra­tion degree and Non­prof­it Cer­tifi­cate in 2009, both from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ore­gon — mak­ing her the per­fect per­son to lob­by politi­cians (which she’s done on Capi­tol Hill) and edu­cate the media. As if all that wasn’t enough, she has ten years expe­ri­ence in non­prof­it devel­op­ment, includ­ing grantwrit­ing and fundraising.

You have to admit that $5,000 for some­one as incred­i­ble as Saman­tha is a bar­gain, to say the least!

Chances are, if you’re read­ing this, you have uti­lized the work of either Saman­tha or me as Anti-Bio­mass Incin­er­a­tion Cam­paign coordinator.

Per­haps you make use of the Bio­mass Oppo­nents email list, The Bio­mass Mon­i­tor newslet­ter, the Ener­gy Jus­tice Net­work web­site and map, or the var­i­ous Face­book pages and Twit­ter feeds that we main­tain. Or maybe you’ve had direct com­mu­ni­ca­tions with us via phone or email.

You may be a com­mu­ni­ty mem­ber who has fought an incin­er­a­tor with Ener­gy Jus­tice Network’s help or you may work for a non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion that has max­i­mized the effec­tive­ness and effi­cien­cy of its own anti-bio­mass cam­paign by mak­ing use of our pro­grams and services.

Maybe you’re a med­ical pro­fes­sion­al, lawyer, jour­nal­ist, or sci­en­tist who has ben­e­fit­ed from the con­tacts that Ener­gy Jus­tice Net­work has gen­er­at­ed over the years and pro­vid­ed to you. Or maybe you’re just an engaged and con­sci­en­tious activist with a nation­al focus who knows damned well that clean ener­gy can’t come out of a smokestack.

If you fall into any of the above cat­e­gories, I want to ask you to take a moment and con­sid­er what Ener­gy Jus­tice Network’s ser­vices have been worth to you over the years and make a gen­er­ous dona­tion — any­where from $15-$500 — to ensure that we can con­tin­ue into 2014.

Please go to http://www.energyjusticenetwork.org/donate to donate today.

It’s tru­ly been a plea­sure work­ing with all you great folks over the years. I wish you the very best. 

Thank you,

Josh Schloss­berg