Gas Tax Not the Ultimate Solution

Looks eerily like a cigarette.
A gas tax will be as effective as a cigarette tax on
preventing harm  ...  It won't!

Anyone focused on the tax of gas drilling as their only or primary goal, has succeeded in becoming the pawns of the gas drilling industry.  Those who include discuss of tax in their repertoire of discussion are doing the right thing; those using it as their repertoire are either using it as political cover or are allowing themselves to be used by industry.

The gas industry, like so many others in big business, is a master of spin, deception and diversion. They fight the gas tax as though it would be a big burden. And in so doing, keep the debate focused on whether or not they should be taxed, rather than the question of whether or not they should be allowed to drill in the first instance, and if so, how, when and where regulation should limit that drilling. Being the subject of a gas tax rather than future limits on drilling (whether by moratorium, strong regulation or strong legislation) would be a big win for the gas drillers – not the loss they are trying to make you believe.

Smart legislators, environmental organizations, and gas drilling opponents might include the question of a tax in their advocacy and efforts regarding drilling for natural gas, but they don’t allow it to become the message.

When it comes to gas drilling the first question that has to be answered is whether or not we should allow drilling at all using the devastating tactics and technologies the drillers are seeking – i.e. sprawling wells, roads and pipelines coupled with horizontal drilling, hydrofracturing and the massive volumes of water withdraw and chemical contamination that result in a permanent loss of fresh water of massive and unsustainable proportions.

The second question is, to the extent we do allow some drilling, where will we allow that drilling to take place, using what technologies, subject to what limitations, and with what safeguards for shut down.

The final question to be answered is, to the extent we do allow drilling, how much will we tax it and how will those funds be used to protect and restore the environments and communities harmed.

Beginning and ending the conversation with the question of a gas tax is foolish and plays right into the hands of the drillers.

While a tax may raise some money, and is an easy political position for those politicians who actually support drilling to take, it will not prevent the poisoning of water, air and people that drilling brings; nor will it stop the industrialization of our most beautiful communities, changing them from rural havens of beauty to industrial landscapes that can never be repaired; and it will not prevent the permanent loss of fresh water (through underground injection and industrial poisoning) or protection from global climate change our children, family, friends and ancestors of the future will need and have a right to expect from us.

There are some very good legislators and environmental organizations who oppose drilling in whole or part who have the gas tax as part of their repertoire of positions – that makes sense.  But to have the gas tax as an only focus? Those folks are clearly looking for the easy out.

A gas tax raises money but it doesn’t prevent harm or protect communities.

When cigarette smoking was taxed by Pennsylvania it may have raised (and still does raise) lots of money, but since then over 1.2 million have died as the result of smoking (and that figure doesn’t include the indirect deaths or excruciating health impacts). Taxing gas may raise money – but as with a cigarette tax it won’t stop people from dying or the environment from being ravaged.

First we must ask ourselves – should we drill at all.
Then we must ask, if so, to what extent? Where? When? How? And under what regulatory requirements?
Then we can decide how much to tax! Not should we tax but how much!

On another note about buying into the strategy of the drillers: We are suddenly hearing a lot about areas that are no longer targets for drilling due to bad geology or low concentrations of gas. The timing of these revelations seem awfully suspicious and convenient — they come at the same time that there is an outpouring of demand to protect the Delaware River from gas drilling. Could it be that the "sudden" revelations that drilling doesn't make sense in some of the areas of greatest concern to communities and politicians, including the Upper Delaware River watershed, is merely a smokescreen to deflate the outpouring of citizen and political action on the issue?

Water is Essential -- Gas Drilling is Not

There are alternative sources of energy that don’t require shale drilling or hydrofracking.

There is no alternative for water.

Gas and profits may be inviting to some.

Water is essential to us all.

The amount of freshwater on Earth, in our watershed and in our region, is finite.

And yet the DRBC is proposing, with its draft gas drilling regulations, to give hundreds of billions of gallons of our fresh water to the drillers – not in the form of a temporary use that will eventually return to our water systems – but a permanent taking. 

The damage is from the combination of drilling, hydrofracking and massive land development that combine to rob our watershed and our people of clean fresh water and the healthy habitats we need to thrive.

Only 2.53% of the water on earth is freshwater and so usable for nourishing humans.  Of this, about 2/3 is locked up in glaciers and permanent snow cover. That leaves less than 1% for our use.

Water is often characterized as cyclical or renewable.  But that is absolutely not so when we are talking about horizontal fracturing, hydrofracking and shale gas drilling.

• Either the drillers are making up to 9 million gallons of water per well (over average 5 million) so toxic we can’t use it again, except for more drilling, and we have made it loose in the environment to pollute other clean waters and healthy environments. 
• Or they are locking our River’s water under ground, in its toxic condition, never to be available for human or animal use ever again.

 Either way it is untenable and wholly unacceptable.

According to the UN, the world is already facing a water crisis.

“This crisis is one of water governance, [] caused by the ways in which we mismanage water.”

That is exactly what the DRBC is proposing here.

According to the United Nations, 4,400 children under the age of 5 die every day because of polluted water.  And 1 in every 6 humans on this earth have no access to clean water within a kilometer of their homes.

There are many stories of communities denied access to abundant and clean water – children walking miles to fetch water, suffering skin lesions and extreme illness due to water pollution, farmers struggling for the quantity of water they need to grow food for their communities. We are more fortunate than these communities, and yet we are poised to squander our good fortune.

Today our Delaware River is healthy in its upper reaches – because of the hard work of many who cared enough to fight for its protection.  

But the quality of the water is fragile, and our lower reaches already struggle from pollution.

And we already have water battles in our basin.

And yet the DRBC dares put the quality and available quantity of our precious Delaware at risk for drilling.

DRBC does not have the knowledge needed to craft a set of regulations that would protect our water, air, land and communities from shale gas drilling. Not until a scientific and cumulative assessment of the process and its affects has been completed.

We are talking about:

• Toxic pollution,
• Sprawling industrial development and waste,
• Increased flooding from the development,
• A permanent loss of fresh drinking water,

And more.

And yet the DRBC is inexcusably refusing to secure the needed scientific work before it pushes out its regulations and opens the doors wide for the gas drillers. 

The claim of jobs that the Pennsylvania Governor and the Army Corps cling to doesn’t hold.

Drilling is going to do harm to the billions in economic benefit and the jobs provided by a healthy Delaware River and its healthy, forested watershed. 

And it’s not just the River jobs those who support this drilling are so willing to sacrifice.

It’s also the health and safety of our communities that get sacrificed if this drilling moves forward as is being proposed with the DRBC regulations.

Drilling must not happen, not now, and maybe not ever.  Either way DRBC doesn't have the science or knowledge to know the answers to “if?” or “how”.

                    

UN Source:  United Nations World Water Development Report

Investment & Care in Roads for Our Cars but Not Water for Our Bodies?

I was headed to the Darby Creek to unstress from a difficult day.

As I walked to the Creek I noticed a number of potholes on the side of the road that will be quickly addressed when the warmer weather comes.

As I stood by the creek appreciating the beauty of the gently flowing waters I saw a bridge being carefully reconstructed to protect it from damage.

And then it hit me -- we invest billions in carefully caring for our roadways to make them easier to drive and to prevent damage to our cars.  We plan for their care, we save for their care, we regulate their use, we invest every year in massive road restoration and reconstruction projects, we charge tolls and taxes to pay for it all.

But when it comes to regulating for, protecting for, paying for the care and restoration of our waterways, the water that we put into our bodies, that we eat fish from, that we swim in and swallow, get way short shrift -- the battles over regulations and investment to protect our waters wage furious.  Much of the time, if not most of the time, those that want to pollute and damage these waters we need to sustain our lives, win.  The drillers, dredgers, dischargers and developers only have to claim the creation of a few jobs -- whether sustainable or not, whether true or not -- and they get to prevent the regulation and restoration sought and needed for the rest of us.

Clean water is not a luxury, it is a necessity.  Without healthy water to sustain us, all the money in the world makes not one wit of difference.

So we need to tell the drillers, dredgers, dischargers and developers - and all the politicians they contribute to -- that our water comes first.

When we protect our water we protect ourselves -- and at the same time we protect jobs, we create jobs, and we ensure a healthy future for ourselves and our children.  We can't afford to put our healthy rivers and waters anywhere on our priority list but at number one, along with our air and forests which are also vital and irreplaceable to our healthy selves, kids and future.

When it comes down to it:
When We Best Protect our River -- We Best Protect Ourselves!

Deepening is an Earmark that Contributes to the Deficit - Responsible Legislators Must Dump It

Congress is promising fiscal restraint – they promise no more earmarks and no more wasted investments that won’t generate real economic benefits for our country.

Delivering on this promise mandates cancelling the earmark that is the Delaware Deepening.

The Deepening is an earmark:

• it is an earmark that is not defensible fiscally;
• it is an earmark that has pitted the federal government against state governments and communities;
• it is an earmark that will cause community and environmental harms that could cost hundreds of millions in the future, especially if it decimates oysters, pollutes drinking, and extirpates endangered species all of which are very real possible outcomes.

Democrats and Republicans need to act responsibility and to ensure that every federal tax dollar spent will yield healthy communities and economies, not fulfill the political whims of some while damaging and threatening the good health and jobs of others as the deepening does.

No federal tax dollars have yet been spent on construction, only Pennsylvania has ponied up the money to serve the personal political needs of Governor Rendell. 

Deepening Robs The Budget for a Failed Investment

The Government Accountability Office has three times challenged the claims of economic benefit from deepening – with the most recent report issuing just this past year, April 2010.   In this most recent report the GAO documented once again that the Army Corps has failed to provide Congress or the public with accurate, up-to-date, complete information regarding the economic ramifications of deepening and in so doing has failed to provide the objective assessment Congress needs to make an informed choice about continuing to fund the project.  This is in addition to a 2002 Report and 2006 Congressional testimony provided by the GAO characterizing similar concerns. 

Assertions that deepening will inject millions of dollars into the region’s economies are peculiar claims considering that the Government Accountability Office has estimated the annual benefits of the project to be only $13.3 million. Even the Army Corps of Engineers is only claiming $32,645,000 of annual economic benefit (this according to their 2008 economic update.).

The fact is that there is nothing on the record to demonstrate or document that deepening will lead to the economic benefits claimed by project supporters.

•  The Army Corps has stated that the “mix and volume of cargoes coming to the benefiting terminals will be equivalent for the current 40 foot or the proposed 45 foot channel depths. There is no induced tonnage as a result of the deepening project.  … The future volume of cargo passing through the Delaware River port system is determined by … factors that are not affected in any measurable way by the channel depth.
•  The Army Corps further makes clear: “with the deeper channel, fewer total vessel calls will be required ….”
• According to the Army Corps, the few economic benefits claimed for the deepening would be enjoyed mostly by six oil facilities — one of which recently shut down. None of these facilities has invested in the project, and some even oppose the deepening, or have stated that it would provide them with no benefit.  

It is also important to recognize that while at best the Army Corps is asserting $32 million of annual economic benefit from deepening, what is put at risk is economically worth far greater including, but certainly not limited to, $80 million a year from the oyster industry, $34 million a year from ecotourism associated with horseshoe crabs and migrating shorebirds, and the Delaware River portion of the region’s recreational fishing industries including New Jersey’s $630 million of annual economic benefit (a statewide figure but much of which can be attributed to the Delaware River).

Deepening Strips States Rights.

The project is the subject of major litigation in two federal district courts, being challenged by the State of New Jersey, the State of Delaware and 5 environmental and community organizations for failure to comply with 6 federal environmental laws as well as state legal obligations and permits.  Considering the depth and breadth of the legal challenges at issue it is most appropriate for Congress to ensure that federal environmental laws and States rights obligations are fulfilled before it aids in the forward movement of the project with additional funding.

The Constitution and Federal Law are carefully designed to protect the sovereign rights of States to oversee and/or affect projects that have impacts within their borders.  Protecting this balance of power is essential for the proper implementation of law and for the proper protection of citizens.  Actions and decisions that affect this balance of power have ramifications far beyond the debate of whether to deepen the Delaware River’s main navigation channel.  Continued federal funding in the face of these legal battles directly pits the federal government against the rights of our states to uphold their laws and enforce applicable federal laws.

Deepening Is a Threat that Costs – Costs Health, Safety, Jobs and the Taxpayer Dollars it Will Cost to Restore the Damage to Come. 

Environmentally, deepening the channel changes the movement and balance of fresh and salt water in a way that will move the salt line up river, threatening drinking water supplies and other community harms. 

A moving salt line is a major threat to the oyster populations of the Delaware Estuary – including threatening the reintroduction of parasites and disease that decimated their populations in the recent past.  Oysters are vital to the ecology of the Delaware.  Oysters act as a vital food source and are important filters for pollution found in Estuary waters. Oysters of the Estuary are also economically important. The annual harvest of oysters from the Delaware Estuary are expected to generate up to $80 million of annual economic benefit for the region. In recognition of the economic, job and cultural importance of the Delaware Estuary’s oysters they have been the recipient of over $6.5 million of public restoration funds and resources. 

The Delaware Bay is home to the largest spawning population of horseshoe crabs in the world irreplaceable for supporting migratory birds and a $34 million boost to the region’s ecotourism industry. Nationally, horseshoe crabs represent a substantial benefit to the biomedical industry, to which one pint of Horseshoe Crab blood is worth $15,000 for required testing on medical devices, vaccines and intravenous drugs used by all, representing $150 million of annual revenue and social welfare value. The deepening project directly threatens the horseshoe crabs and as a result is also a threat to dependent migratory birds and associated ecotourism.

According to experts, deepening and associated spoil disposal will introduce heavy metals, pesticides, and other toxins into the environment.  And will cause the washing away of wetlands important ecologically and for storm protection.  It also is a direct and immediate threat to the Atlantic Sturgeon populations of the Delaware River – a population that once supported the largest caviar industry in the country – and could again if allowed to recover (potentially over $400 million of economic benefit here).

Earmarks of this kind – that threaten harm to our economy and region, have no place in a fiscally responsible government.

Neither the House of Representatives nor the President included funding for the project in their proposed budget – nor have they in the past 3 administrations.  There is a strong recognition that earmarks have allowed bad projects to move forward – projects not worthy of taxpayer dollars but instead given for political gain or interests.  President Obama would be the first to budget for this project in well over a decade if he were to succumb to the political pressures of the defeated Senator Specter and to Senator Casey.  Better he support the good works of respected Senator Lautenberg, Menendez, Kaufman and Congressmen Andrews and Lobiondo on the matter and continue to oppose funding for deepening.

The Delaware Deepening is a major threat to our River and region.  It should not continue to receive the casual funding that has kept it alive and unjustified all these years.  

Gas Drilling Harms River Jobs and Communities

The Delaware River attracts visitors from all over the world to spend money and support business up river and down.

When we keep our River clean and full flowing it provides those who live here 

•                clean drinking water, 

•                healthy food, 

•                memorable recreation, 

•                good paying jobs, 

•                strong local economies, and 

•                unparalleled quality of life. 

The gas drillers claim they will bring us better jobs and income at little or no cost. 

They also try to pitch this as a property rights fight. 

This is about rights, we agree, but it is about the right to life, and the rights of a community to ensure that no piece of property is used in a way that hurts the rest of the community. 

It is also about jobs – the jobs the gas drillers will take from hardworking people today, and the jobs they will rob from future generations. 

With the drillers come big costs – for our River, for our region and for our communities. 

Drilling will leave us a legacy of pollution and environmental degradation that will have to be cleaned up by everyone else, i.e. by the taxpayers. 

Gas drilling brings with it: 

•              Toxic pollution to our air and water – that will last generations 

•              It robs us of fresh, clean water in the rivers and streams that we drink and eat from, swim and fish in. 

•             It will decimate forests that protect us from pollution and flooding, and that are vital for recreation, ecotourism and economic investment. 

•             Gas drillers bring trucks, generators and bright lights by the thousands which create unending noise, traffic, and pollution disturbing and sickening our communities and taxing our community infrastructure. 

•             Drilling brings overwhelming odors and 

•             Too often it brings fires, explosions and toxic spills that damage and threaten our communities and environment, and that burden local responders with emergencies they aren't equipped for. 

The gas drillers will take from our children the natural, cultural and historic heritage that our region is known for. 

Gas drilling cannot wean the U.S. off its dependence on foreign oil. In fact, much of what they extract is planned for shipment overseas to places like China, Japan, Norway, France, India. 

Gas drilling contributes to global climate change, it does not make it better. When you consider the drilling process from cradle to grave: 

•              Drilling (extraction, collection and distribution) emits vast amounts of methane, VOC, NOX and other emissions that are major contributors to GCC. 

•             Construction of each well is estimated to require at least 1400 truck trips, each fueled by dirty diesel. With estimates of 10,000 to 50,000 wells for our upper Delaware you can see the magnitude of this pollution and traffic harm. 

•             Construction of the wells, transmission pipes and needed roadways – means the loss of forests which are natural carbon sinks. 

Destroying the health and image of the River will drive businesses away from our communities.  Businesses increasingly look to settle in attractive and well renowned communities.  If we lose our River, we lose our cache, and we lose this attraction for big business. 

Gas drilling also puts at risk ecotourism and river jobs. 

Ecotourism is a fundamental mainstay of many Delaware River businesses and communities. 

In just one year the Upper reaches of the Delaware River brought to local communities over 367,000 whitewater paddlers, who spent over $20 million, contributed almost $10 million to our local economies, and supported 447 jobs. 

There are 20 canoe liveries that operate along the Delaware. Some employ as many as 200 people. With an annual attendance of over 60,000, one livery alone can create gross revenue of more than $3 million a year for our region -- just one livery. 

Trout fishing in the Upper Delaware resulted in $17.69 million in local business revenue in a single year. This revenue supporting 348 jobs, providing $3.65 million in wages and $719,350 in local taxes. This investment translated into an ongoing $29.98 million in local economic activities. 

River festivals up and down the River draw crowds. Lambertville’s shad festival draws 30,000 to 35,000 to that community just for one brief weekend generating tremendous amounts of business. 

In PA, NY an NJ wildlife viewing alone generates an estimated $1 million in retail sales, $623 million in trip related sales, $217 million in federal and state taxes and supports 35,000 jobs a year. Nature viewing only succeeds when there are healthy habitats and clean streams that sustain wildlife and beautiful views for the visitors. 

In Philadelphia and beyond restaurants and hotels market themselves based upon their river views and river access. Some hotels charge over $100 more for a room if it faces the River. 

Boating on the Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers – rowing, paddling, and motorized boats are a big attractions – bringing visitors and business. The Schuylkill has hosted over 20 regattas in a single year – some bringing 1,400, 3,000 even 5,000 visitors each from all over the country to enjoy and spend in and around Philadelphia. 

The pollution, water withdrawals and massive land disturbance the drilling will bring does damage to these businesses, jobs and economic attractions – both through direct harm and indirect harm by harming the perceptions of the health and beauty of the River. 

Protecting and restoring the ecosystems of the Delaware River is not just of economic import, but is also important to the health and safety of our region. 

Woodlands and forests protect us from flooding and flood damages by absorbing the water that otherwise runs off and floods us. Tree cover has saved communities billions of dollars in infrastructure that would otherwise be needed to manage stormwater runoff and prevent flood damages. Trees in just four of our tributary watersheds saved a combined $6 ½ billion in otherwise needed infrastructure.  

Communities along the Delaware already suffer from catastrophic flooding and damages. Gas drilling will remove vast areas of trees and compromise vast areas of floodplain making the danger of catastrophic flooding for communities worse and more frequent. 

As for drinking water, Philadelphia and New York City both well know that protecting the watershed that is the source of drinking water is the most effective and cost efficient way to protect water supplies. Every dollar invested in watershed protection can save a community between $7.50 and $200 in costs for new water treatment facilities. 

New York City has invested 1 to 1.5 billion dollars to protect the Upper Delaware, the source of its water supply. The alternative treatment plant option would have cost the City $10 to $20 billion. 

Philadelphia too is investing to protect its drinking water source. 

The drillers put all this at risk with the pollution they create, the glutinous quantities of fresh water they withdraw, and the destruction of the green infrastructure that is the basis of all this clean water and economic prosperity. 

As recently as September 24, 2010 the DRBC put the region in drought warning and directed needed reservoir releases to ensure flows for Philadelphia and other communities. If we allow the gas drillers to take from us the hundreds of millions of gallons needed to feed their drilling operations we make these kinds of conditions worse. Remember, we are talking 10,000 to 50,000 wells at an average of 4.5 million gallons of water per well for fracking. 

The Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) has determined that natural gas extraction is a threat to the water quality of the Delaware River. As a result it is developing natural gas specific regulations and gas production wells in the watershed are on hold until those regulations are adopted. 

DRBC should soon be getting federal funding to study the cumulative affects of natural gas drilling.  This study needs to be completed and used as the basis for the new DRBC regulations. 

Right now the DRBC is planning to do it backwards – to create their regulations and so allow drilling first, and do the study of the harms of gas drilling later when it is too late to take advantage of its findings. 

The DRBC needs to hear from us all that they doing it backwards means irreparable harm as the result of ill informed regulations. We need you to tell the DRBC that the City doesn’t want to see gas drilling regulations being drafted or drilling to start until the environmental and community harms analysis has been done first.  Go to the action page of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network website to get your letter in -- www.delawareriverkeeper.org. 

And as a community we need to stop focusing our energy on new ways to extract damaging, polluting fossil fuels and start focusing on sustainable, environmentally friendly sources of energy.  My husband and I invested in both solar and geothermal at our home in May and are reaping tremendous rewards. We aren’t polluting when we turn the lights on in our house, the amount of money we are saving each month is immense, we are fully powered, without being an environmental and financial burden on our community or the future of our children. 

That is our future – sustainable energy – not the devastations brought by natural gas -- at least that's the way it should be.

Pennsylvania Politicians Steal Property Rights to Support Gas Drilling

My daughter and husband playing by the brook on our land

Governor Rendell and many Pennsylvania politicians often resist issuing regulations to protect us from pollution, runoff and other environmental degradations -- even if water would be contaminated, communities flooded or economies harmed -- because to do so might strip a property owner of their rights to use the land for economic gain.

Now, by contrast, Governor Rendell is planning to strip me of my property rights to protect my 68 acres in Columbia County from misuse and harm.  These are the acres my Mother cherished and which, on her death bed, she called on me to protect from harm.

My Mum enjoying her land still during that last year
when she was battling her pancreatic cancer

Governor Rendell and others are seeking legislation called "forced pooling" that would strip me of my right to say no to natural gas drilling under my land.  

Drilling for natural gas on any portion of my property (whether the drill pad is located on the grounds or the drilling and injection of fracking chemicals are allowed to take place under the ground) puts at risk the waters that feed the tiny brook that flows through that land (a brook named after my daughter), threatens the many springs of fresh water that come to the surface all over, and puts at risk the well water I and my kids drink in the house.  

Gas Drilling happening nearby our property

With this legislation, I would be stripped of my legal right to say no to drilling, the injection of chemicals and the extraction of gas from the rock, soils and minerals that are part of my land (and therefore part of my legally owned property), if neighbors of mine decide to open up their lands to drilling.  

So Governor Rendell and other PA politicians are happy to defend the rights of property owners in order to prevent environmental and community protection laws from being passed; and yet now they are eager to strip me of my property rights to say no to the misuse of my land in a way that will harm the environment, my family and my community.  

There is one word to describe this kind of politicking -- "hypocrisy".

Music - One of My Ways to Stay Strong for the River

People often ask me:  “how do you keep going in face of all of the opposition and challenges you face every day?”

There are a lot of ways I keep my passion and strength up to face the daily challenges and attacks I face in my job.  One of them is music, good music about protecting the environment. 

Before itunes and the like I had a cassette of songs I put together.  I’d listen to it all the time when in the car on the way to a hearing or a meeting or just to and from work.  Eventually it wore out.  And so for a long time I was without my environmental protection/social justice music.  But once I learned how to use today’s modern technology to amass this kind of music again I got to work. I haven’t found all of the songs I had in my original collection, but I found a lot and recently have found much more.

I’m always looking for good songs to add to my play list so if you have ideas please share them as a comment to this blog.  I need to expand my repertoire.

And for those who are interested, here are some of the songs that really help keep my mind and heart focused on taking on and winning the daily challenges for the River:

• Of course: “Maya van Rossum’s Blues” by the Donuts (a song about the Athos I oil spill on the Delaware River)
•  “Clear Blue Skies” by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
•  “The Rape of the World” by Tracy Chapman – listen for the part where she urges you to “stand up and testify”
• “Nature’s Way” by Spirit
•  “We Bought it” by Brother Tree
• “Help Your Mother” by Brother Tree
• “All Over” by Brother Tree
• “Earth Song” by Michael Jackson
•   “Not Ready to Make Nice” by the Dixie Chicks as I see this as a song about speaking for what you believe is right despite the opposition you face
•  “If a Tree Falls” by Bruce Cockburn
• “Way of the World” by Chante Pierce
•  “Good bye to a River” by Don Henley
• “Simple Living” by Fred Small
• “Treehugger” by J.P. Taylor
• “Rise to the Challenge” by J.P. Taylor
• “Down along the River” by J.P. Taylor
• “Hug the Earth” by J.P. Taylor
• “Rocky Mountain High” by John Denver
•  “Don’t Cut Me Down” by Olivia Newton John
• “Silent Ruin” by Olivia Newton John