MountainFest a huge success, and Ohio is hoppin’

Today the Sierra Student Coalition at Ohio University finished up their MountainFest, a multiple day mountaintop removal awareness and action festival. Through speakers, music, tabling, postering, flyering, a coal demonstration project (see below), media attention, and a silent auction, the SSC has already raised over $1,000 for the Keeper of the Mountains, a coalfield justice community organizing foundation.

To put it simply, there’s a lot going on around here. And all this at the same time as POWERVEG, a statewide youth energy and climate conference in Glenville, WV, just 2 hours from here at OU, and the Second Annual Michigan Student Sustainability Coalition Summit just one state north of here. There’s also a statewide Ohio Climate and Energy Workshop going on here at OU on Thursday, for students and administrators alike to get together and figure out what we can do today to address energy and global warming issues on campus.

Oh man. We’re doing good work.

*and yes, that sign says “The amount of coal Ohio University burns every 2 minutes”

About Mattie

Mattie is a member of the Ohio Student Environmental Coalition's Steering Committee, an organization he founded at Power Shift 07. He is proud to support a growing statewide network of student groups working for a clean, safe, and just future for all. Mattie originally got involved as a Syracuse University student who saw a pressing need for climate action, later as an Energy Justice Network intern who began to realize the human impacts of coal, and finally as an OSEC organizer committed to building an economy and climate worth fighting for. He also has a degree in women's studies and sociology, is a founding member of the Mountain Justice Spring Break Planning Collective and an intentional community in Columbus, and is the convener of the Energy Action Coalition's Anti-Oppression working group.