Holy Mountain Justice Spring Break, Batman! « It’s Getting Hot In Here

200+ people from 17 states participated in 7 direct actions in 4 states along with 100+ workshops, 6 service projects, 4 concerts, 5 climb trainings, 2 listening projects, 1 lobbying event, 1 canvassing project, and 1 square dance all packed into 18 days in March 2008 that earned more than 60 media hits. All of this excitement was planned by a mostly volunteer collective of ~15 youth from 6 different states during more than 50 hours a conference calls.

We were trying to stop power plants and send out a strong message that youth in America want NO NEW COAL! We dropped by two Bank of Americas to play old time mountain music for them, and to let them know that funding coal global warming is killing our mountain traditions. Several students shut down their bank accounts so that their savings weren’t funding dirty coal.

We worked with community groups across Virginia trying to defeat proposed coal plant in Wise County, telling the Department of Environmental Quality to deny the permit and give the Citizen’s Air Pollution Control Board decision making power over the coal power permit. This is wonderful news as the Air Board is committed to holding the permit to a much higher standard than DEQ.

AMP-Ohio We won't budge, we don't want your coal sludge! We worked with community groups in Ohio who are fighting 5 proposed coal power plants as well as 40 years of proposed underground coal mining in Meigs County, Ohio. Residents said that they wanted a chance to sit down with the board of AMP-Ohio, which is trying to push through a dirty coal plant, and tell them about the effects that the 4 coal plants in their area are having on their health and quality of life. We showed up at the AMP-Ohio headquarters, demanded politely, if a bit loudly, and they gave us exactly what we wanted.

Sorry you missed out on the whirlwind of fighting for justice, green jobs and green rolling Deny the permit, DEQ, our children's future's up to you! hills? Want to get involved? Try Mountain Justice Summer!! The week long training camp, May 17-23rd in Harlan County, Kentucky will lead into a summer of opportunities for training, action, and organizing against coal at the grassroots level in Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio, Virginia and Tennessee. Check www.mountainjusticesummer.org to sign on up!

Check out more pictures at http://www.mjsb.org/multimedia.html

About

Dana works on the national council of the Student Environmental Action Coalition in Charleston, WV Visit www.seac.org. She likes to make papier mache stuff with five year olds. She likes mountains that haven't been blown all to hell. She likes communities that fight back when their mountains have been blown all to hell. She doesn't like coal, or blowing up mountains. She especially doesn't like (not so) Clean Coal (no such thing) and thinks Carbon Sequestration is a bad deal for communities and kids. And really, who else matters?