It’s Getting Hot In Here

The Coal River Valley has been in the spotlight as of late. Coal River Mountain Watch has put it on the map as a model of communities working against mountaintop removal strip mining. More recently, the local to national alliances represented by Climate Ground Zero and Mountain Justice, through their campaign of non-violent civil disobedience, has made it into a flash point in the national movement to end mountaintop removal and rapidly and justly transition away from coal as an energy source.

Coal River Mountain Watch is getting ready to launch a new project in the valley – the Sustainable Economic and Energy Diversification (SEED) Program. Coal River Mountain Watch’s mission is to end mountaintop removal and create a sustainable economy in its place. SEED is working towards the second part of CRMW’s mission. The project will be directed by a council of community members. But, we need your help, please take a minute and vote for it to receive funding at www.brighterplanet.com

Despite the economic hardship and environmental degradation in this region, many of the elements of a sustainable economy are alive and well in the folk traditions of local residents. The SEED program seeks to combine these common sense traditions and ethics with 21st century concepts of sustainability and appropriate technology. Between November 2009 and August 2010 we will interview community members, identify community-led entrepreneurial projects, select five projects to support, document our work on the website www.journeyupcoalriver.org and adapt our results as lesson plans for distribution in regional high schools and colleges.

By creating economic alternatives, and presenting them in an educational format to a wide audience of young people, this project will reduce local economic dependency on fossil fuel extraction and help educate a new generation of sustainability and justice minded Americans.

Please vote to support our project. And when the project launches in November, check in at www.crmw.net and www.journeyupcoalriver.org to see our progress.