As David Aaron Smith, 23, Amber Nitchman, 19, and Eric Blevins, 28 protest mountaintop removal in two oak trees and one tulip poplar on Coal River Mountain in southern West Virginia, Don Blankenship (CEO of Massey Energy) and Robert Kennedy, Jr. (Founder of Waterkeeper Alliance) debate the same issue farther north in Charleston.
Liveblogging of the debate: (Juliana Williams, Becca Rast & Nora Graubard will be liveblogging. Juliana from within and Becca Rast & Nora Graubard from Rock Creek, WV)
8:00 – Thanks for tuning in, we welcome dialogue about this debate on the blog – please let us know what your impressions were!!
7:59 – We are disappointed by lack of reference to Climate Ground Zero “enviros”. Check out further updates on our brave friends in the trees and their struggle with Massey at www.climategroundzero.org. Learn more and show your support!
7:59 – Don calls Kennedy out on not understanding poverty. Kennedy then reinforces that image by referencing Thoreau and his home in Mount Kisco. Unfortunate move, Kennedy.
7:58 – “don says we must choose between the environment and energy. Good economic prosperity matches up with environmental policy” – Kennedy. good point.
7:56 – “The main thing to remember is that the environmental movement is not the savior” – blankenship
7:53 – Kennedy: “we agree that carbon sequestration is a joke”
7:52 – “The noise that the machines from Massey are emitting is a really loud beeping tri-tone. Sitters are equipped with earplugs.”- from Massey’s Bee Tree Mine
7:51 – Blankenship believes they can regulate the water on their sites even though they make their money by poisoning the water.
7:45 – Blankenship denies the violantions. Kennedy fight back, siting Blankenship’s own words
7:47 – Blankenship: “We’re greatly reducing the number of violations we’ve been told to reduce” – And yet Massey has 12,900 clean water violations last year. Sounds like their trying really hard.
7:43 – RFK Jr.- Army Corps of Engineers said restoring a stream had never been done in Appalachia
7:36 – Kennedy gives the handy dandy – let’s weigh the outcomes argument: “[paraphrased] if your 2% of climate scientists don’t think that climate change is real are right, then cleaning up our energy use has happened, and we’re better off v. if my 98% are right, we’ve avoided major international catatastrophes”
7:35 – Blankenship says that a lot of the countries in the UN who vote on issues relating to climate change “don’t have climatologists or geologists” - hmmmm racist??
7:34 – “the Asians and Africans behind them are going to use coal to eat and have clean drinking water.” – I don’t know why he’s saying this.
7:34 – Climate scientists who predict the earth’s temperature should be put into an asylum.
7:33 – Climate Change isn’t real. And if it is real, then there’s nothing we can do about it. He said something else weird about Asia.
7:32 – hey Blankenship – Maybe house prices are appraised low because the work that the coal companies start to do prior to town residents accepting the buyouts causes their home prices to depreciate significantly!!
7:31 – according to Blankenship “we don’t want to kick people out of their homes” then why the hell are you kicking people out of their communities?
7:28 – retroactive shoutout to COAL RIVER WIND PROJECT WOOOOOOOOOO
7:28 – DBlank – “Extremism of the environmental movement…is the reason that thousands and tens of thousands of people are unemployed.” Who’s using sensationalist rhetoric now, Don?
7:25 – DBlank – “We may have some externality costs but I’m not sure what they are or what they do.”
7:24 – Blankenship denying subsidies. Says that he feels powerless in terms of the permits that the EPA are apparently arbitrarily dispensing. I recently attended a workshop that the EPA and DEP held in order to help coal companies expedite the permit process, and find loopholes in the regulations
7:23 – this is a little delayed but: Kennedy said – “It will cost 1.3 billion dollars to build a clean energy grid. This is less than half of the cost of the war in Iraq” we agree the US must get its priorities straight
7:23 – coal is dragging our economy down, we must invest in clean energy to have a strong economy – Kennedy
7:14 – DBlank: We need to do things that are practical. All these photons that are going to collect all this energy, we wouldn’t need government subsidies. If solar and wind were profitable that’s what would be happening. Um…..Really? I thought clean energy was the largest growing sector of our economy?
7:10 – RFK: China recognizes that it’s reliance on Coal is principle drag on it’s economic growth.
7:05 – Blankenship: When Mr Kennedy talks about people not being able to eat their fish, look at the folks in India and China who have higher mercury in their fish and still live to 79 years old. WOW. Apparently he’s never seen this.
7:03 – Blankenship: If wind produces only 1% of country’s energy but employs more people and coal produces 50% of energy we have a problem. Audience laughs – apparently they don’t like jobs.
7:02 – Moderator says 50% of electricity produced in US comes from coal. It’s actually 42%. LESS than half.
7:00 – RFK – When Don says coal is cheap he’s talking about the price we pay for electricity, but we don’t pay true cost. Health costs and environmental destruction are externalized. Lesson to be learned in kindergarten to clean up after ourselves. Can’t cut down purple mountain majesty and call that American.
6:55 – Blankenship – abundant energy is critical to quality of life. RFK – closer you live to coal plant the sicker you are. Is that quality of life?
6:53 – Blankenship – when you criticize Massey you’re criticizing folks who teach in schools, who live next door. Since when did the company come to speak for all of the citizens of WV??
6:50 – RFK: Don’t cry crocodile tears over jobs lost to ending mountaintop removal. Blankenship, what did you do with all the miners you laid off? It’s not good for West Virginia to mechanize all the jobs away and blow up mountains.
6:43 – RFK Jr. – Coal industry brings $8 Billion per year to central Appalachia. Health care costs to region are $40 Billion per year. Not trying to eliminate coal, trying to stop Mountaintop removal. MTR is incompatible with any other type of economic growth.
6:41 – Blankenship: environmental movement uses “sensationalism, emotionalism and untruths,” can’t be supported by facts. What’s RFK’s response?
6:36 – RFK Jr.: How was it that this state with one of the richest natural resources in the country have the poorest people? Con-men from out of state swindled landowners from the coal under property – 90% of coal is owned by out of state interests.
6:33 – Don Blankenship’s biggest concern is Energy Security. How about energy that doesn’t demolish our own people?
6:30 – Reassuring to know that Chesapeake Energy, Friends of Coal and WV Land & mineral Owners Association are sponsors of the energy.
6:16 – Waiting for the debate to start
Check out this video relating to the sit-in:
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Thanks so much for the live blog. The more of us on the ground where things are going down, the better our media will be, the better we will understand the issues, the better we will form our work to stop climate change.
It sounds like Blankenship is really struggling to come up with convincing arguments…and not having a lot of success.
Great coverage! And awesome timing with the courageous tree sit!
Sit on brave sitters!
YOU GUYS ARE AMAZING!!!!
Those who care are always the few amongst us.