It’s Getting Hot In Here

Amber Nitchman and Eric Blevins descended from their trees on Coal River Mountain Friday at noon in the face of an oncoming winter storm. The action brought attention from Governor Manchin, the Washington Post, and stopped the destruction for nine days. But our work is far from over.

Nitchman, Blevins, David Aaron Smith, David Baghdadi, Benard Fiorillo, Josh Graupera and Isabelle Rozendaal stopped a blast site on Coal River Mountain for nine days, and their total bail amounts to $9,625.00. Nitchman and Blevins are still in jail, held for a combined cash-only total of $5,000. Bail is paid to the state of West Virginia to release people who have been arrested. The state then returns it in full when the person goes to trial. A donation to the legal fund stays in the campaign and enables us to expand the campaign of civil resistance.

Please donate to the Mountain Justice legal defense fund: Paypal, or another method.

Continue reading ‘Coal River Mountain Tree Sit Ends, Civil Resistance Campaign Continues’

My journey in the movement has been one of critical engagement with the status quo, my peers, and my assumptions. Strategy sessions, marches, actions,  speeches, lobby meetings, countless emails and googledocs, rallies, conversations, books, and periods of reflection have constructed the vantage point from which I write today. This is a lengthy post. In it, I will recount personal experience and observations, present the bones of a theoretical framework for redirecting our movement, offer a critique of current strategies, and begin a conversation on what would constitute an effective strategy. It’s probably a bit much for one blog post, but I hope that you will take the time to read it and offer your perspective on the topics at hand. I write out of love and respect for the many amazing people who have shaped me and my work to this point.

Introduction
In August 2007, I participated in the Sierra Student Coalition’s annual leadership gathering, Shindig. At Shindig, I connected with dozens of inspiring youth leaders from around the nation. Leaving that week I saw myself as one person in a network of groups and individuals leading the way to a carbon-free future. I knew that by organizing our fellow students and communities to demand clean energy from the powers-that-be we could secure a sustainable and prosperous future. It was with this conviction that I returned to Michigan and threw myself into my new role as student coordinator of the Michigan Student Sustainability Coalition on the eve of Power Shift 2007. Continue reading ‘Climate Generation: Reshaping the Flow of Power’

Organize a Solidarity Sit in For Climate Justice. Now is the time.

Demands for Climate Justice have erupted with an exciting energy on every stage of COP15 – thousands of marchers approached the Bella Center, hundreds of delegates walked in an attempt to join the People’s Assembly, and as  I write dozens of youth are sitting in to demand a fair, ambitious, and binding deal from the COP15 process.

Climate Justice, however, will not be secured this week in Copenhagen. It will be won through the grassroots movements of the Global South and the unwavering solidarity of movements in developed nations. Both movements now turn their eyes to Copenhagen, on the actions of the negotiators, and the thousands who have gone to stand for Climate Justice. We are inspired by their actions inside and outside the Bella Center today, and now, right now, is the perfect moment to take that flame and spread it.

You are an actor in the struggle for Climate Justice. You have agency. We have power. Hit the phones, now, don’t wait, call your friends – it is urgent, more urgent than final exams – and organize a sit-in action in solidarity with those standing for Climate Justice in Copenhagen.

We are a force to be reckoned with. Let the world know that not only do the thousands of global citizens who converged on Copenhagen stand for Climate Justice – we all do. The whole world watched today, tomorrow, let the whole world spring into action.

Do it.

The Drill Rig on Coal River Mountain: One person is inside the cabin, and one is locked in the drill shaft. The banner, draped over the drill's front, says "Save Coal River Mountain"

Early this morning two concerned citizens, Dea Goblirsch and Nick Martin, locked down to a drill rig on Coal River Mountain’s Bee Tree mountaintop removal site, effectively stopping blasting. Two others, Grace Williams and Laura Von Dolen, joined them in direct support, holding a banner with the message “Save Coal River Mountain”.

These nonviolent protestors have taken this action to bring attention to the extreme danger facing residents of the Coal River Valley from blasting near the Brushy Fork Impoundment. They plan to stay locked down until law enforcement removes them.

Resident of Rock Creek, W Va., Delbert Gunnoe, stated his concerns with the blasting, “You know when they put a blast over there, and it shakes the windows over here, at what, ¾-a-mile distance, imagine what it does over there.” Gunnoe continued, “if [the impoundment] did bust…what would be the destruction? The town of Whitesville would no longer exist.”

The four are fearful of the blasting that Massey Energy began in late October.  These blasts are 200 feet from the Brushy Fork Impoundment, permitted to hold nine billion gallons of toxic coal slurry. The impoundment sits atop miles of hollow, abounded underground mines, further endangering its integrity.  By Massey’s own estimates, roughly 998 people will die should the dam break. The emergency evacuation plan states that a 40-foot wall of sludge, cresting at 72 feet, will flow through the valley, reaching 20-feet-high about 15 miles down the road.  Apart from the initial flood, the impact of this potential spill would be felt along the Coal River’s 88 miles.

Continue reading ‘Responding to Harmful Government Inaction, Protesters Stop Blasting on Coal River Mountain’

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

Continue reading ‘A SEED in the Coal River Valley’

Contact: Andrew Munn or Dea Goblirsch 304-513-4710
Email: news@climategroundzero.org

For updates, follow www.climategroundzero.org and Coalisfilthy on twitter

CEDAR GROVE, W.Va.- The Senior Citizens March to End Mountaintop Removal will culminate in a protest and press conference at Massey subsidiary Mammoth Coal Company on US-60, east of Cedar Grove, at 4:00 p.m. on Monday. Mammtoth Coal Company is 25 miles from the march’s starting point at the state capitol in Charleston. At least 28 seniors between the ages of 50 and 88 will have put their feet to the pavement during the 25 mile walk.

City of Belle police arrested two young people for a solidarity banner drop off of the Walker CAT building in Belle, W.Va. on Saturday. The banner read “Yes, Coal Is Killing West Virginia Communities.” The two arrestees, Gabe Schwartzman, 19, and David German, 18, were released on the same day for $100 personal recognizance.

Several of the participants, including Herk McGraw, 75, and Sue Rosenberg, 62, are relatives of young people who have been arrested for acts of non-violent civil disobedience in the Climate Ground Zero campaign against MTR. Two of march co-organizer Roland Micklem’s daughters are among the senior citizens.

Marchers received training in non-violence and conflict deescalation in preparation for potential confrontation at Monday’s protest.

And for your viewing pleasure, a video summary of Senior March Day 4 from Mobile Broadcast News:

Cross posted from www.climategroundzero.org, by Dea G.

Herk McGraw drove from the outskirts of Charleston, West Virginia to participate in this week’s Senior Citizens March to End Mountaintop Removal. Sue Rosenberg made the trek from Saugerties, New York. They were not solely motivated by the call for elders to join the struggle against environmental devastation in Appalachia; McGraw and Rosenberg are joining the 25 mile march from the State Capitol to the gates of Mammoth Coal Company in part because of young people in their lives. McGraw’s granddaughter, Zoe Beavers, and Rosenberg’s son, Mathew Louis-Rosenberg, are both active in Climate Ground Zero, a civil disobedience campaign based in the coalfields of southern West Virginia.

“I’m opposed to mountaintop removal, of course,” said McGraw, a Methodist minister and coal miner’s son, “But particularly after they arrested Zoe [in August's tree sit at Pettry Bottom, W.Va.], that gave me a little more enthusiasm about coming out and supporting her.” Beavers, 28, served as ground support for the two tree sitters. She was arrested twice over the course of the five day protest; once two days after returning as a liason for the sitters at the request of state police.

Beavers enlisted in the U.S. Army after her high school graduation in 2000 and did not move back to her home state until May of 2009. She credits her return to West Virginia, where she lives with family in St. Albans, to the burgeoning movement for environmental justice in the coalfields.

“My whole life I was taught that nothing can change in West Virginia, we shouldn’t fight for it because it’s a lost cause,” the Iraq War veteran, who now works with the Student Environmental Action Coalition out of Charleston, said, “We are not powerless.”

Her grandfather’s main concern with mountaintop removal mining is the industry’s dishonesty.

“What they’re talking about mountaintop removal and what actually happens with mountaintop removal are two different things,” he said, “They say that they are putting it back like it was . . . but what’s been done with it mostly is the golf course and the prison.”

—

Mat Louis-Rosenberg grew up in the Catskill Mountains of New York State. Born in to a family with deep activist roots, his first memory is of participating in a march in his hometown at three years of age. Louis-Rosenberg was raised with a strong appreciation for United States radical history- he learned about West Virginia through family friends’ stories of the labor movement. Continue reading ‘Senior’s March Brings Families Together to Fight Mountaintop Removal’

CHARLESTON, W.Va.- Fifteen movement elders between the ages of 50 and 83 set off on a Senior Citizen’s March to End Mountaintop Removal at 10 a.m. this morning.  The march was preceded by a rally and press conference in front of the State Capitol building, and is sponsored by a coalition that includes Climate Ground Zero, Mountain Justice, Intergenerational Justice and Christians for the Mountains. It is part of an ongoing civil disobedience campaign against mountaintop removal in West Virginia.

The seniors are walking five miles each day for five days, ending at Massey subsidiary Mammoth Coal on Monday, Oct. 12. In a statement issued by the US Mine Safety & Health Administration yesterday, Mammoth Coal was named as one of ten mining operators that need to improve performance or face tougher enforcement.

The mountaintop removal mine and processing plant, formerly operated by Cannelton Coal, was bought out by Massey in 2004. Massey cut the United Mine Workers of America contract and reopened the site, located east of Charleston on Route 60, as the non-union Mammoth Coal Company. The decision was met with a UMWA-organized picket and lawsuits.

“Mountaintop removal is closing in on our home place in Coal River, destroying the ridge up and down the river,” said Julian Martin, 73, a coal miner’s son and Vice President of the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, “I see mountaintop removal as probably the world’s worst environmental disaster.” Martin’s grandfather fought in the largest organized labor uprising in United States history, the Battle of Blair Mountain.
Continue reading ‘Senior Citizens Embark on 25 Mile March Against Mountaintop Removal’

Senior citizens from around the nation are stepping up their efforts to end mountaintop removal.

Roland Micklem is an 81-year-old military veteran from Richmond, VA. State police arrested Micklem and three others for blockading Massey Energy’s regional headquarters in an act of non-violent civil disobedience on the morning of Wednesday September 9. In his statement, Micklem announced his intent to lead a five day, 25 mile march for senior citizens, ages 55 and older, in a protest against mountaintop removal (MTR). Micklem and other participants will depart on the morning of Thursday October 8 from the state capital in Charleston, W.Va.. The march will conclude at the gates of the Massey-owned Mammoth MTR site in Kanawha County on Monday October 12, where those who choose to will engage in an act of non-violent civil disobedience against mountaintop removal.

In Micklem’s open letter, he states, “No substantial gain in our efforts to continually evolve into a more humane and caring society has been made without the willingness of individuals—with non violence as both a creed and a strategy–to step outside the framework of law and tradition in order to correct wrongs when conventional measures had failed. The abolition of slavery, the enactment of civil rights legislation, the right of women to vote, the termination of the Vietnam war could not have come about without the help of the same kind of non violent, direct, and sometime unlawful action that we are using here to stop mountaintop removal. And as a Christian as well as one who basically respects the laws of the land, I see the growth and maturing of my Faith to be in direct proportion to my readiness to stand for truth, and to embrace causes that will contribute to our moral and spiritual uplift as the dominant species on the planet.”

Click here to listen to Micklem’s radio interview excerpts

Click here for more information on the march on the Climate Ground Zero website

Regardless of our faith, we can all learn from Roland’s determination. Send your parents and grandparents to the coalfields October 8-12!

Three Rivers Climate Convergence Call to Action!

Their Strategy:
Isolate themselves behind fences, barricades and police, use millions of our tax dollars to silence dissent and repress us while perpetuating the same systems that consolidate wealth and control in their hands.

Our Strategy:
Inspire a spirit of cooperative resistance to these structures while creatively modeling “another world” that is healthier, sustainable and just.

9/21-23 – The International Coal Conference- a global gathering of Coal engineers and researchers will gather to discuss how to put a green face the black heart of coal

9/24-25- The G20- World Leaders will gather to construct a supposed solution to the climate crises that those who created the problem, large corporations and fossil fuel producers in charge of the solutions.

This September the fossil fuel industry and their political supporters are descending on Pittsburgh to put a green face on global capitalism. World superpowers, whose failed policies are responsible for the economic, environmental and human rights crises, will be convening to make major political and financial decisions. They will be met by global citizens who know we need to do things differently. We’ll break through and demand real, localized and community-based solutions that come from the 6.5 billion people of the earth, not 20 heads of state.

The Group of 20 Nations and members of the International Coal Conference will attempt to solve our problems with the same, failed systems that caused them — legitimizing corporate controlled “solutions” to global warming and green washing the same old dirty energy sources.
Continue reading ‘CALL TO ACTION! Three Rivers Climate Convergence, Pittsburgh Sept. 21-15′