On Tuesday, September 29^th, the Sierra Club’s Big Picture Campaign is holding a “Coal is Dirty Business” Day of Action to demonstrate that citizens across the country are eager for the United States government to take a stand against big coal for the sake of the waterways, air, health, and pocketbooks of America. Organizers across the nation are preparing for local rallies and other events on this day.

The people have got it—that dirty coal has got to go, that we can’t keep polluting with this inherently dirty, carbon-rich fuel.  President Obama and the U.S. Congress have promised to quickly take care of climate change and other environmental problems.  The Senate is poised to debate the climate bill.  The Environmental Protection Agency recently made a bold move by upholding the Clean Water Act in their review of 79 mountaintop removal mining permits.  During this time its critical that citizens show public support for EPA enforcement of the Clean Water Act and pressure the Administration and Congress towards further responsible action to halt our dependence on coal.  That’s why on September 29th thousands of citizens across the U.S. will urge the politicians and agencies to make a clean break from dirty business with the coal industry.

In day to day life, more and more are seeing the effects—asthma rates increasing, water quality deteriorating, mercury levels in fish increasing, mountain communities are being devastated, and metals from coal ash threaten to contaminate municipal water supplies

In Kentucky, some residents are even starting get worried about their local soft drink and Kentucky trademark, Ale-8, seeing as the lone bottling company lies only a few miles downstream from the location of a proposed coal-burning power plant and coal ash storage facility.  According to a comprehensive but little known risk assessment released by the EPA in 2007, nearby residents have as much as a 1 in 50 chance of getting cancer from drinking water contaminated by arsenic, one of the most common, and most dangerous, pollutants found in coal ash.

That’s why as part of the “Coal is Dirty Business” National Day of Action, residents of Lexington, Kentucky, will gather to celebrate this local favorite and take action at the “Don’t Contaminate Our Ale 8″ event to ensure this Kentuckian trademark is not contamination by hazardous coal ash from the proposed plant.

Other local events around the U.S. are listed, here.

There’s been a of talk lately about nuclear power being a good way to fight climate change, so our crew at RAN made the latest “Greenwash of the Week” about why it isn’t. We should support alternatives that will (1) not screw up the environment and (2) work.

To see all of the GOTW videos (this is the ninth), click here.

The experience, along with a few posts on Stuff White People Like, has me thinking about how environmentalism and environmentalists play in the popular consciousness. In the series, the character in question goes off to Brown and becomes what most people would refer to as a hippy, although the word isn’t used. She leaves off personal hygiene, takes up the didgeridoo, and does a tree sit with an overprivileged new-ager in a Che shirt (who later makes her take the rap for some monkeywrenching that includes breaking into the Bio lab and liberating research bunnies).

At first the change is presented as a botched attempt at self-discovery, and in direct opposition to the character’s past associations with designer clothing and celebrity gossip; her transformation is as much fashion (un-)makeover as political awakening. And this is exactly how anyone would expect it to be depicted; in the United States, radical political consciousness and environmental activism often seem to occupy roughly the same discursive position as, say, “emo” — a moderately deviant consumer lifestyle choice, not a vital concern to our future as a species (no offense to any emos out there). So it’s available to TV writers as an unexpected personal quirk to add to a character to provide fresh material for a waning series (season four also included the second coma episode, an earthquake, and a cheap pregnancy scare).

Surprisingly, however, there’s some more to the story. Later, much to the writers’ credit, the character goes on to discover that her commitment to the movement is real; the end of the series sees her signing up for a tour as a student organizer with a fictional green NGO. Maybe after the alternate universe episode they were out of any other ideas, but the show actually managed transcend — ever so slightly — the easy caricature of the environmental movement as a pot-fueled patchoulifest, as much fashion identity as political commitment.

Let’s hope there’s a lot more where that came from.

As our friend Al has pointed out, we are now entering the age of environmental consequences. Environmental activism is about acting now, in a time of dire threat, to materially improve outcomes for people and ecosystems while addressing the root causes of their destruction. It is uniquely inclusive in its constituency — all lives on Earth, but especially those at the margins of the status quo. If the movement to save ourselves as human beings is limited in its scope to an aesthetic option for the gourmet-sandwich set, we don’t deserve to make it. The environmental movement is not a lifestyle choice, and it’s not compatible with consumerism. Nor should it be characterized by white culture and socioeconomic privilege, however much that criticism is a valid one.

When we’ve got it right, they won’t know us by our race, or our clothing, or our music, or even our green consumption choices. They will know us by our actions — and our strength.

And yes I know I’m a huge dork.

[cross-posted from The Understory]