It\’s Getting Hot In Here

Tim Aubrey

On the President’s 100th day, join impacted communities in solidarity by telling Obama and Congress your own story.

Today marks President Obama’s eighty-second day of office. I know because it’s my job to count: each morning I mark the days since our new President told us to, “pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.”

I count other things too: actions groups have taken with Power Past Coal since inauguration (that’s 202 today), Focus the Nation town halls (103), new coal plants denied permits (95 and counting), mountaintop removal permits withheld by the EPA (3 more last week), revenue that wind turbines on Coal River Mountain could bring to the local community (1.7 million), and the President’s commitments to regulating carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants (1) and coal ash from sludge ponds (1).

There are some things I’ve seen in these eighty-two days that are more difficult to quantify. First, the disbelief, the elation, then the deep disappointment I watched on my neighbors faces in the Coal River Valley when the EPA’s supposed hold on all mountaintop removal permits led Lisa Jackson to clarify that most of the pending permits would “not raise environmental concern.” Second, the stoic determination with which my neighbors and fellow activists returned to work the next morning. False alarm: Coal River Mountain was far from saved, and there was no time for rest.

And I can’t begin to quantify this movement we’ve been witnessing. There are countless communities in every region of this country who still bear the burden of dirty coal, but who are just beginning to find their voice. For the first time in history, these impacted communities have come together in a united call to action. They’ve been the “people power” behind Power Past Coal’s 100 Days project, and the voices behind this new letter they hope you’ll sign.

On President Obama’s 100^th Day, six delegates of these impacted communities are coming to DC to represent the growing movement in front of Congress. They come from Chicago’s asthma ridden inner city, Pennsylvania’s longwall mining region, the Powder River Basin’s stripped and dried farms, the Black Mesa Navajo reservation’s coalfields, North Carolina’s mercury-polluted valleys, and Kentucky’s leveled mountaintops.

But when the delegates present their case for a transition away from coal, they won’t be the only voices in the room. They plan to deliver a stack of letters, thousands deep, each attached with its own coal story.

To join in solidarity with impacted community members, fellow climate activists, and other concerned citizens, please sign our letter and add your story – on the 100^th day, we’ll prove to Obama the diversity and power of this beautiful movement.

This April Fools, groups in Boston, New Orleans, Berkeley, Kentucky – and even London – are celebrating Rising Tide North America‘s “Fossil Fool’s Day” by calling attention to the most foolish fuel there is: coal. Some will rally, some will march, and others will even juggle in the Boston “Coal Circus” or in the Middlebury, Vermont “Cirque du Coal-ay.”

Many of the day’s events are connected through Power Past Coal (www.powerpastcoal.org), a national project linking together an action or more a day for the first hundred days of Obama’s presidency. The project’s first seventy days have seen over 130 actions in all fifty states, each demanding that the President and new Congress lead a just and swift transition away from coal.

“We need to make our leaders realize that all coal is foolish, especially clean coal,” said Ted Glick, of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, whose work has focused on the promotion of clean, just energy alternatives to coal in places like Wise County, Virginia, where the Wise Energy Alliance is protesting Dominion Power Company’s proposed coal plant. Fossil Fools Day events in Denver similarly target the operating Cherokee Coal Plant, which releases toxic pollutants daily into local residents’ backyards.

In New Orleans, conservation groups, students, and concerned citizens are joining forces at Entergy’s headquarters to protest the company’s plans to expand their use of coal power in Louisiana. “Louisiana’s coast is ground zero for climate change impacts,” said rally organizer Jonathan Henderson. “Entergy should be a responsible neighbor and work to limit coast-destroying pollution and protect rate-payers from future carbon price increases.

In the spirit of the “Coal Circus,” students from Bowling Green, Kentucky are planning a Monster Mash and a critical mass bike ride. Berkeley, California residents will also hop on their bikes to “reclaim the streets” from car-driving fossil fools, as will students in Tempe, Arizona, who have declared themselves “too cool for fossil fools.”

Despite the lighthearted nature of the events, participants know that coal is not a joke. Many come from communities impacted daily by coal extraction, burning, and waste disposal. As President Obama’s 100^th day rapidly approaches, thousands of citizens across the country are taking action to draw urgent attention to the need for “power past coal.” Stay tuned this week as Power Past Coal launches into it’s final phase!

This week in the Little Village of Chicago, fifty high school students will hurdle over coal piles and race past power plants for the 2009 Coal-Olympics competition. These respirator-clad youth aren’t just running for fun – they know that two coal plants in their backyards are making their families sick and causing global warming, and they want their President to do something about it.

The Coal-Olympics are part of the nationwide, fledgling project Power Past Coal, uniting hundreds of communities calling on their leaders to transition away from coal to clean and just sources of energy, like wind and solar. Everyday since the President’s inauguration, participants have taken action by lobbying their congressmen to halt mountaintop removal, marching to stop new coal plants, and risking arrest in acts of nonviolent civil disobedience.

Today, Power Past Coal celebrates its 50th day of action, having united over 100 actions from every corner of the country – a number the project’s founders hadn’t imagined possible on inauguration day.

The nationwide effort began in November 2008 with a meeting of thirty-six grassroots activists from twenty-four different organizations and nineteen states. “Before, I hadn’t realized how many people were fighting my same fight, hundreds of miles away,” said Elouise Brown, a Navajo army veteran who has camped for three years on the site of a proposed coal plant near Farmington, New Mexico.

The Power Past Coal project reached a crescendo on March 2nd when 12,000 students convened in Washington DC for Powershift 2009 and several thousand more shut down the capitol coal plant for four hours in the largest civil disobedience for climate in history. “You know it’s a movement when you see thousands out in the streets, waving Power Past Coal signs and putting their bodies on the line,” said Enei Begaye, an indigenous rights organizer in the Arizona coalfields and director of Black Mesa Water Coalition. “Now we just need Obama to notice.”

With Obama’s recent efforts to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants and coal ash from slurry ponds, it seems like the President is beginning to listen.

But in the communities directly impacted by coal, these statements have yet to make a difference. On Monday, citizens from Wise County, Virginia packed the Andover Methodist Church to protest a 1,300 acre mountaintop removal permit that would allow strip mining on Ison Rock Ridge, threatening six adjacent communities and hundreds of people who live there. On Friday, New Hampshirites will convene at the Concord Statehouse to demand a cleaner alternative to an out-of-date coal plant. Meanwhile, all across the country, organizations are gearing up for the 100th Day Action, which will unite all communities impacted by coal at every stage of its cycle.

“How much yelling is it going to take us before Obama admits coal is just plain dirty?” said Judy Bonds, the director of Coal River Mountain Watch in Whitesville, West Virginia. “We’re still fighting the same fight as we were ten years ago. But now we have a chance to win.”

Dear Friends,

Imagine this: thousands converging on New Hampshire’s capitol, uniting to demand national action for a clean energy economy and real solutions to global warming.

Join us for the March to ReEnergize New Hampshire to help make this vision a reality: www.climatesummer.org/march

With all eyes on the Granite State this primary season, we have the opportunity to put global warming solutions in the line of vision. We’ll gather on July 31st in Greeley Park in Nashua, ready to kick off five days of walking to call for the scale of action our country needs. We’ll stay at farms where the bounty has diminished over the warming years and churches whose congregations have found faith in our ability as a community to confront global warming.

We’ll walk beside Bill McKibben, founder of Step It Up and a guiding voice in this movement. Granny D will be there, who – at the age of 89 – crossed the country afoot for a cause of her own. Now at 97, she’s promised us that she’ll be back on the road.

You, your family and friends are invited! RSVP and bring everyone you know:

http://www.climatesummer.org/march

On the morning of Aug. 5, we’ll gather with thousands as we walk the last mile into the center of Concord and rally on the State House lawn. En masse, we’ll make the loudest call to our leaders yet: we want clean energy, green jobs, and a strong economy to cut our carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050.

We’re writing this because we want you to be there too. We’re just 25 college students who figured tight quarters and long hours was a cheap price to pay for our future.

So please, join us. Sign up to march for one day or all five. Prepare a meal or play a song. Make a few calls, and send this letter to everyone you know. Time is short, but together, we’ve got all the energy we need.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Sierra & the ReEnergize NH Team reenergizenh@gmail.com. 610-220-5378