It’s Getting Hot In Here

Note: this post is contributed in honor of the Sierra Club’s national day of action for a strong EPA ozone ruling.  However the words are mine alone, as are any mistakes.

Coal and oil make for cheap energy - but only because polluters aren’t currently required to pay the true cost of polluting.  Inadequate emissions-control laws that let polluters off the hook have up to now been a major reason coal and oil can burn so cheaply.  And nowhere are the true costs brought home more clearly than in the Bush-era EPA’s loose standards for that soup of toxic compounds which form ground-level ozone, or “smog.”  The Obama administration and environmental activists across the country now have a key opportunity to strengthen regulation of ground-level ozone, and protect the health of our communities.

At the behest of EPA scientists, the National Lung Association, and various other health advocates, Lisa Jackson’s EPA is proposing stricter standards to regulate ozone from coal plants, vehicle tailpipe emissions, and other major sources.  The final ruling on ozone is scheduled to be adopted by August 31st of this year, with the public comment period ending on March 22nd.  Continue reading ‘Time to Get Tough on Ozone Smog’

Ding ding ding!! It’s round 2 in the public debate between Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President of Waterkeeper Alliance and outspoken mountaintop removal critic.  The Hill, a daily

Maria Gunnoe, organizer with Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, shows coal dust she wiped off Frankie Mooney's home in Twilight, WV

congressional newspaper in Washington DC, published a set of opposing op-eds yesterday just as the 5th Annual End Mountaintop Removal Week in Washington wrapped up.  See Blankenship’s here and RFK Jr.’s here.

This follows the televised debate of Blankenship and Kennedy in Charleston, WV in late January, which helped focus national attention on MTR after Science magazine published an article on its destructive effects earlier in the month.   Climate Ground Zero also launched a treesit the same day as the debate, which halted blasting on Massey’s Bee Tree site in Pettus, WV for nine days.

Blankenship is feeling the pressure (and surely realizes Congress is too!) as he alludes to in his op-ed, and he makes clear he believes everyone, including the media, is against “energy producers.” Continue reading ‘Round 2: Blankenship versus RFK Jr. on Mountaintop Removal’

I’ve been familiar with mountaintop removal (the practice of blasting the tops off mountains and dumping them in streams to get at coal seams maybe a foot thick) for years now.  But this week it became personal.

I’m here at the 5th Annual End Mountaintop Removal Week in Washington, joining residents from the coalfields of Appalachia in meetings with our Congressmen, gathering support for the Clean Water Protection Act (HR 1310) and the Appalachia Restoration Act (S 696).  This may be the 5th year, but the momentum is tangible.  We have 166 co-sponsors for the CWPA, bi-partisan support in both Houses and committee chairmen who are receptive to moving this forward. To build even more momentum, today is a National Call-In Day to urge your Congresspeople to support these bills.  Their offices are hearing from us in person and need to hear from even more constituents.

Please, take the two minutes to call your Rep.  Below are some of the most powerful points I’ve heard from local residents to communicate with members of Congress. Continue reading ‘National Call-In Day to Stop Mountaintop Removal’

Post By Junior Walk, Whitesville, Coal River Valley, West Virginia

Hi, my name is Junior Walk, and my family has lived in the coal fields of southern West Virginia for generations.  It pains me to see my heritage destroyed and defamed, and to see my friends and family poisoned by unclean water.   So, I decided to take a little trip to Washington D.C. to put a stop to it.

Today, I’m in our nations capitol to stop the heinous practice of mountaintop removal coal mining.  I’m here with the Alliance for Appalachia, as an employee of Coal River Mountain Watch; I’m here as an environmental activist; I’m here as an affected coal field resident; but I’m mostly here as someone whom cares about people, and all other living things.

My meetings today were cordial, I met with the offices of three different congressmen.  The first one was on the fence about the Clean Water Protection Act, the second one will probably co-sign, and the third was already a co-signer.  I think we’re making serious progress here, we already have more than 160 co-signers, and we only need 40-50 more co-signers.

When this bill becomes a law, it will effectively end mountaintop removal by making valley fills illegal (which they were in the first place).  Continue reading ‘From Coal River Valley to Washington DC’

In Oregon and southern Washington, the youth-led branch of the fight to close the Boardman Coal Plant has soared to heights in just the last month.  Building on work done last fall, which included turning youth out in force to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s hearings in different parts of the region, the youth movement to end coal burning at Boardman has in many ways shifted to the campus level.  

Youth are spreading the word about Boardman to their peers and members of the surrounding community about Boardman Coal through a flurry of events, letter to the editor-writing parties, rallies, marches, and probably other things I haven’t heard about yet!  From Southern Oregon University in the just north of the California border, to Clark College in Vancouver, Washington, the youth voice is ringing loud and clear: we want clean energy, not coal in the Northwest. Continue reading ‘Youth Take on the Boardman Coal Plant’

Mountain Justice Spring Break is an alternative spring break aimed at coal fields residents, college students, environmentalists, and any concerned citizens that are interested in learning more about mountaintop removal coal mining and cultivating the skills and visions needed to build a sustainable energy future in Appalachia.

This March 12 – 20, Mountain Justice Spring Break will bring hundreds of young people face to face with the impacts of mountaintop removal and the coal industry – and give you the skills and knowledge you need to build sustainable communities in Appalachia! Through education, community service, speakers, hiking, music, poetry, direct action and more, you will learn from and stand with Appalachian communities in the struggle to maintain our land and culture.

2 years ago I and several friends shut down construction at the site of the Cliffside Coal Plant in North Carolina. It was April 1^st, Fossil Fools Day. After public hearings, petitions, legislative efforts, and protest failed, we knew we had to do something to up the ante in the fight against coal plants in this country. So it was that we found ourselves locked to Duke Energy’s bulldozers on that dark, drizzly morning.

Did we permanently stop the Cliffside construction site? No. However this action, along with the countless other actions like it by groups around the country, have greatly increased the cost, both politically and economically, of building coal plants in this country. While the construction at Cliffside continues, I feel confident that our direct actions, and those of others, is in part responsible for the wave of coal plants that have been canceled in the US (100 and counting).

No doubt utility companies and state governments pursuing new coal plants took note of the fight against Cliffside and decided that the constant controversy and harassment was not worth it (of course the recession and prospects of CO2 being regulated has helped as well). Well its 2010 and Fossil Fools Day is once again rounding the corner. We’ve witnessed the spectacular failure of Copenhagen, the Obama administration time and again capitulating to big business, and corporations doing there best to stall our efforts.

Yet we’ve seen inspiring resistance around the country, from Climate Ground Zero’s relentless direct action campaign against mountaintop removal to citizens shutting down Chevron’s refinery in Richmond, CA. The question is: What are you going to do to raise the stakes on April 1^st?

www.fossilfoolsday.org

We sat in trees at the edge of a mine site for 9 days in the middle of the Appalachian winter in West Virginia on Coal River Mountain. It was a divinely fun and empowering experience that I highly recommend to anyone who is physically able and properly trained.

We stopped blasting for 9 days within sight of the Brushy Fork toxic coal waste impoundment that holds over 7 billion gallons of black sludge above the Coal River Valley. Massey Coal says that if the impoundment’s dam fails it will kill approximately 998 people in that valley, and Massey impoundments have failed in the past.

We hauled our gear in at night without flashlights, hiking for miles up the mountain that was quite foggy throughout the night. Then we rested for a bit. Then I climbed a beautiful tall oak tree with stirrups made of climbing rope attached to a climbing harness I was wearing, which I kept on for 9 days straight. I had to break a few branches off the tree on the way up, and I kissed that tree several times during the whole set up process. After getting as high as I wanted, I anchored a climb line to the trunk above me and hauled the platform up after my direct support person below attached it to the rope. I anchored the platform to the trunk after hauling that heavy thing up. Then I hauled the rest of my gear up as direct support attached it to the rope. I don’t remember how many loads I hauled up, but if felt like a lot. I attached each load of gear to the tree or the platform. Next I lay my exhausted body on that platform gently swaying in the pre-dawn light and looked up at the craggly bare branches above me against the divine blank gray sky and felt like I was on the border of heaven and earth. The sunrise was beautiful. Once the light gave us a much wider view of our surroundings I could see the beautiful forest on one side of us and the mining on the other side with giant machines, holes dug for explosives, the toxic lake of waste in the distance, and the life-giving soil ripped away. It felt like being on the border of heaven and hell. Continue reading ‘Memoir of Coal River Mountain Tree Sit’

Rising Tide North America is pleased to announce the release of our latest publication:

The Climate Movement is Dead:

Long Live the Climate Movement

In the aftermath of the COP15 talks in Copenhagen, the inability of the Big Greens, governments, and market approaches to find genuine and sustainable solutions to climate change is undeniable. As author Naomi Klein so aptly observed at the end of COP15 talks, “A particular model of dealing with climate change is dying.”

In the same uncompromising spirit as Rising Tide publications such as Deal or No Deal, and Hoodwinked in the Hothouse, CMID:LLCM delivers a timely critique of the failures of this “particular model” as exemplified by the mainstream NGOs who have grown all too cozy with corporations and the political establishment. It explores the ways in which “green” capitalism,electoral politics, and market mechanisms, far from solving the climate crisis, are some of the climate movement’s biggest obstacles.

Not content with mere polemic, CMID:LLCM charts a course that diverges from the dominant discourse of the mainstream climate movement. The essay lays out a strategy of supporting and escalating frontline struggles againstdirty energy while building a new global climate movement from the ground up, based around core principles of climate justice, grassroots power, solidarity, and direct action.

The Climate Movement Is Dead: Long Live the Climate Movement is a must-read for anyone left disenchanted by the mainstream climate movement, and all who are ready to step it up and fight for climate justice.

You can download a digital copy to view online or print yourself. Continue reading ‘The Climate Movement is Dead: Long Live the Climate Movement’

The coal industry in the Pacific Northwest received a heavy blow yesterday with the release of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s (NWPCC’s) Sixth Power Plan, describing how the region encompassing Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana can cost-effectively shut down at least half its coal plants (including coal plants outside the region that supply these states with electricity) by the year 2020.  The NWPCC failed to include this move to phase out coal in its official recommendation, for such is the power of the coal lobby.  Yet the fact that the Council did include the analysis in its Sixth Plan is a testament to the hard work of climate activists in the lead-up to the Plan’s release.

During the fall of 2009, the NWPCC held hearings on its Sixth Plan throughout the Northwest.  Back then, it was unclear whether the final plan would analyze how our region could begin moving away from coal at all.  Yet by the end of the year, the Sierra Club and allied organizations had turned out hundreds of people to hearings in Oregon, Washington, and Montana, to urge the Council to use its own studies to show that a coal-free Northwest is possible.  I myself attended hearings in the Oregon cities of Portland and Eugene, where I heard NWPCC members remark repeatedly on how impressed they were with public involvement in this process, and with the turnout of young people to both hearings.  Continue reading ‘Major Analysis Shows Road to a Coal-Free Northwest’