This piece is cross-posted from Coalexportaction.org
If there’s one thing the climate movement learned from the fight against the tar sands, it’s that the fossil fuel industrial complex has weak spots that can be turned into pressure points for effective campaigns. From direct actions to stop the “heavy hauls,” to mass action against Keystone XL, the freedom-from-tar sands movement has applied pressure in places where Big Oil is constrained by geography or the political process.
Though they haven’t won every time, activists fighting the tar sands (including good friends of mine) have cost Big Oil millions, derailed or delayed key parts of the tar sands project, and given us a real chance at defeating one of the worst planetary disasters in history. It’s time for the Freedom From Coal movement to do the same thing.
When it comes to coal, our most effective pressure points aren’t trucks or pipelines, but they are no less real. Coal barons dream of turning North America’s biggest coal deposit, the Powder River Basin of Montana and Wyoming, into an industrial mining zone. Just as Big Oil needs the Keystone XL pipeline to transport tar sands crude to the US, coal industry leaders are counting on a key project to realize their plans. That project is the Otter Creek mine.
Help stop King Coal’s anchor project: join the Coal Export Action this summer!
For those who don’t know, Otter Creek is located just east of the Tongue River, south of Miles City, Montana. Arch Coal executives want to turn Otter Creek into one of the continent’s biggest coal mines, but that’s just the beginning. Otter Creek is considered an “anchor project,” which would facilitate the transformation of vast additional areas into a mining zone.
Why is Otter Creek so special? It provides official justification for building the Tongue River Railroad, which is fiercely opposed by ranchers whose land would be transected. Without this railroad, coal barons have no way to transport the huge quantities of coal they want to move from the Powder River Basin, to the international export market via the West Coast. Continue reading ‘Finding King Coal’s Weak Spot’
In partnership with the National Grid Foundation, an amazing organization that creates opportunities for solutions to educational and environmental issues, the
New England Winner: Somerville High School
Mineola’s Environmental Club collects any kind of bottle cap – water bottle, shampoo, laundry detergent caps – and recycles them. Through their participation in the bottle cap recycling program, they have raised awareness about the importance of recycling and how waste can be ‘up-cycled’ into other goods. Through their winning project, in spring 2012 the Club will bring the bottle cap recycling program to nearby elementary schools. High school students will educate younger students about the importance of recycling. They ultimately aim to make bottle cap recycling – and eco-friendly behavior – a district-wide activity.


Two days earlier, Eugene and Olympia took action. In Olympia, Washington students met with elected officials and urged them to deny coal export terminal permits. In Oregon, the group No Coal Eugene 


