Community | May 19, 2009 | 12 comments

Fight against mountaintop coal removal

source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoNc0Y78MnA

JanforGore
People are speaking out. Where is this government? Where are the windmills? Where are the Green jobs?

Description:

The Struggle Against Mountaintop Removal: Leading Activist Mike Roselle Continues Fight Against Destructive Coal Mining

The Environmental Protection Agency recently dealt a blow to the coal mining industry when it delayed hundreds of mountaintop coal mining projects for a new review of their environmental impact. But the EPA decision still leaves in place hundreds of existing permits for mountaintop removal. The group Climate Ground Zero has been leading protests and peaceful direct actions against the company Massey Energy to prevent mountaintop removal at Coal River Mountain in West Virginia. We speak with leading activist Mike Roselle of Climate Ground Zero.
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12 comments // Fight against mountaintop coal removal // Video

  • coldsweat
  • brandonthebuck
    • 0
      brandonthebuck  

    • Rainforest Action Network has been campaigning strongly to end this atrocity and raise awareness for what it's doing for the health of the locals and the environment.

    • 2 years ago
  • cztheday
    • 0
      cztheday  

    • Actually, I was kind of expecting someone to respond to my post with a few URLs of sites they felt offered the kind of objectivity for which I have been looking. If anybody knows of a source or two like that I would be very interested.

      I am from one of the Rocky Mountain states (born and raised here four generations after both sides of my family homesteaded here in the 1890s and early 1900s, leaving only for undergrad and grad school) and am an avid backpacker. Strip mining in any form makes my stomach turn -- as does the sight of forest discoloration from air pollution and acid rain, and many other effects both obvious and subtle.

      Again, I also can't help but be cognizant of the economic impacts of high energy prices. If we tried to make an immediate transition away from fossil fuels to alternative energy prices, I could probably afford to pay twice as much to fuel my family's personal vehicles and perhaps even large percentage price increases for things like food and clothing that have to be trucked to their retail destinations. But there are millions of people in this country who are ALREADY financially underwater with energy prices where they are NOW. There are tens of millions more who would be forced underwater by the double-digit inflation that would result from such price hikes.

      So I am just trying to satisfy MYSELF that the energy policy choices we are making at the national and local levels strike a balance that is as close as possible to ideal between environmental protection (both short-term AND long-term) and protecting those in our society who are most vulnerable to the adverse effects of high energy prices (which would, of course, also include those on fixed incomes such as senior citizens and the disabled who will once again be faced with heating their homes in about six months).

    • 2 years ago
  • current89
    • 0
      current89  

    • As I have stated before I was highly disappointed in the Obama Admin.'s decision. therefore I have written letters to my congressional representatives, the EPA and the Dept. of the Interior. I'll always back peaceful demonstrations and non-violent forms of civil disobedience.

    • 2 years ago
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  

    • You leave it to the government and utilitites to decide, then you lose.

      And csmonut, I don't know if writing and peaceful protest really work at this point either, but I do think we need to take it up a notch. Of course, Obama supporters who only "recommend" anything that they think in any way goes against that support because they put him above ths issue might not agree. Status quo seems fine by them.

    • 2 years ago
  • current89
    • 0
      current89  
    • JanforGore:

      Actually Jan I just happen to have a high amount of respect for cztheday! He always makes poignant comments that are well thought out and skeptical. He's also highly intelligent and funny. Of course Current thinks he's responsible seeing as how he's going to be a curator.

    • 2 years ago
  • cztheday
    • 0
      cztheday  

    • I wish I knew where I could find a truly objective resource on this issue. On the one hand, I am appalled by the environmental devastation caused not only by this kind of mining but by the continuing role of fossil fuels as the globe's primary fuel source.

      On the other hand, I have seen at least three different sets of numbers outlining the quantity of energy the world currently uses on a daily and annual basis and projected annual usage over the next 20 years using varying economic growth assumptions. Those numbers are staggering. Unless I am misreading them, we are not developing enough alternative energy sources (leaving nuclear aside for the moment) to even keep up with the GROWTH in our energy needs let alone to start replacing the energy currently generated using fossil fuels.

      I hear a lot of talk about "carbon sequestration," but I am not seeing successful models being touted anywhere. But trying to find the truth when just about every author seems to have an agenda...

    • 2 years ago
  • csmonut
    • 0
      csmonut  

    • Makes one wonder if peaceful protests and letter writings are enough.
      We need another revolution in this country. Not one with guns, but one with words and deeds that require that we be listened to and the powers that be do what we want them to do.

    • 2 years ago
  • JanforGore
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  

    • Where is the really good news? The change? Appalachian residents ARE making noise. Why isn't Washington DC listening? Do their constituents mean so much less to them than their political donations that they are going to continue with the baby steps and half measures designed to not piss any one group off entirely in order to keep them in the running for the next election? How much longer regardless of political party are Americans going to allow politicians to continue to talk the talk without REALLY walking the walk?

      And what real good is raising CAFE standards by 2016 to what they should have been twenty years ago (when we already know the t4echnology is already out here to get cars 80 MPG) with no guarantee we will even have cars that run cleaner WITHOUT gas? And what good is that when you will continue to allow "clean coal" plants to be built and utilities to continue to get breaks and push ethanol from corn that will only exacerbate the water and food crises? Or more importantly, to not face deforestation in any sort of climate bill?

      Wind power in Appalachia is a true revelation. THAT is what subsidies should be going for, not more "clean" coal rhetoric and nuclear plants. And yet, political partisans lap it all up and tell those of us who know what we must have and were told we would get that we set OUR expectations too high?

      Well, you ask a young mother with a child with asthma if those expectations are too high. Or a person dying of cancer. Or those living in poor communities where toxic coal sludge is what comes out of their faucets! Does "politics" care about that?

    • 2 years ago
  • JanforGore
  • JanforGore
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