We all know that coal poisons our planet, removes our mountains, and pollutes our precious water sources. A connection that we often miss, is how big coal and fossil fuel industries have a significant hand in dirtying up American politics.
Appalachian Voices and Oil Change International are proud to release a new interactive tool providing the first comprehensive look at the cash mined by Members of Congress from America’s coal industry. Check out how much coal money is going to your member of congress at FollowtheCoalMoney.org
An every day fossil fuel...
An influential lobby on Capitol Hill...
Dwindling supply...
Spiking prices, effecting nearly every facet of the American economy...
Big industries exploiting high prices as an excuse for unnecessarily increasing extraction at any environmental cost...
...while stuffing their pockets with record profits.
Sound Familiar? And if so, are we on the verge of seeing electricity rates pull a "gas-prices?"...
One of the most dramatic and pivotal price shifts in the weakening economy over the last 7 years has been the price of a gallon of gasoline...
It was at the onset of the Nazi era that coal-to-liquid technology came to the forefront of modern energy science. In the latter part of the 1920s, German researchers Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch developed the initial processes to liquify the dark rock into fuel. The procedure was utilized throughout World War II by both Germany and Japan. In fact, coal-to-liquid technology largely fueled Hitler’s bloody campaigns, as Germany had little petroleum reserves but held vast amounts of coal deposits throughout the country. Not too unlike the United States’ fossil fuel status today.
1. Gauley Mountain and the town of Ansted In West Virginia — and indeed in the entire nation — there are few rivers better known for their wild and scenic stretches than the Gauley and New Rivers. I've heard locals boast that the New River is in fact the oldest river in the entire world.
People come from all over the nation to run and fish these rivers, and to enjoy the beautiful landscapes of West Virginia and the hospitality of the local residents. These tourists contribute millions to the local economy. Yet just a few miles from both the New and Gauley Rivers lies one of America’s Most Endangered Mountains — Gauley Mountain, West Virginia — which is being targeted for mountaintop removal coal mining.
Welcome to Mountain Monday, spreading the word about mountaintop removal, and celebrating the best Appalachia has to offer.
Take a look at the region carrying the heaviest load for American coal production, and you’ll see that we are definitively beyond "peak coal" in Appalachia. The US Geological Survey, and other crazy assorted "experts" on "science" have been telling Appalachia that our coal has what-we-call a "finite" production span. In fact, the USGS has estimated that we have around roughly 10 years of high-quality thick coal seams left.
"Sufficient high-quality, thick, bituminous resources remain in [Appalachian Basin] coal beds and coal zones to last for the next one to two decades at current production."
But now, thanks to citizen activists, the blogosphere, and environmentally conscious Americans throughout the land, there is now a much more powerful thing than "science" telling us that we have no choice but to get off coal in the next decade.
It doesn't always occur to us that our electricity comes from somewhere.
But for many people on the east coast, every time we flip on a light switch, we are connected to the blowing up of the oldest mountains in the world - the Appalachian Mountains - where coal is being extracted using a barbaric form of coal-mining called mountaintop removal.
This weekend, not only did the iLoveMountains.org Bloggers Challenge hit 300 participants (woah!), but I witnessed several incredible citizens who realized that they were connected to mountaintop removal put on an incredible 3 day event in NYC called New York Loves Mountains, in order to raise awareness in New York about the destruction of Appalachia, and the fact that EVEN IN NEW YORK Americans are using electricity generated by mountaintop removal.
We went, last night, to a small fund-raiser for Kentuckians For The Commonwealth, an umbrella group of do-gooders who have become this region's most visible opponents of mountaintop removal. They do or try to do many other good things, but that's how I stumbled into their clutches.
Because time is short and I wish not to insult anybody's intelligence here, I will not trouble to link to photos of mountaintop removal, nor to speak of its many ills. I'm going to presume that in this progressive hothouse of ideas and opinions, y'all know what I'm talking about.
It's not Guantanamo, but it's the same kind of evil. And maybe another morning that's an idea I'd like to explore. But, as I said, time presses and my daughter's going to want her French toast soon.
So please follow me over the fold to see what happened when a couple U.S. Representatives planned to visit mountaintop removal sites, to see, finally, what all the fuss is about.
Home is an invention on which no one has yet improved.
A man defending his home is worth 10 invaders.
There is no place like home.
Home is home, be it ever so humble.
These phrases may have graced our ears 3,592 times, but ponderings on the meaning of home mean a little bit more to those of us in Appalachia these days.
Mountain Mondays will be a weekly celebration of our mountain home in Appalachia.
You see, in many ways, Appalachia isn't what it used to be. We have lost more than 1 million acres of land, along with 1000+ of miles of our once pristine streams, and 90% of our traditional coal jobs to mountaintop removal mining. This barbaric practice has reduced much of our home to rubble, and further damaged our perennially struggling local economies. The jobs are gone. The people are leaving. The water is toxic. And they are blowing up the mountains themselves.
But the face of Appalachian resistance to "Big Coal" is changing...
From the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, this stellar video describes how Dominion Resources, with the full support of Virginia governor Timothy Kaine (D), is breaking ground on a $1.8 billion coal-fired plant in Wise County, VA. On June 26, officials recently appointed by Kaine to the Virginia Air Pollution Control Board unanimously granted air quality permits to Dominion Virginia Power, a subsidiary of Dominion Resources.
Every week, the explosive equivalent of one Hiroshima sized bomb is detonated in Appalachia. Entire mountains are removed, and valleys filled in, in a barbaric form of coal extraction called mountaintop removal.
America is only now hearing the stories of hope and horror, of flash flooding and families, and the growing resistance to the status quo in the heart of America's oldest mountains.
Appalachian Voices and iLoveMountains.org are helping to spear-head an effort to stop mountaintop removal by working with small local blogs from around the country, the success of which is based on the participation of the blogging community and of new journalists like YOU. To supplement the organizing going on in the coalfields, we have instituted the "Bloggers Challenge."
We have spent months out in the field talking with and filming people who live in communities endangered by mountaintop removal. They have shared their hopes, their fears, and their amazing stories.
To spread their stories, we decided on a new-fangled grassroots technique called the Bloggers' Challenge to share what mountaintop removal is doing to our beloved mountains and culture.
The cutting edge Bloggers Challenge program will be run through the most powerful communications tools in the world - blogs - and it's success will depend on your participation.
This diary is a companion to Faithfull's diary titled, "Gore: Mountaintop removal is a crime."
The fact is you have to MAKE it into a crime. This is a practice so perverse that even states that regulate mining don't have statutes adequate to protect from MTR (mountaintop removal). Needless to say, at the federal level, the Bush team is dedicated to making sure coal mining regs are gutted, not improved.
The states must lead the charge on this issue. Tennesseans, you may not know that we fact new threats of MTR, and that there has been action in this legislative session in 2008 to make MTR illegal.
I will not detail out the atrocious effects MTR has on water, air, habitat, and every aspect of the environment, because that was done in Faithfull's diary. But if you live in TN, you have a chance to act locally to make MTR illegal. Follow below the jump...
Mountaintop removal is a crime and ought to be treated as a crime
Al Gore recently addressed Appalachian resident Ed Wiley, Ed's granddaughter Kayla, and the audience at the 2008 Nashville film festival, to present Director Michael O' Connell the 2008 "Reel Current Award" for his most recent piece "Mountain Top Removal."
You'll remember Ed Wiley as the grandfather who walked 455 miles from Charleston WV to Washington DC to speak with Senator Byrd about mountaintop removal mining in his community, and Marsh Fork Elementary School which sits right below a sludge impoundment holding 2.8 billion gallons of toxic sludge.
Rebecca Tarbotton, director of the Global Finance Campaign here at Rainforest Action Network got a surprising date this week. She went to Citi's annual shareholders meeting to confront the bank's financing of the coal industry. Citi is the largest funder of coal in the United States and as we all know coal is the single biggest source of greenhouse gasses.
During the meeting she asked Citi's CEO to join her on a flight over Appalachia to witness the effects of mountaintop removal, financed by his bank.
He stumbled for a minute, but then the company's chairman said he would commit to taking the trip and seeing firsthand how devastating mountaintop removal coal mining can be.
Worried that NASA's plans for getting men to Mars are going to take too long or cost too much? Don't fret yourself.
If you can't take people to Mars, you can certainly bring Mars to the people.
This is a place where "moving mountains" is no longer a figure of speech. Here, among the steep green Appalachians, mining companies are moving mountains off their pedestals to get the kind of coal that Washington needs.
...
"It used to be West Virginia," said Vivian Stockman, an environmental activist. "And now it's Mars."
The good folks of Ansted, WV, along the beautiful New River Gorge, have been fighting increased mining in their communities for a long time, but the battle just recently intensified. It seems that the coal barons in West Virginia are tired of hearing that tourism is West Virginia's future and have set their sights on levelling one of the few regions of the state that is able to support itself without Big Coal's teats--the New and Gauley River Valleys--home to the finest white water rafting in the United States.
The faith community is strongly opposed to increased mountaintop removal mining in the area and in the fall held a very successful and very moving service near the newest minesight called "a Blessing of the Mountains." After recently losing a permit challenge, the groups organized a second vigil--Blessing of the Mountains II--it was this past Saturday. It wasn't quite as successful--the coal company could not let it be. Joe Bageant posted to his blog Deer Hunting with Jesus, a first hand account by Bob Kincaid:
Last week, new Bushie rules were approved to authorize using streams, wetlands and waterways as waste dump sites as long as man-made streams are "created" to replace the streams killed by the waste. This is a faith-based rule: Even the government admits there is no evidence that people have the godly powers to create functional ecological stream systems. That faith is based on the greed of appeasing special corporate interests that don't want to spend money on responsible waste disposal methods.
This rule is not limited to mining waste, but the destruction of streams and watersheds is prevalent in Appalachia. MTR mining has already destroyed 1,208 miles of streams in just 10 years, but greedy profiteers have since added another 535 miles.
The first thing I saw this morning was the news that Al Gore is running for President, and AmericasCoalPower.org, hilariously mocking Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC), a coal industry front-group currently spending $35 million to convince the Democratic candidates that there such a thing as "clean coal."
I wanted in on the outrageous humor.
And perhaps, as a testament to my lack of creativity or
consistent over-reliance on images, all I could think of was that we have reached a point in our history when we are letting coal companies BLOW UP OUR MOUNTAINS so that they can extract a substance with which they will poison the air, pollute our water, and change the F#$%^ing CLIMATE!?!
We all know that coal poisons our planet, removes our mountains, and pollutes our precious water sources. A connection that we often miss, is how big coal and fossil fuel industries have a significant hand in dirtying up American politics.
An every day fossil fuel...
In West Virginia — and indeed in the entire nation — there are few rivers better known for their wild and scenic stretches than the Gauley and New Rivers. I've heard locals boast that the New River is in fact the oldest river in the entire world.
But now, thanks to citizen activists, the blogosphere, and environmentally conscious Americans throughout the land, there is now a much more powerful thing than "science" telling us that we have no choice but to get off coal in the next decade.
It doesn't always occur to us that our electricity comes from somewhere.
Home is an invention on which no one has yet improved.
Al Gore recently 
Rebecca Tarbotton, director of the 
Last week, 
The first thing I saw this morning was the news that 
consistent over-reliance on images, all I could think of was that we have reached a point in our history when we are letting coal companies 
