Here’s an update from the Coal River Mountain Wind Team:

We wanted to write and give you an update on what’s happening with the mountain. There has been a lot going on, not much of it in our favor, so we could still use your help in spreading awareness of the campaign and the urgency of the situation. Please continue to share our website and the story of Coal River Mountain with your friends and colleagues, and even write letters to your local newspapers and legislators urging their support for the residents of the Coal River Valley.

First of all, Massey has begun pre-mining activities below the ridge where the first phase of mining is set to begin. It is hard to determine exactly when they will be set to blast, and for now they have yet to construct a road up to the ridge, but they have shown their intent by clearing the forest and constructing a road and sediment ditches approximately 150 [ft?] below the ridge, so we expect that they will be ready to clear the ridge in the coming weeks, but we’ll keep you updated on that.

We’d like to once again bring attention to the economic report conducted by Downstream Strategies out of Morgantown, WV that we released last December. The report analyzed the economic costs and benefits of going with wind versus mountaintop removal for Coal River Mountain, and concluded that the development of a 328 Megawatt wind farm (enough to power about 70,000 homes) stands as the best economic land use option for the mountain, the communities and the county government. This was the evidence we’d been waiting for, and we truly though for a while that the report couldn’t be ignored by state and local leaders.


This hope was shattered on January 6th when we took the result of the study to the Raleigh County Commission. Instead of embracing the study’s conclusions and the opportunity to diversify the local economy and bring in new industries that would help soften the blow of the boom-and-bust cycles of coal, the Commission chose to ignore the merits of the study altogether and instead chose not to “pit one industry against another.” Unfortunately, the Commission and the state government are holding tight to that false logic, and so we are now hoping to catch the attention of national leaders who might help us in the fight for the future of the mountain.

We got a big boost in that effort yesterday when Salon.com published a wonderful and comprehensive article about the campaign written by Appalachian author Jeff Biggers (”The United States of Appalachia”), whose own family home in Indiana has been destroyed by strip-mining for coal. The article gives a great accounting of the campaign since its beginnings, as well as a more comprehensive update on where the campaign now stands [editors note: the Salon article is a must read!]. Salon.com gets nearly 6 million readers a month and so we appreciate Jeff’s article and his persistence in spreading awareness for the wind campaign. You can read the article by clicking here.

We also continue to fight the proposed mining on legal grounds, and on February 10th we will be going before the Surface Mine Board to challenge the permit revision that was approved for the Bee Tree surface mine back in November. The hearing will be held at the Department of Environmental Protection headquarters in Kanawha City (Charleston) at 601 57th St. The hearing will begin at 8:30am, so if you’re free please come out and show your support for Coal River Mountain. Here is a link for directions to the hearing.

That’s about it for now, we will keep you updated as things happen and we hope you continue to support us in this effort.

With warm regards,

The Coal River Mountain Wind Team

Posted in global warming      

Cross-posted from WattHead - Energy News and Commentary

The simultaneous collapse of our economic and ecological systems has created a great opportunity to support industries that at once rebuild the market and the planet, according to an article by economist Robert Pollin, “Doing Recovery Right,” appearing in the latest issue of The Nation. The transition of the economy from a fossil-fuel to a renewable resource base will provide new jobs and revitalize the American working class, argues to Pollin, who is also the author of the in depth report “Green Recovery,” examining the job creation benefits of a $100 billion, two year investment to building a clean energy economy.

“The transition to a clean energy economy has the capacity to merge the aims of environmental protection and social justice to a degree that is unprecedented,” Pollin writes. “It is an opportunity that must not be lost.”

In the video below, Pollin and The Nation contributor Liza Featherstone discuss the potential for public investments to spark the transition to a new energy economy and create jobs in industries both new and familiar - from construction and manufacturing to new energy and high tech industries.

For more on the power of public investments to build a new, prosperous clean energy economy, see the “Green Recovery” report and Pollin’s article, “Doing Recovery Right” appearing in the current of The Nation.

Posted in global warming      

Organizers asking action participants to dress in their “Sunday Best” at the civil disobedience at the Capitol on March 2nd.

We’ve all heard that movements for ecological sanity and social justice are in a crucial political moment. We’re moving from margin to center, and ideas that were once considered on the radical fringe are seen as common sense and self-evident. We’re embracing strategies that employ a diversity of complimentary tactics. Our president proudly writes a narrative of American progress driven by civic engagement and social movement. Our battle is no longer of whether climate change is real, but whether or not we will meet this challenge with the speed and urgency our times require with solutions that are deep enough to solve the economic and climate crisis for everyone, not just for a few.

The nature of protest must evolve to seize this opportunity.

On March 2nd 2009, thousands of people from all walks of life and organizations from across the political spectrum will gather at the coal-fired power plant that powers congress for the Capitol Climate Action in DC. The Capitol Power Plant is a flashpoint and national symbol for a clear message of real solutions, healthy jobs and communities, and climate justice.

In this action, the medium is our message – we’re engaging in an act of civil disobedience. We’re highlighting the moral imperative to take action; our future can’t wait, and we’re willing to put ourselves on the line to ensure we have one. Nothing less than the survival of our species hangs in the balance, and we’re taking ourselves seriously enough to convey that with clarity.

That’s why in their initial public letter, Wendell Berry and Bill Mckibben said, “this will be, to the extent it depends on us, an entirely peaceful demonstration, carried out in a spirit of hope and not rancor. We will be there in our dress clothes, and ask the same of you.”

People often draw parallels between the emerging climate movement and the civil rights movement in the United States. While the climate movement still has a long way to go to earn that comparison, we are right to be inspired by it. Throughout history people have taken bold and confrontational action, often breaking laws to bear witness to an evil and reshape society. We understand that we are the inheritors of this spirit and its tone of seriousness and respectability. Throughout the labor movement and various currents for racial justice people have chosen to wear suits as part of their message they send through these bold actions.

We are asking participants to honor this legacy and use this as an opportunity for change-agents of all kinds to look at ourselves perhaps a bit differently than before. We realize it will be cold and we may all be bundled up anyway, but request that all participants respect the “tone of the zone” and come ready to engage in a positive solution-oriented bold national call to climate action. Dressing up is just one part of an overall message that will only enhance the powerful nature of this action.

And of course, please RSVP for the action and find ways to plug in,  here.

Posted in Americas, Climate and Forestry, Climate Justice, Coal, Coal Campaign, Direct Action, Dirty Energy, Economics, Efficiency, Events, Extraction, global warming, Government, green jobs, Impacted Communities, Indigenous, Jobs, mountain top removal, North East, Oil, Political Participation, Politics, United States      

You know the answer to this question. You can’t get any clean coal for $6.8 billion, because, of course, there is no such thing.

Tell that to Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) of the Senate Appropriations Committee, who bragged yesterday about the $4.4 billion the senate’s version of the stimulus bill, up from $2.4 billion in the House version, gives to clean coal technology. That $4.4 billion won’t buy any clean coal, just like the $2.2 billion in the bank bailout couldn’t buy any clean coal.

You can send Byrd an email here or give his office a call at 202-224-3954. Better yet, come to Power Shift at the end of this month and pay him and your own legislators a visit on the March 2^nd Power Shift lobby day. If you aren’t the lobbying type, be a part of the Capitol Climate Action at the coal plant that (yes, literally) powers Congress. After your visit to DC, get moving on a Focus the Nation Town Hall on Energy in your home town or on campus in April to bring the whole community and your local leaders into the discussion with federal reps.

Legislators need to know that Americans aren’t fooled by the clean coal mythology. Many of them, it would seem, still are. Byrd isn’t alone in the Senate in his quest for the elusive holy grail of the coal industry. Byrd and many other members of Congress, on both sides of the aisle and in both houses, are convinced that coal has a role to play in the new energy economy.

“Clean, carbon-neutral coal can be a ‘green’ energy,” Byrd said. “As Congress strives to develop a national energy policy that will break our dependence on foreign oil, it is crucial to ensure that coal, burned in cleaner more efficient ways, is part of our nation’s diverse energy mix for the future. These investments will help to bolster West Virginia’s economic future.”

Any good economist or scientist can tell you that coal is bad for the long-term economic future of West Virginia, America and the planet. To paraphrase Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman’s closing remarks after a lecture on the global economy last night in Portland, Oregon, “Nothing we can do to fix the economy is relevant in the long-run if we don’t address climate change - a good economy isn’t worth much if you don’t have a planet to live on.”

Posted in global warming      

Last weekend, I asked you to help me tell your Power Shift Story.  I’ve recieved some amazing responses from inspired, engaged, and active young people across the country who are ready to rock Washington D.C., February 27th-March 2nd for Power Shift 2009. What follows is one such story, written by Nick Engelfried, a student at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon (my hometown!) and a kick-ass organizer with the Cascade Climate Network who is leading the charge to transform Intel, Oregon’s largest employer, from a climate action delayer into a clean energy champion (check out Uncover Intel’s Secrets to join in).  Please head here to help me tell YOUR Power Shift story.  Here’s Nick’s:

For a college campus in the greater Portland area, Pacific University is not always the most happenin’ place.  The campus is located in a small town about a half-hour drive from Portland (forty-five minutes by public transportation).  I like Pacific partly because of its small student body—1,500 undergrads, the quiet atmosphere on-campus, and the fact that you can go to sleep at night without being woken up by some partying fraternity or sorority.  My only problem with Pacific culture is that it’s also a little hard to stir up enthusiasm for student activism.

By the time I heard about Power Vote, I had already helped run a few significant environmental projects on my campus the previous year—the year I first transferred to Pacific.  The student environmental group there had showed a green-themed film or two, had some speakers come to campus, and gathered student support for the university’s demonstration organic farm.  Still, I was unsure how much enthusiasm we could drum up over Power Vote.  Could a sleepy little university like Pacific actually make a significant contribution to this national campaign?  I wasn’t completely convinced.

Still, I signed up with the Sierra Student Coalition to be Pacific’s Power Vote Coordinator—and with the Coalition’s help, we set a goal of collecting 300-400 pledges from Pacific.  I brought up Power Vote with the campus environmental group, and they seemed enthusiastic enough.  Maybe it wouldn’t be too hard to meet our goal after all, I thought.  But convincing students interested in environmental issues that the campaign was a cool idea was one thing; getting over 300 pledges was going to be quite another.

The first couple months of our Power Vote campaign moved in fits and starts—but our progress was pretty slow.  We tabled, but a huge number of students barreled past us with tunnel vision focused the space directly in front of them.  I talked up the idea of class raps—but students grew nervous about the idea of addressing their whole class, or else just forgot.  The filled-out Power Vote pledges trickled in.  But a week or so into October, I knew we needed more than a trickle to meet our goal.  We needed a storm.  No doubt about it: it was time for more desperate measures.

I sent out emails, called up a few of the most dedicated members of our environmental group, and set a couple of dates to go dorm-storming.  Not in my own residence hall—in a dorm building that’s even more quiet and introverted than the rest of the campus, I could just picture the annoyed, fuzzy looks we would get for knocking on doors and asking for Power Vote signatures.  No, we would go where the payoff was likely to be biggest: the freshman dorms.

We started out looking for rooms with their doors open, and poking our heads inside to see if the residents would like to take the pledge.  That worked—so for our next night of dorm-storming, we grew bolder.  Two other students and I proceeded to hammer on every door in our building-of-the-night; when we got an answer, we’d spout out our spiel about Power Vote.  We collected over 50 pledges in a single evening.

Not all the freshmen at Pacific were conveniently in their rooms for the evening, though—I knew there were still lots out there who needed to know about Power Vote.  So one night I emailed my old Environmental Ethics professor from last spring, who I knew was teaching one of the First-Year Seminar classes this year. I asked if we could do a class-rap for her students—and her response was even better than I’d expected. She offered to pass along an email to other First-Year Seminar professors, and try to give us the opportunity to talk to their classes as well.  It was by now about a week until the elections; I knew this could be our last big chance to bolster our Power Vote pledge count.

On almost the last day left to collect pledges, I raced from one First-Year class to another on my bicycle, giving the Power Vote spiel in five or six classrooms in one morning.  My task was complicated by the fact that more than professor gave me the wrong room number; sometimes it was an office number confused with a classroom, and sometimes the reason for the mistake was harder to discern.  I pedaled madly from one building to the next, hurriedly stowing my bike in the bushes at each stop, counting on the hope that it wouldn’t get stolen in the ten minutes it would take me to find the classroom and make my speech.

By Election Day, we had 348 Power Vote pledges—right in the range of our original pledge goal.  Not only that, but a significant number of students had checked the “I’d like to volunteer” box in the bottom corner of the card, and we had an expanded group with which to work on our next major project.  Now it’s a new semester, and Pacific is hosting a community-wide Sustainability Summit focused on environmental issues in the suburbs just west of Portland.  You can bet the new Power Vote recruits are getting plenty of emails inviting them to help out with the Summit.

Running Power Vote at a small, quiet campus like Pacific was a bit of a challenge.  But even there, we collected over 300 pledges.  Had we been slightly more organized and experienced, I have no doubt we could have gotten many more.  For anyone out there wondering about the vitality of the youth climate movement, I have this to say to you: the night three of us took on a whole freshman dorm building at Pacific, I felt the air thick with the vitality and excitement of our movement.  Travelling from one door to another, we let more than fifty people in on the struggle to re-power this country in a single night.  Pacific may be quiet, but there are students there as passionate about solving the climate crisis as I am; and though I will be graduating this spring, several younger student organizers will remain on the campus.

At the end of February, we hope to send a delegation of Pacific students to Power Shift 2009—the largest gathering of students concerned about global warming that this country has ever seen.  In the meantime, Pacific’s Sustainability Summit is poised to bring together several of the most important environmental issues in our community, and focus the attention of our elected officials on sustainability and the transition to a greener future.  Even in a quiet, small-town campus like Pacific, we have a student movement that’s changing the future for the better.

Written by Nick Engelfried, Pacific University (Forest Grove, OR)

Ready to tell YOUR Power Shift story?  Head here.

Posted in global warming