Coal Country showing in Blacksburg

Thursday night, Coal Country has a showing in Blacksburg at the Lyric Theater, a not-for-profit movie theater and community center in downtown Blacksburg. It was a great setting for a showing of this movie that take a look at modern coal mining. Lauren posted the trailer to Coal Country below and I recommend looking to see if there is a showing near you. The producers, Mari-Lynn Evans and Phylis Geller, let the residents tell their stories. They interview miners and those who work for the mining companies who talk about how coal puts food on their table, but they also talk to former miners who have health problems, people from mining families who are now working to end mountain top removal and to end the destructive extraction of coal from the mountains of Appalachia.

Before the film, Diana Jones sang original work and old miner songs. Her powerful voice and evocative songs set the mood for the film as her love of those mountains was evident. Kathy Selvage, the daughter of a coal miner and a dedicated activist, greeted us and told us some of her story. Kathy was one of the people profiled in the movie and will be traveling to many of the showings scheduled. Local nonprofits and student groups set up tables to give moviegoers opportunities to get involved. A group of Virginia Tech students from “Virginia Tech Beyond Coal” talked about their vision for moving the university past its current use of coal to being a leader in clean energy technology.

I’ve been involved in climate change work for over five years now and the postive vision of what we’re working to create gives me the inspiration to believe we’re going to get there, but there are times when I am reminded of what we’re really working to stop. The images of mountaintop removal and of the fallacy of ‘reclaiming’ MTR sites are images I have seen before but to see them in moving picture while hearing stories from those in coal country, was absolutely heartbreaking. Seeing the destruction isn’t enough to convience everyone that mountain top removal should end, but I have no doubt this film will convience many. Find a showing near you here.

Coal is the Word– Spread it!

coal
Today the Virginia Air Board had its quarterly meeting and looking at the agenda one thing is crystal clear: Coal is impacting air quality all over the Commonwealth.

As I write this from the meeting room, and the Air Board is hearing reports on problems associated with coal-fired power plants from one end of the state to the other, an indication of the growing focus on issues related to mining and burning coal in Virginia. No fewer than seven coal-related issues are on today’s agenda.

Currently I am listening to the preliminary findings from ongoing monitoring of air quality in residential areas of Wise County (Roda to be specific). These areas are affected by toxic dust from trucks transporting coal from mountaintop removal sites to nearby processing facilities. So far I’ve heard from two Department of Environmental Quality employees and one representative for Cumberland Resources (the coal company creating the dust). Public testimony from the community is yet to come but a pattern is clear in regards to what the coal industry thinks about the dust issue in Roda: Yes, there’s toxic dust in air but it’s no one’s fault. Could be attributed to faulty data perhaps or bad roadways, but we certainly shouldn’t be concerned if it’s only dangerous to breathe a couple of days a year. Apparently air is not connected: air tested at one person’s house doesn’t mean the community’s air is dirty.

Last I checked breathing wasn’t something we can decide to do only on days when the air isn’t filled with toxic dust.

They Air Board is also reviewing a proposal by Old Dominion Electric Cooperative to build a 1,500-megawatt power plant in Surry County, which would be the single largest coal-burning plant in the Commonwealth. During the public comment period, we got to hear from several residents from Surry County who have serious concerns with regards to this plant. The Surry coal plant discussion came right after testimony on “High Priority Violators,” which highlighted that coal plants in Hampton, Charlottesville and Russell County are all exceeding their air pollution permits. It’s no surprise that the citizens of Dendron and surrounding Surry County are opposed to having a monstrous 1500 MW facility in their backyards. Preliminary air permit applications have indicated that this plant will dump plenty of toxic emissions into the air and water — from mercury to carbon dioxide to fly ash to lead.

I think it’s fair to say you hear pretty regularly about the impacts of CO2 as an endangerment to public health given the recent Environmental Protection Agency finding, and people do what they can to moderate their fish intake due to mercury concerns.

One issue you don’t hear about in the front of the news is lead, mainly because the jury isn’t out debating the impacts on lead. We’ve been pretty clear on how dangerous lead is for a while now and it’s been removed from all aspects of our lives (even in amounts as small as what used to be in our pencils!).

Betsy Shepard, who lives in Surry County got it right when she offered public testimony and held up a Thomas the Train toy that her son plays with. She noted that toys containing lead paint are to be removed from her children at once because they are a risk. Then she noted that the Surry coal plant is projected to emit 1000 pounds of lead each year for the next 50 years!!! What is Betsy supposed to do if this plant is approved? How is she to remove the risk that air will pose to her family?

There is a lot on the agenda today, lots of concerns have been raised with regards to coal’s cumulative impact on the Commonwealth. I have hope that a new energy future is not far off as we begin to make the connection between air quality and public health and coal and our electricity. As the true cost of our energy enters the public domain, we will begin to transition to a clean energy economy that will expand the Commonwealth’s economy and ensure public health.

To College in a Catastrophe

Imagine Henry Thoreau’s mother, trying to pack him up for Harvard in 1833. “Simplify, schmimplify,” Mrs. Thoreau might have exhorted her abstemious son, “At least take a change of socks and underwear.”

No such resistance to consumption afflicts my daughter, Hannah, as we shop for college in 2009. A pile of necessities grows in her bedroom, including but not limited to a Powerbook, extra-long sheets and comforter, assorted instant soups, mugs, posters, shoes galore, and a shower caddy with a startling array of bath products. To Hannah, the collection seems an expression of delight in her imminent adventure. For me, the proliferating acquisitions are a bulwark against my insecurities. At this late date, I fear, I have failed to prepare Hannah for her future.

My defenses took a shuddering blow when the St. Mary’s College website announced Hannah’s reading assignment for freshman orientation: Field Notes from a Catastrophe, by Elizabeth Kolbert. My teenaged perusal of Walden immersed me in images of Thoreau’s experiment in the pre-industrial New England woods. Kolbert presents a much darker vision: a post-warming world of vanishing species, churning hurricanes, and shriveling ice sheets. According to the journalist’s muster of experts, the climate change crisis is neither potential nor impending but upon us. Is Hannah ready for a planet Kolbert describes succinctly as melting? Continue reading

Can We Make It?

Future Hope column, August 29, 2009

More than once over the last several years I have talked with people who understand the deep hole humankind has dug for itself because of our reliance on fossil fuels and the dominant system’s environmentally destructive model of “development.” They have difficulty seeing a way that we will ever get out of this hole. Intuitively, they see little hope that we can avoid climate catastrophe. They ask me why I’m doing what I’m doing given that likelihood.

What I say to them is, OK, let’s assume the worst. Let’s accept that it is unlikely that we will be able to overcome in enough time the power of the fossil fuel interests and those allied with them and enact a clean energy revolution in enough time. Let’s accept that throughout this century billions of people will die and the world’s population is reduced to several hundred million people, the prediction of James Lovelock. What then? What does that mean for those of us alive today who want to do the right thing with our lives? Continue reading

UMD for Clean Energy Pushes Green Platform for City Council Elections

Cross-Posted from: here

UMD(University of Maryland) for Clean Energy is the student group I’m campaign director of. I recently made a post about our position statement we delivered to Senator Ben Cardin’s office, which showed up in the Washington Post Maryland blog(scroll to bottom). Beyond weighing in on Federal legislation, we’re taking advantage of an incredible opportunity to influence College Park policy in the upcoming elections this November, the city our school resides in. We think the transition to a clean energy economy and more sustainable society needs to come from not just from the top down, but the bottom up starting in our communities. We’re going to do our best to make that a reality in ours. Continue reading

Guest post: Where Health Care and Coal Collide

The following is an article written by CCAN supporter and Boucher constituent Theresa Burriss. The piece first appeared in the New River Voice.

I headed out to Rep. Rick Boucher’s town hall meeting on health care Tuesday morning with a particular purpose. I left the event with a revised one. Although I’m writing this editorial now, as I intended to do all along, the message has changed somewhat as a result of what I witnessed in the forum at New River Community College in Dublin.

I had hoped to query Boucher that morning about comments he made recently in Bristol, Va., to the Eastern Coal Council, and how they seem inconsistent with his stance on health care. So let me provide the context for these inconsistencies before I comment on the evolution of my writing.

Reporting for the Bristol Herald Courier, Debra McCown cites Boucher in her Aug. 13 article, “Boucher: Coal Profits Supersede Environmental Concerns.” After Boucher dismissed the surface mining fight as being “new [and] led by the more extreme environmental organizations [who] clearly have targeted the Appalachian states [ Continue reading