NOVA Loved Mountains Today!

Northern Virginians stood with Appalachians and activists across the commonwealth today by visiting Senator Warner and Webb’s district offices and calling for an end to mountaintop removal coal mining. Representing a wide array of interests and constituencies, they all came with one message: oppose any efforts to block the EPA’s ability to protect our waterways from mountaintop removal mining and pollution from burning fossil fuels.

The lead pastor of Accotink Unitarian Universalist Church in Burke spoke about the moral obligation to protect the earth from damage due to climate change and the entire life cycle of coal. He made the point that climate and the environment is a rare issue that so many faiths can come together on

Retire coal in Alexandria

When thinking about coal in Virginia, one’s mind often goes to destructive mountaintop removal coal mining in the Appalachian mountains of southwest Virginia, Dominion’s coal plant under construction in Wise County, or the Hampton Roads coal plant proposed by the Old Dominion Electric Cooperative. In short, it is easiest to think of dirty energy projects in rural and southern parts of the state. Yet coal is in Northern Virginians’ backyards as well.

Monday night, over 60 local activists, community leaders and organizers came together to fight dirty coal in Alexandria. The coal-fired power plant on the bank of the Potomac is making local communities sick and contributing to climate change as one of the top sources of planet-warming carbon emissions in the DC area. The former “Mirant coal plant” is now owned by GenOn, a Houston-based corporate polluter keeping the 514 MW plant burning on standby for the sake of their own profits. Continue reading

New Era of U.S. Climate Leadership Starts Saturday

Years from now when historians look back for a turning point in America’s efforts to address the global climate crisis, they could very well point to 2011 as the year when it happened. This might seem counterintuitive after an election which saw a wave of climate-change deniers sweep into Congress, but that’s only if you’re looking for the leadership to come from Washington. If you consider the plans that are afoot right here in Maryland, it’s a different story altogether.

Without a doubt, a climate-denier controlled Congress likely closes the door on a federal climate bill for the next two years, but it certainly does not close the door on state legislation that could spur national-level action. A lack of federal leadership on climate change is hardly something new Continue reading

350 eARTh takes art to a new height

This week, 350.org takes on its latest endeavor — the first-ever art installation viewable from space! This project is also the world’s first global climate art project. At more than a dozen sites across the globe, citizens and artists will join forces to to create massive public art displays to show how climate change is already impacting our world as well as offer visions of how we can solve the crisis. Each art installation will be large enough to be seen from space and documented by satellites generously provided by DigitalGlobe.

350 EARTH will be the first-ever global scale group show on the front line of climate change