Garrrrrrrr....!

It was an unusual site at the EPA on Friday, as a group of mountain-loving zombies turned up to let EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson, know that Mountaintop Removal coal mining must stop.

“Where’s your Brains?” One of the walking undead demanded, while others shuffled about carrying signs that called out JPMorgan Chase as the top funder of MTR, “Chase Killing Communities” and declaring that “Coal Kills!”

The zombie mob made their way from their first stop, JP Morgan Chase’s SF offices on Howard St, where they caused quite a stir that had security running for the door locks and had bystanders chuckling and reaching out – carefully – to the zombies who offered information on this most egregious form of powering our country.

At the EPA offices staff on their way back from lunch were friendly and supportive, some going so far as to say that they wish they were doing more and that they wanted to see it stop as well.

One zombie told this reporter that they “Want to save the mountains and the communities of Appalachia, Tennesee and Kentucky” but that they are particularly upset about the blasting at Coal River Mountain, West Virginia. Coal River Mountain has been proposed as the site for a green energy wind farm, capable of producing clean energy for up to 700,000 West Virginia homes. If Massey Energy has their way, this will be a missed opportunity for the rest of us.

“Even a zombie knows that blowing up mountains for coal is stupid”, said one of the protesting ghouls.

There have been some recent moves by the EPA that are hopeful signs for environmentalists and coal mountain residents, with the recent stopping of the Spruce Mine operation and the holding back of 79 of 86 recent permits that failed to meet the Clean Water Act. The EPA has a long way to go, however, as Massey and its subsidieares and contemporaries continue to plunder the mountains and fuel our dangerous addiction to the dirtiest, most destructive forms of energy.

Unable to get into the building to deliver their messages, etched on tombstones, the zombies wandered into a nearby parking structure, perhaps hoping to gain entry, only to become disoriented and finally emerged back at the EPA office entrance.

Police were on hand and friendly as the zombies dispersed.

We called this protest a “Carnival of Destruction” because JPMC’s investments in dirty coal truly are the Most Shocking Show on Earth. Check out pictures below:

-Annie

Update: Watch this video from the action!

-Annie

Dear Mr. Dimon:

I am writing to you about an urgent issue – to respectfully request you end JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s support of the coal industry. This industry is destroying our nation’s oldest and most diverse mountains, causing catastrophic erosion and flooding, devastating ecosystems, poisoning drinking water, and obliterating historic communities. By investing in the coal industry, JPMorgan Chase & Co. is complicit in this wholesale destruction.

Mr. Dimon, you fund six of the top eight coal mining companies responsible for mountaintop-removal coal mining in the U.S., a practice that has been described as “raping Appalachia.” Your company has underwritten more than $1 billion in new financing to Massey Energy, the largest mountaintop-removal coal mining company. Massey Energy has a deplorable record, including breaches of employee safety standards, recent violent acts at peaceful gatherings, and violating the federal Clean Water Act at least 4,500 times – resulting in a $30 million fine. Massey Energy’s CEO, Don Blankenship, has been implicated in buying the influence of Supreme Court justices in West Virginia.

As an actress and performer, I’ve been privileged to see firsthand America’s unparalleled beauty and I can state unequivocally that no place has moved me as aesthetically and spiritually as the Appalachian Mountains. I am honored to speak for this region in my capacity as Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees for Waterkeeper Alliance.

There is no redeeming chapter in the story of coal. From mining it to the disposal of ash after it’s burned, the coal industry is bad for the environment, bad for our health, bad for our communities, and bad for your bank. JPMorgan Chase & Co. has emerged financially strong from the economic crisis, but it has also emerged as a top financier of coal. Investing in the coal industry, especially mountaintop-removal coal mining, is a bad corporate decision. Investing in renewable energy like wind and solar power creates at least 2.8 times the number of jobs as coal for the same investment. Investing in conservation creates 3.8 as many jobs as coal, and mass transit investments create more than six times as many jobs. Investing in a clean energy economy provides jobs that mountaintop-removal coal mining simply cannot.

You have spoken often about your commitment to holding JPMorgan Chase & Co. to the highest standards of corporate social responsibility, yet your actions contradict that. Mr. Dimon, please demonstrate your leadership by announcing that JPMorgan Chase & Co. will no longer be associated with mountaintop-removal coal mining, the largest ecological and social disaster being perpetrated in America today. Stop bankrolling mountaintop-removal coal mining and the coal industry.

Respectfully,

Gloria Reuben
Vice Chair, Board of Trustees
Waterkeeper Alliance

www.thedirtylie.com

Join us this Thursday, October 29th to tell JP Morgan Chase to stop funding mountaintop removal coal mining! JP Morgan Chase is the biggest financier of the devastating practice of MTR – and even funds Massey Energy, the company that has started blasting Coal River Mountain in West Virgina this week.

This Thursday’s Carnival of Destruction will highlight “The Most Shocking Show on Earth” – JP Morgan Chase’s investments in coal and MTR. Hosted by Waterkeeper Alliance, Rainforest Action Network, New York Action Network, Sierra Club, and Friends of the Earth this will be an event not to be missed.

Here’s the details:
When: Thursday, October 29, 2009, from 8:00am – 11:30am
Location: JP Morgan Chase Headquarters, 270 Park Ave. (between 47th and 48th St.)

Join the ringmaster, marching band and costumed supporters.

See you on October 29!

-Annie

Meanwhile, more and more companies and business groups (Apple, Exelon, PG&E) are dropping their membership in the Chamber and public opposition to the Chambers’ climate change denial is growing. The latest opposition is coming from the high tech sector, where the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and Silicon Valley Joint Venture are running an ad campaign against the Chamber for its opposition. And the Chamber is on the run, having been forced to backpedal on its claims to be the voice of the business community; last week the Chamber claimed to ‘represent’ 3 million businesses, but this week it quietly reduced that number to ‘300,000’ members. Investors are calling for companies that they own shares in to drop their membership in the Chamber, and local Chambers are formally distancing themselves from the US Chamber’s opposition to action on climate change.

As well they should. The Chamber of Commerce is behind the times: most companies have caught up with modern public values on climate change. For nearly ten years, the Carbon Disclosure Project has been surveying the leading global companies for their responses on climate change. In the most recent report issued earlier this year, 82% of the world’s largest 500 companies responded to the questionaire on their carbon emissions, 68% are reporting and tracking their emissions, and 51% have disclosed emissions reduction targets, all to report to investors representing over $55 trillion in capital investments. These companies are implementing global action plans for a carbon-constrained world, but the US Chamber of Commerce representing many if not most of these companies is heading in the opposite direction.

Here’s a note to Corporate America: every single company that claims to be taking climate change seriously yet continues to support the climate-change denying Chamber of Commerce, companies like Cargill, Microsoft (MSFT), Toyota (TM), FedEx (FDX) and Ford (F) – it’s time to come clean.

The US Chamber of Commerce is a national embarrassment, and corporations that continue to support this institution are standing in the way of progress in stopping climate change. It’s time for Chamber members to change or leave.

Recently divisions have cropped up in the U.S. Chamber. Three prominent utilities dumped the chamber in the last month, publicly slamming the Chamber’s position on climate change. Nike just left its position on the board of directors. Brad Figel, Nike’s director of government relations, told Greenwire that “We just weren’t clear in how decisions on climate and energy were being made.” And yesterday, computer giant Apple announced it was leaving the Chamber over climate policy.

What gives? What could the trade group be doing that has so offended its major members?

For starters, back in August, the Chamber filed a petition opposing the regulation of CO2 emissions by the EPA. This despite the fact that the EPA is acting under orders of the Supreme Court, which found in 2007 that CO2 is indeed a pollutant within the EPA’s mandate to regulate.

If that wasn’t sufficiently offensive to Chamber members, then the content and messaging surrounding the petition certainly should have been. The Chamber was setting about to equate climate science with evolution and link their denial of climate science with a belief in creationism. This, from the world’s largest business lobby.

Chamber VP Bill Kovacs publicly called to subject climate change to “the Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century.” Kovacs goes further, believing that federal action on climate change will “virtually destroy the United States.”

Of course now that companies are calling them out, Chamber CEO Thomas Donohue has changed the tune, saying that “The U.S. Chamber of Commerce continues to support strong federal legislation and a binding international agreement to reduce carbon emissions and address climate change.” Just not on these terms. Even though current climate legislation gives away all the rights to pollute to the industries currently polluting, that’s still not enough for the Chamber.

The Chamber’s actions as well as its rhetoric are out of step with modern public values. It’s time for more companies to distance themselves from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

-Annie

Mr. Jamie Dimon
Chairman and CEO
JP Morgan Chase & Co.
270 Park Ave NY NY 10017

Dear Mr. Dimon,

I’m writing to ask that your firm reconsider one corner of its business: financing mountaintop removal for coal mining in Appalachia.

It’s probably—along with the tar sands of Canada—the dirtiest business on the continent. Dirty when it’s mined (they mean it when they say mountaintop removal—they take the top off the mountain and dump in the valley next door); dirty when it’s burned (check out asthma rates near urban coal plants); and dirty for eons to come, with its effect on the planet’s climate.

As I understand it, a third of the coal moving out of those mountaintop sites comes from companies you guys have recently been involved in financing. By my definition above that’s dirty money, and it would be a credit to your reputation if you found the wherewithal to say no to this particular trade.

Bill McKibben
Ripton Vt. 05766

We had the great fortune of meeting with four equally impressive people in the area.  Each works with a different non-profit group that is fighting to stop this insane large scale devastation.  Mike Roselle from Climate Ground Zero talked about the campaigns of non-violent civil disobedience work that this new and emerging organization is doing where local and non-local volunteers are putting themselves at great risk for trying to stop MTR.  Mike is great.  He is truly a leader in the national and international environmental movement.  I know I want him on my side to stand up for a worthy cause.  It’s tough work, but thanks to Mike and the people at Climate Ground Zero, they’re bringing national attention to this horrid practice of MTR.

Mike Roselle (at right)

Judy Bonds from Coal River Mountain Watch (CRMW) comes from a family that has lived in Coal River Valley for 10 generations.  She clearly and powerfully talked to us about the rich history and culture of the people there and the mountains they live in.  But now, medicinal herbs such as ginseng, black cohosh and goldenseal are disappearing due to MTR.  Wild boars are almost extinct and the survival of 150 species of trees is being threatened.  People are being forced to move from their homes where they have lived for generations.  Where people were once connected to their land, they are now getting denied their culture.  It’s becoming a cultural genocide.  Gratefully, Judy and CRMW are both working to stop this environmental and cultural destruction and doing what they can to save and rebuild their communities.

Judy Bonds

Maria Gunnoe from Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (OVEC) has family roots in the region dating back to the early 1800s.  She still lives on her family land, even though mountaintops around her have disappeared and the polluted river running by her house has flooded many times due to the lack of vegetation.

Maria Gunnoe

She took us on a tour of the area where we saw yet another town, Lindytown, turning into a deserted and destroyed ghost town because Massey Coal is taking over.  We heard about the polluted rivers and polluted air and the fact that more people including young children are getting cancer and dying from the toxins.  We heard about all the violence coming from Massey Coal to the local people there who are standing up against MTR.  Death threats, homes burned, dogs poisoned and delivered to bus stops for children to see, horses poisoned, verbal harassments, conflicts in stores, and attempts to run cars off the road are all now happening.  Are these acts necessary?  Is this really America?  This is very hard for me to understand.  It saddens and angers me to hear such stories.  I respect Maria and her values and thank her and OVEC for speaking up and educating communities about the environmental dangers of MTR.

Larry Gibson - Keeper of Kayford Mountain

Larry Gibson from Keeper of the Mountains Foundation is an impressive man who is also standing up against MTR.  His family has lived on or near Kayford Mountain since the late 1700s.  We walked a very short distance from his home there to the edge of one of the coal strip mining projects.  We looked down to see a 12,000 acre flattened gravel yard…an area that was once Kayford Mountain.  No picture can adequately convey what I saw and what it must feel like to live in an area that was once a beautiful, rich and secluded mountain, but has now been turned into a massive, ugly and barren open-pit dirt yard.  It’s mind boggling.  It’s beyond destructive.  It’s beyond unconsciousness.  Larry isn’t a brave man, he’s just a man standing up and speaking up for what is right.  And it’s right to save the mountains, preserve the values of the mountain culture and stop coal strip mining from destroying the history of these people and the glory of these mountains.  Many thanks to Larry for risking his life and telling his unbelievably sad story.

From above the destruction is extreme

It was a pleasure and honor to meet such passionate, concerned, authentic and caring people.  Against personal threats and other acts of hate crimes, these people are standing up not only for their land, culture, heritage, families, health and lives, but they are standing up for the health of the planet by dealing with the serious problem of coal contributing to climate change.  They all need support in whatever ways we can give them.  For information on the above non-profits and how to help, visit:

www.climategroundzero.org
www.crmw.net
www.ohvec.org
www.mountainkeeper.org

Finally, many thanks to Rainforest Action Network (RAN) for allowing me to join them on this valuable yet difficult trip.  RAN is a phenomenal non-profit group that affectively takes aggressive action to protect environments throughout the entire world.  RAN is supporting these groups in WV by actively fighting for a coal-free energy future.  According to Judy Bonds, RAN’s corporate campaigns to stop major banks from funding coal, logging, and tar sands are making a big difference.  RAN is also offering training, fundraising support and general advice to these smaller WV groups.

For everyone involved in standing up against MTR….I deeply thank you.

Sue Thompson
Boulder, CO

The report also finds that if we don’t take action to rein in the rapid global expansion of agrofuels we will in fact be making these problems worse. Particularly when expanding in rainforest regions, the carbon debt accumulated by agrofuels will take decades or sometimes centuries to pay back.

April 2009: Activists protest agrofuels in California

Read the full report at: http://ran.org/fileadmin/materials/comms/mediacontent/reports/Agrofuels_White_Paper.pdf