Yesterday, we met with Judy Bonds from Coal River Mountain Watch who won the Goldman Prize for Excellence in Protecting the Environment in 2003. During our visit at the Coal River Mountain Watch office, the phone rang constantly and people kept coming in to ask Judy questions. She’d already done two interviews that day and said she was a little brain dead, but it was clear she was used to telling her story and had it ready anytime someone was willing to listen.

Judy told us about how she was the eighth generation of her family to live in Appalachia. She told us about how Appalachians have a tradition called “tending the commons,” which meant taking care of the hills and the hollers for the common good. It was a traditional practice for people to help spread ginseng seeds (and other medicinal herbs) so that the “’seng” would propagate on down the mountain. Someone had a question about this on my last blog post, and yes, according to Judy there were absentee landholders who did hold legal rights to these lands and ultimately sold them to the coal companies. When the coal companies put up fences everywhere, this practice (and the abundance of ginseng) was brought to a halt.

West Virginia still grows half of all of the ginseng currently sold in the world, but the incredibly lucrative plant isn’t nearly as prevalent as it used it be. Appalachia is also home to many other medicinal herbs, including black cohosh and goldenseal. There’s a real treasure trove of herbs that grow at higher altitudes on the mountains that are being destroyed. In addition, Appalachia has more than 150 different types of trees – it’s the seed source for many varieties of trees in North America.

Judy told us she was working as a waitress when they first started blowing the mountains up. She told us about Appalachians’ connection to the landscape and told us that walking through the holler makes you feel like you’re being hugged by the mountain. She described walking through the holler with daughter, while her grandson played in a nearby stream. Suddenly, her grandson called out “What’s wrong with these fish?” and held up a dead fish in each hand. Judy immediately started yelling “get out of the water!”

That’s when it clicked for her that, if the fish were being poisoned, the land and the people must also be experiencing some serious side effects. Since then, she’s been speaking out against the destruction of the Appalachian landscape and culture.

It hasn’t been easy for her. Since she started this work, her life has been threatened and she’s been run off the road so many times that she won’t drive with her kids in the car. Despite the incredibly stress and constant threats to her property, her family and her life, Judy isn’t going to quit. She’s fighting for everybody’s life and health, and for the culture they share.

I was also very moved when Judy told us how much she appreciated RAN’s work to stop mountaintop removal. She said that the corporate campaigning to cut off the financing, our support for local actions and our efforts to raise the profile of the issue beyond Appalachia were all helping. I was very glad to hear that, but I left feeling such a deep sense of awe and appreciation at everything this woman and Coal River Mountain Watch are doing to protect their homes, their communities and their culture.

The t-shirt I got at Coal River Mountain Watch sums it up so well: “Save the Endangered Hillbilly: Stop Mountaintop Removal.

This morning, we were lucky enough to go on a flyover of mountaintop removal (MTR) sites. The good folks at Southwings Aviation offer these trips as a way to help publicize to the outside world what’s really happening in Appalachia, and our pilot/tour guide Tom was a fountain of knowledge about the issue. Branden got the front seat, because the front window opens and he’s the guy with the good camera. Me and Sue sat in back and took lesser pictures with our lesser cameras through the window.

The first thing that you notice: It is truly beautiful here. Appalachia is green and lush and mountainous and it seems like it goes on forever. And then… it doesn’t. What we couldn’t see from the roadway was apparent from the air. Mountaintop removal coal mining is tearing a hole in the heart of this beautiful forest. In fact, it’s tearing lots of holes. Everywhere we looked, we saw another ugly sore on the landscape – coal mining operations or areas that have been blasted out that aren’t even being mined yet.

While we were flying, one phrase kept going through my mind. “Tikkun Olam” – it’s Hebrew for “to heal (or repair) the world” and it means that we all have an obligation to help restore the world and its inhabitants to a state of wholeness. It’s a concept that often gives meaning to my activism, but nowhere have I felt it more profoundly than here in Appalachia. We were given a region so beautiful that (we learned today) its name comes from a Native American word for “endless mountain forest.” And what do we do? We blast the tops right off of those mountains, trash the trees, and poison the rivers! We’ve got a lot of healing work to do here.

In the afternoon, we had a wonderful visit with Judy Bonds from Coal River Mountain Watch . She told us how she was the eighth generation of her family to live in Appalachia and about how Appalachians have always been connected to the landscape and cared for the commons – until the coal companies came in and laid claim to all of the commons. She had so many important things to say and stories to tell, and if Branden doesn’t write about it, I’ll tell you some of it tomorrow. Now it’s after midnight and we’re meeting with Goldman Prize-winner Maria Gunnoe in the morning, so I’d better call it a day.

Oh, by the way, we stopped by Climate Ground Zero and heard that the tree-sitters’ bail was reduced from $25,000 each to $1000, and the two of them were on their way over to the Climate Ground Zero house this evening after spending a night enjoying the relative peace and quiet of their jail cell.

After a series of challenges yesterday (the pilot tapping futilely on the little “check battery” light and the cancelled flight to Google’s outdated belief that there is no mine where that road used to be) we finally found ourselves in Rock Creek, West Virginia, Ground Zero for Mountain Top Removal coal mining. This is a place like no other I’ve been. In fact, this whole area has been one surprise after another, and we haven’t even visited any actual MTR sites as yet.

For starters, West Virginia is GREEN in the lushest, brightest, shadiest kind of way. There are myriad wildflowers and over 150 different kinds of trees. The hills surround you everywhere you are – except, of course where the hills have been removed, where the mountain tops have been stripped of their coal and then dumped into the adjacent valleys, the hollows; where a river’s headwaters begin and where numerous plants and animals and insects make a remarkable, complex, beautiful environment. Frogs and lightning bugs, lizards and squirrels, bears and deer and rabbits and racoons and you name it – this place is the real deal and has even been identified as the oldest deciduous forest in North America. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Lucy_Braun)

Here there is beauty as well as strife. The number of houses that are uninhabitable or in need of repair is surprising and disconcerting. More businesses seem to have closed than to be open in the many small towns you pass through; towns like Masseyville, Whiteville (just after Whitesville), Marsh Fork, Arnett, Pettry Bottom and here, Rock Creek.

More »

So I made it to Appalachia, but as you probably saw, the tree-sit was already over. We spent the evening hanging out with a bunch of activists and community members, hearing stories about their exploits over the past few days. It was a truly impressive operation!

While two tree-sitters sat in jail waiting for bail to be set (ultimately reported at $25,000 each (!) for misdemeanor charges). We heard about how Massey workers set up a 24-hour vigil to harass, threaten and even torture the two. Workers reportedly set off various types of extremely loud noises at irregular intervals to make it impossible for the tree sitters to sleep for more than a few minutes at a time. We were told that they cut down nearby trees and took a chainsaw to the trees that the sitters were in (stopping short of cutting them down while the sitters were still there).

The more I saw and heard, the more I experienced déjà vu. This trip to Appalachia has so many similarities to my fact finding trip last year to visit to Indigenous communities impacted by palm oil plantations in Malaysia. How so?
• Both are (or were) beautiful forested areas with flowing rivers and thriving local cultures.
• Both are being exploited for the benefit of corporations that promise a good living to community members, but don’t deliver.
• Rivers are being polluted and community members are left with toxic fish to eat.
• Bottled water is the only safe choice.
• Both are company towns (or states), where local government bends over backwards to contort the law to favor the industry over the people, where local police offer no protection, and where local media won’t say a word against the company.
• Both are home to determined people standing up against all odds to save their communities and their heritage.
• People in both areas face trumped up charges, excessive bail and other systematic controls designed to scare off others from speaking out.
• Above all, both of them need our help!

If you can make it to Appalachia to support the struggle, go! If you can’t, help expose what’s going on by writing about, telling your friends, doing a classroom presentation, etc. And tell the EPA that it’s time to stop this horrible practice once and for all!

It’s comforting to think that what’s happening in Malaysia couldn’t happen in a “mature democracy” like the USA. Think again.

As organizing director at RAN, I’ve worked to support our campaign to break our addiction to fossil fuels, stop financing for the coal industry and put an end to mountaintop removal coal mining. Now I’m going to see it first-hand.

I’ve read a lot about how devastating mountaintop removal mining is for communities in Appalachia. I’ve seen pictures of sites that were once beautiful mountains and are now hideous, open sores on the landscape. I’ve cheered on efforts to save Coal River Mountain and turn it into a wind farm that would produce renewable energy instead of just a one-time carb fix. I’ve even seen a jar of the disgustingly murky water that runs from the faucet in coal-country (didn’t you think the U.S. had national standards for drinking water?). And I’ve heard stories first-hand from community members who are fighting to save their homes and their heritage, most recently in an inspiring and infuriating panel at Netroots Nation where the speakers strongly encouraged bloggers and others to come out and see what’s happening for themselves.

When I heard their invitation, I already had my ticket. When I read the call-out for people to come to Appalachia to support the tree-sitters who have temporarily stopped blasting at a Massey site, I was boarding a train to the airport. I don’t know at this point where the tree-sit will fit in with our plans (I hear that they’re arresting anyone who tries to get near them.). I’m certainly hoping that the tree-sitters will still be safely in place and that I’ll have a chance to show some support. I’ll find out when I get there.

I’m not sure when – or if- I’ll have internet access during the visit, but I’ll keep on typing and post what I can when I can. Stay tuned!

(PS – my flight out of SFO was delayed, and I missed my connection and wound up spending the night in Chicago, so I won’t be meeting up with my traveling companions until later this afternoon.)

I’ve been a fan of Chris Jordan’s photographs for quite some time. No other work that I’ve seen captures the sheer magnitude of our culture’s dark side in a way that is extremely powerful, very personal and unmistakably quantifiable. Chris has taken on some provocative topics over the years, showing us how one hundred million toothpicks equate to the number of trees cut in the U.S. to make junk mail every year to a layout of 65,000 cigarettes equaling the number of teenagers in the U.S. who become addicted to cigarettes every month.

Inspired by the tragedy of mountaintop removal in Appalachia, Chris’ latest work shows us in a very provocative way just how much coal we consume each day.

Check it out on Grist.

Claim your change by Kyle Thiermann

Changing where you bank might be the most simple and effective way to support your community and stop destructive projects all at the same time! Surfer, Kyle Thiermann shows you how your money gets used to create the world you live in by taking you on a trip to Chile.

All too often those debating the solutions and proposed actions to tackle global warming fail to challenge the assumptions. While it’s important to deal with emissions it can be argued that the root causes of emissions lie farther upstream and can more effectively deal with the challenges we are facing. Cutting emissions is good. Investing in clean energy and cutting emissions before the fuel is readied is better. Read on.

The Carbon Logic Problem Statement | Grist. by Ken Ward

An acclaimed mountaineer, a Baptist minister and a distinguished economist were stuck in a pit. The mountain climber said, “Stand back boys, I’ll have us out in a jiffy,” but the walls of the pit were loose shale and she couldn’t gain purchase. Then the minster raised his arms high and in a deep sonorous voice called for deliverance but after an hour of prayer he too admitted defeat. Finally, the economist stood, brushed dirt of a shabby Harris tweed jacket and said, “This is easy. First, assume a ladder.”

Environmentalists are trying to get out of a deep pit too, and in our push for Waxman-Markey we are acting like the mountaineer, minister and economist. We support ACES because, well, it’s there, and we are accustomed to moving doggedly forward for the best we can get. We also hope for deliverance via a gentle greening, where fossil fuels wither away and a sustainable future of vegetable gardens, strong local communities and good jobs blossoms. Finally, we have invested in what may be termed serial delusional assumptions.

• In the beginning, we thought that Enron and others aiming to cash in on carbon trading (as they did in the sulphur market) would out-muscle fossil fuel giants.
• We believed that techno-policy crafted by tuned-in elites could be quietly slipped into place, avoiding a flat-out messy and risky political slug-fest.
• We were convinced that major corporations like BP, GE and WAL*Mart were honest in their pledge to shift away from fossil fuels and had both the means and will to do so.
• We had faith that a solid majority of the American public, properly educated, would support effective climate action, so long as we did not offend sensibilities with Chicken Little predictions.
• Finally, we now assume we can fix broken policy somewhere down the line, so anything is better than nothing. More »

JP Morgan Chase bank, based in New York City, is living in the past. While they have a fancy new advertising campaign, that most of us have undoubtedly seen in the past few months, JP Morgan Chase still invests hundreds of millions of dollars into coal each year – reflecting an antiquated and highly destructive energy portfolio that is contributing to global warming, affecting the health of people living near coal plants and mine sites, and destroying mountains in Appalachia.

JP Morgan Chase has survived the past year of turmoil in the financial sector and is now one of the strongest and largest financial institutions in the United States. But while JP Morgan Chase is a leader in the financial sector, they are no leader for the environment. JP Morgan Chase is one of the largest financiers of new coal fired power plants as well as mountaintop removal coal mining. In fact, JP Morgan Chase is one of a very few banks who are willing to finance Massey Energy – one of the most destructive and devastating MTR companies in Appalachia. Its time for JP Morgan Chase to show leadership and to stop their investments in MTR and new coal plants – now!

RAN activists in New York are working with the Sierra Club, the New York Action Network, New York PIRG, and the Waterkeeper Alliance to tell JP Morgan Chase to stop financing dirty coal – join us! If you live near New York City, contact Jeremy to get involved with weekly actions targeting JP Morgan Chase in their home city.

See you in the streets!

-Annie

Activists in Chicago, including RAN’s Chicago chapter, organized a protest and rally on Monday demanding that the city of Chicago shut down the 2 existing coal-fired power plants that are currently polluting the air and spewing greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. The event was a great success, check out pictures and a summary below!

-Annie

On Monday RAN Chicago joined local environmental justice groups LVEJO and PERRO for a mock “Energy Election” and rally to shut down the city’s two coal-fired power plants. The Chicago Chapter of the Rainforest Action Network organized this rally with the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization and the Pilsen Environmental Rights and Reform Organization because we see the problem of the coal-fired power plants in Chicago as every Chicagoan’s problem.

Living in the shadows of the coal plants, residents of Pilsen and Little Village suffer disproportionately with 40 deaths per year attributed directly to the coal plants and countless hospital visits and days missed at school and work.

But we live under 1 sky, and air knows no borders. Chicago’s air quality is among the worst of the worst in the nation, and Chicago’s asthma rates are double the national average.

Health effects from the plants affect us locally, but coal is a national and an international problem. Coal is the leading emitter of carbon emissions causing climate change, and any real solution to the climate crisis needs to include cutting off our dependence from all coal and all fossil fuels. We need to invest in wind, solar, geothermal and conservation as alternatives to dirty fossil fuels. It is proven that through conservation alone we can reduce our energy usage by 30%! Moreover, clean energy jobs yield 2-3 times more jobs than conventional energy.

Coal devastates the health of communities and the health of the planet. We call on the city of Chicago to stand by its commitment to being a green city and to shut the Fisk and Crawford Coal-Fired power plants down by 2010.

On Monday, about 100 people gathered downtown and solicited “votes” from passersby with 2 choices on the ballot: to keep Chicago’s two dirty coal plants open, or to shut the plants down and invest in clean renewable energy. Street theater and props depicted the “dirty energy future” and the “clean energy future” of the ballot choices.

The rally kicked off a summer-long series of Energy Elections throughout the city. Ballots will ultimately be presented to city officials in a public ceremony.

- Debra Michaud, RAN Chicago