via movieposter.com

In the 1974 classic Roman Polanski neo-noir film Chinatown, private detective Jake Gittes (played by Jack Nicholson) discovers one of LA’s dirty secrets: Wealthy developers are legally stealing precious water from poor struggling farmers in California’s central valley to hydrate the posh homes of Beverly Hills and a rapidly growing Los Angeles. It’s a sordid tale of corrupt local politics, exploited natural resources, an earlier version of the 1% vs. the 99%, and seemingly the “future” of the city.

In a similar vein, despite growing green consciousness in southern California, the city of Los Angeles has another dirty secret, and it is called coal. Furthermore, the electricity that the residents of L.A. are using everyday from coal is being burned at the expense of struggling Native communities in the American Southwest.

Despite a resolution passed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the L.A. City Council to get L.A. off of coal, the Los Angeles Water and Power Department (LAWPD) still purchases almost half of its power from coal plants in Arizona and Utah. The resolution has led to two coal plants being shut down, but the LAPWD is still heavily invested in utility companies like Southern California Edison.

And while California itself has very few coal plants and no coal mines, it keeps its homes air conditioned and lights on through plants hundreds of miles away spewing pollution into the airways and waterways of the Southwest. This addiction has a particularly harsh impact on communities in the Four Corners area of New Mexico and Arizona as the Navajo Generating Station is located on Navajo land. Furthermore, companies like St. Louis-based Peabody continue to mine coal reserves on the same land.

Stellar reporting by Altnet’s Josh Frank has highlighted this story and the struggle of Indigenous groups fighting to be heard on the impact of coal plants and mining on native land.

My community is heavily impacted by Salt River Project’s coal and water extraction activities. SRP has extensive ties to Peabody Energy’s massive mining operations and the Navajo Generating Station,” says Louise Benally of nearby Black Mesa. “Coal mining has destroyed thousands of archeological sites and our only water source has been seriously compromised. Their operations are causing widespread respiratory problems, lung diseases, and other health impacts on humans, the environment, and all living things.

Last month, protests erupted in Arizona around the Navajo Generating Station. 16 activists were arrested at the offices of corporate climate marauder and managing partner of the Navajo plant, the Salt River Project (SRP). SRP is also a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and sits on its board. ALEC is most known for aggressive legislative campaigns to undermine labor standards, climate science and civil liberties, as well as a driving force behind the racist Arizona law SB1070.

At the end of Chinatown, the wealthy developers won, covered up scandals both political and personal, and Gittes was told “forget about it Jake. It’s Chinatown.”

But the fight over LA’s future with dirty coal is far from over, and we won’t be forgetting about the struggles of people most impacted by it for quite some time.

A videographer rolled along with the team we sent out to hit the BoA ATMs in Chinatown and the Financial District, and put together this video for us.

Want to help hold Bank of America accountable? Looking for a way to plug in to the growing global movement to end corporate rule? Take action with us on January 20 as we issue a people’s arrest warrant for Mr. Bank O. America in the streets of San Francisco!

Massachusetts militiamen surround strikers (via Wikipedia).

“One may live without bread, but not without roses…”

- Jean Richepin, 19^th century French Poet

One hundred years ago this week, 25,000 textile mill workers, many of them women and young girls, walked away from their looms and out of the Dickensian sweatshops of Lawrence, Massachusetts in protest of brutal working conditions and pay cuts. The “Bread & Roses” strike suddenly and unexpectedly thrust the horrible working conditions and massive economic gap of an earlier Gilded Age into the public eye.

Sound familiar?

Like today’s Occupy Wall Street movement, the Bread and Roses strike merged radical activism and worker militancy. Robert Forrant, a history professor at the University of Massachusetts, calls the strike “the first Occupy movement.”

Progressive Era radicals, in this case the Industrial Worker’s of the World (IWW), or Wobblies, raised the voices of the ninety-nine percent. Representing the unskilled and immigrant workers that mainstream unions and liberal politicians ignored and refused to help, the strike illuminated the plight of families and child labor as it has never been done before.

They pushed the envelope by utilizing direct action tactics such as pickets and a massive strike. In the case of Occupy, it was the call to action put out by AdBusters last summer that was embraced by direct action-istas, anarchists, and radicals across the world. In 1912, the IWW organized Lawrence’s mill workers to stage a multi-month strike in resistance to the American Woolen Company and other Yankee manufacturing bosses.

The strike was partially sparked by liberal workday reforms that hurt these workers and benefited the one percent. Similar to today, Obama-era legislation and (lack of) regulation continues to favor big banks and corporations over poor and working class people. Hence, today’s Occupy movements are made up of, or represent, large numbers of disaffected Americans who have lost their homes, their jobs, have no health care, or are poisoned by the fossil fuel industry.

The manufacturing bosses refused to negotiate with the “scourge of Southern Europe” and instead relied on military force and “divide and conquer” tactics. Without the benefit of MSNBC or YouTube, police and Massachusetts state militia brutalized strikers for months. Two workers were shot or bayoneted to death, while many others were clubbed and jailed. Before the strike, the one-percenters that owned Lawrence pitted ethnic groups against each other, as well as divisions in organized labor that favored skilled workers over unskilled workers.

Much like today’s Occupy Wall Street, the Bread and Roses strike drew a line in the sand between the wealthy “haves” and the “have nots” at the bottom of the socio-economic food chain. Also like Occupy Wall Street, the demands for bread and roses sparked a radical movement of movements fighting for a living wage, better working conditions, and dignity and respect.

via Tar Sands Action

tipping point  (tɪpɪŋ point) — n  the crisis stage in a process, when a significant change takes place

This last week, I went to Washington D.C. and joined the Tar Sands Action, the biggest environmental mass action in a generation. Over a thousand were arrested calling on Obama to deny the permits for the Keystone XL pipeline, which would cut down the middle of America’s heartland from Alberta to oil refineries on the Texas coast. The pipeline will carry billions of gallons of oil extracted from Indigenous land in northern Alberta.

The Tar Sands Action is a “tipping point” for the climate movement that I’ve been calling a “Camp Casey” moment. If you remember, Camp Casey in 2005 was when anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, who’d lost a son in Iraq, began an encampment at Bush’s ranch in Crawford,TX. It was a “tipping point” in the war. It cracked Bush’s popular support for the war and led to political routes in 2006 and 2008, and the sacking of War Sec. Donald Rumsfeld. And it helped trigger a partial withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq (at least for now.)

The sit-ins at the White House seem to have caused a major shift for the climate movement.

via TargetOfOpportunity.com

My arrest day (August 29th, the 6th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans, no less) included going to jail with climatologist James Hansen, a large interfaith contingent (Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist), leadership from non-profits like Greenpeace and 350.org, and lots of ordinary folks from many generations and many walks of life.

Through the two weeks of action, we saw youth, Appalachians, Indigenous leaders from all over North America, former Obama staffers and volunteers, anti-fracking activists, labor activists, Midwestern and Texan landowners, and environmental radicals sit-in on the White House sidewalk. Furthermore, it’s been organized by my close family of friends and comrades whom I always have a vested interest in seeing succeed.

Needless to say, it was a powerful two weeks.

In these situations, my mind often goes to the transformational power of direct action. And to be really honest, I was initially very skeptical about this action. But the tar sands action brought in many newcomers to the civil disobedience tactics (at least 2/3rds by the organizing group’s count.)

The arrest action itself was a short and sweet process, and not the harrowing experience I’ve gone through in harder actions. It didn’t entail climbing a dragline on a mine site or locking oneself to the gates of Exxonmobil, but it was still quite powerful for the first-time participants and mainstream environmentalists caught in a crisis of faith about Obama and climate change.

Some personal anecdotes on the power of this action:

• On Monday, I was arrested with some Canadian grandparents (from Alberta, to boot). As they took the grandmother away, her husband yelled “your grandchildren are proud of you today Mary!”
• Lots of staffers from the mainstream orgs like the 350.org, Energy Action and NRDC risked arrest. With some exceptions, traditional purveyors of breaking the law for a cause, like Earth First!, RAN and Greenpeace, did not play a central role, which I take as a good thing. Getting arrested is not always the goal, but this was an important experience for those folks and their organizations.
• And Keystone pipeline actions also spread organically all over the world. There were pickets and protests as far away as Cairo and Durban, South Africa. Activists followed Obama to Martha’s Vineyard and an Obama for America event in Minnesota. On September 26th, another sit-in is planned for the Canadian capital in Ottawa. The media exploded with news around this action, and social media continues to be even bigger. After over a year of organizing, our friends with Rising Tide chapters have been taking direct actions against Exxon’s tar sands megaloads in Idaho and Montana.

People from all over the continent have begun to not only experience direct action, but also a level of direct democracy. It’s not Seattle in 1999 or the IMF/World Bank protests in 2000 with affinity groups and spokes councils determining the course of the action or which intersections are to be held. But instead, its people voicing their outrage at this pipeline and Obama’s unwillingness to act for the good guys (us) on the climate issue. It’s beyond the ballot box or waiting for politicians to do something.

To me, people stepping out of their comfort zones and not doing what the police tell them until arrest is a radicalizing moment. People stepping out of the Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber two-party political system, organizing their dissent and taking care of each other while doing it, is a revolutionary act.

Those radicalizing and revolutionary moments are why I do this work.

All of this comes after a long spring and summer of fierce actions from the Dept. of the Interior in Washington D.C. to coal plants in Chicago to Tim DeChristopher’s trials and tribulations in Salt Lake City to the tar sands-loving Montana governor’s office to tree-sits on Coal River Mountain.

A wise friend of mine once said he prefers Democratic administrations in power not because he thinks the Democrats will do the right thing, but because it causes an upsurge in more radical, people-powered organizing in the U.S.

Well, dear friend, here we go. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Last week's blockade in Moscow, ID. Photo via Wild Idaho Rising Tide.

Bam! The fight against the tar sands is hot!

In the past week and a half, over 800 people have been arrested sitting-in at the White House in protest of the Keystone XL pipeline. And yesterday, Indigenous Canadians took action at the Canadian embassy in Washington D.C. More actions are planned everyday until Saturday and it’s beginning to spread around the world with solidarity actions in Cairo and Durban, South Africa.

And in Idaho, Wild Idaho Rising Tide has already taken multiple actions to block the tar sands “megaload” trucks bound for Alberta.

Last week, nine activists were arrested fighting the megaloads. More actions are planned. Sixty-seven more loads will be rolling and they need some help!

Oil companies like Exxon are transporting massive pieces of oil extraction equipment from South Korea to Portland, OR via ship, then sending them up the Snake and Columbia Rivers by barge to Lewiston, ID. The plan is to truck them to Alberta over Idaho and Montana’s scenic highways and byways. The megaloads have been fought in the legal and regulatory arenas in both states. Exxon has used every trick and loophole in the book to move that equipment. Now they are moving and Idaho’s residents are responding with non-violent direct action.

via Wild Idaho Rising Tide

Last night’s attempt at a blockade was foiled as Exxon is now paying the city police department and the Idaho State Police as their own personal security detail. From folks on the ground: “Last night the city of Moscow was a police-state, with close to 30 police officers lining a 3-block radius in downtown. We’ve been tipped off that Exxon put in a phone call to the City police department and is now paying the force’s overtime pay.”

Wild Idaho Rising Tide put out this call for support today:

via WIlid Idaho Rising Tide

“Keep up your creativity and resolve under pressure, dear comrades! Allies elsewhere, we are under escalating siege and need you by our sides, either physically or fiscally. Please come to Idaho or contribute your aid to our resistance of another 67 transports that build tar sands hell.“

Contact Wild Idaho Rising Tide at wild.idaho.rising.tide@gmail.com or on Facebook.

They need support funds and people to help plan and carry out creative non-violent direct action. Please support however you can.

In mid-June, when 350.org and RAN started organizing what would become the Tar Sands Action at the White House, I thought it would be an important act of protest. But this has become something much more. It is the largest act of civil disobedience on the environment this generation has ever seen and a pivotal moment for the U.S. on climate change.

Today I spoke to a woman named Julie, a landowner from Nebraska who is the last person in her county to refuse to sign over her land for the pipeline. She’s never been to a protest, much less been arrested. But she told me that she just had to come because the stakes are so high. Likewise Eleanor, a landowner from Texas, who said defiantly: “I am much more worried about the Keystone Pipeline and the damage it could do to our climate than I am about my children being left with a deficit.”

By some estimates, as many as two-thirds of the folks who have been arrested since the sit-ins began two weeks ago have never participated in anything like this — and yet they gave up their own time and spent their own money to voice their opposition to Keystone XL and tar sands oil. This is what a movement looks like.

The movement to stop the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline has become symbolic of our struggle to avert climate catastrophe, and it’s breaking through and gaining momentum. Here’s how we know that the tide is turning:

• This week has seen the biggest days yet of the “Tar Sands Action” civil disobedience in DC. So far, over 800 people have been arrested in DC (including actress and nature lover Darryl Hannah, who was arrested on Tuesday along with RAN board members Randy Hayes and Jodie Evans). Over 130 were sitting in today.
• Keystone XL is getting a ton of media coverage: It has been a top item on Google News for the past several days, and the issue has been featured in front page articles by The New York Times and The Huffington Post. It has also received great coverage from CNN, ABC, Al Jazeera, Reuters, and more.
• Along with our partners, we’ve collected hundreds of thousands of signatures on a petition that we’ll be delivering to the White House on September 3rd. If you haven’t signed and shared it, please do so today.
• In the last few weeks, the tar sands protests have united the leaders of groups as diverse as Greenpeace and the Environmental Defense Fund. A few days ago, the leaders of the top environmental groups in the country all joined together in a letter to the President in which we told him that “there is not an inch of daylight between our policy position on the Keystone XL pipeline, and those of the protesters being arrested daily outside the White House.” I have never seen this kind of unity in the climate movement.

I think we can get loud enough to stop the Keystone pipeline and build the momentum necessary to make a difference on climate — but we need each and every one of you. If you can’t make it to the White House tomorrow or Saturday, the last day of this first Tar Sands Action, you can still be part of the uproar by signing the petition to President Obama now. You can also be sure that we will be back here again if Obama doesn’t deny the Keystone Pipeline permit, and you can join us then. We’ll keep you posted.

Stopping the Keystone XL pipeline is an essential part of transitioning this country off fossil fuels. American citizens are voting for green energy with their dollars in increasing numbers. This month, California-based Sungevity sold 2MW of solar systems. To put that in perspective, ten years ago the entire State of California had just 10MW installed. Total. The clean energy revolution is underway — now we need our government to do its part.

With these protests, the Keystone XL pipeline has become the current symbol, the line-in-the-sand for the climate movement. If we stand on that line together, and succeed, I believe it will have ripple effects across our entire struggle.

In a powerful example of cross-movement solidarity, a large delegation of Appalachians who have been fighting mountaintop removal coal mining participated in the sit-in. They joined a delegation of pipeline landowners from all along the pipeline route at the action:

Photo by Shadia Fayne Wood

In front row, from left to right: East Texas landowner David Daniel is joined by longtime RAN friends and allies Larry Gibson of Kayford Mountain, WV and Teri Blanton of Harlan, KY at the sit-in.

David has been leading the Stop the Pipeline tour that traveled from Texas up through Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska and east to Washington D.C.

via dnews.com

They spill, they drill, and we fight back with the only currency we have — our bodies, our minds and our fighting spirit.

Hundreds have been arrested sitting in at the White House this week. Meanwhile, Alberta’s Indigenous communities have been fighting Big Oil’s development of tar sands for quite some time, and today residents in Moscow, Idaho crossed a line of their own in solidarity with those Indigenous activists trying to protect their homes from the utter destruction that is tar sands extraction.

Last night in the wee hours of the morning, as the first “megaload” trucks were beginning to roll, four men and women with Wild Idaho Rising Tide sat down in front of the massive vehicles to stop their passage through the highways and byways of the Northern Rockies to Alberta.

A few weeks ago, after many legal and political battles Exxon announced they were re-routing their shipments through the Port of Pasco in Washington (down river from Lewiston, ID) and ship reduced size pieces of equipment. While it was seen as a victory for the long term community campaign against the oil giant, Exxon still is moving the reduced size hauls through Idaho.

Moscow resident Brett Haverstick said, “Big Oil intends to clear-cut and strip mine a place the size of Florida, and simultaneously destroy native communities and entire watersheds. I feel obligated to speak up and say this is wrong.”

This morning’s action is part of a larger campaign being waged in Idaho and Montana by communities and environmentalists to stop the passage of tar sands heavy haul trucks through their region.

Activists Arrested For Blocking “Megaload” on US 95

Citizens Stand In Solidarity with Canadian First Nations & Others In Opposition to Extraction of the Alberta Tar Sands and the Building of the Keystone XL Pipeline

Moscow, ID- Early Friday morning, six Moscow residents were arrested for sitting in the road and blocking US 95 to protest an Exxon/Imperial Oil “megaload” shipment destined for the Alberta Tar Sands. In an act of non-violent, civil-disobedience, men and women sat down in the crosswalk of the highway when the four-hundred-thousand pound, two-hundred foot long, twenty-four foot wide, and fourteen-foot tall oil-processing module entered the downtown area. In a showing of solidarity with the First Nations people of Canada, and the hundreds of people getting arrested in Washington, D.C., the individuals are calling for the Obama Administration to deny permits for construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would stretch from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.

“Not only are people calling the Alberta Tar Sands the most unsustainable and destructive project on the planet, but also an act of genocide against the people that live in the region, particularly those down-stream of the tailing ponds,” said Moscow resident Brett Haverstick. “Big Oil intends to clear-cut and strip mine a place the size of Florida, and simultaneously destroy native communities and entire watersheds. I feel obligated to speak up and say this is wrong.”

With the Obama Administration getting ready to make a decision on the Keystone XL Pipeline later this year, the individuals said they have been inspired by the hundreds of people getting arrested in Washington D.C. this past week in protest of the Keystone XL Pipeline.

“President Obama must deny permits for the Keystone XL Pipeline. Go ask the people of Montana or the people of Michigan if they want more oil pipelines built across their lands and waterways, said Moscow resident Greg Freistadt. “People are traveling from Nebraska all the way to Washington, D.C. and getting arrested this week because the pipeline threatens their drinking water and livelihoods. It’s time for communities to come together and oppose this.”

The possible construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline isn’t the only oil pipeline that concerns the activists. The Northern Gateway Pipeline is scheduled to be built west from Alberta, Canada to the Pacific Ocean so that crude oil can be shipped to China and India.

“The First Nations people unanimously oppose this pipeline across their lands,” said Moscow resident Vince Murray. “In addition, supertankers plying the pristine coastline of northern British Columbia would endanger one of the last unspoiled ocean ecosystems in the world.”

The individuals have also been extremely disappointed with their city and state elected officials.

“Megaloads are terrorizing our highways in the Northern Rockies, pipelines are spilling oil into some of our most precious rivers, and our governors and Congressional leaders will not come to our defense,” said Brett Haverstick. If leaders won’t lead, then it’s up to us to step forward.”

This blog was orginally posted on the Daily Kos on August 19th as part of the Stop Tar Sands Blogathon.

On Sunday, Aug 28th, the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial in Washington, D.C. will open. The dedication — now long overdue — will serve as a reminder of Dr. King’s enduring legacy of justice, love, compassion — and activism.

The dedication falls right in the middle of a two-week period when, in the spirit of King, over 2,000 activists will meet at the White House to voice their opposition to the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. The 1,700-mile oil pipeline, if built, would carry tar sands oil from my home country of Canada down along the spine of the U.S. all the way to the Gulf Coast.

It’s an ambitious proposal to build an immensely long pipeline, and if President Obama approves the Keystone XL, the distance between his rhetoric and reality will grow proportionally. Upon his election, the president told us that this was the moment “when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” But full exploitation of the tar sands would put the climate at extreme risk, which is why scientists such as Michael Mann and James Hansen oppose the pipeline.

The arguments for the pipeline have included energy independence, pipeline safety, and cheaper fuel prices. One by one each has been knocked down as people come to grips with the reality that increasing oil supply is no way to deal with oil addiction or climate change — our twin challenges when it comes to our energy choices. Consider these facts:

• According to government body in charge of pipeline safety, between 2000 and 2009, pipeline accidents were responsible for 2,794 significant incidents and 161 fatalities in the United States.

• According to NRDC projections, scaling up our use of renewables and increasing our energy efficiency can go a long way to offsetting the use of tar sands oil, if not meet them completely.

• The physics that control our climate are not waiting around for politicians to parse through the arguments for the Keystone XL and figure out how to message yet another step in the wrong direction. We are experiencing climate change now, and no amount of wishing it away or political posturing is going to change that reality.

Of course, the company behind the pipeline, TransCanada, and its other supporters have done everything they can to manipulate the process (including creating fake Twitter personas). It hired Secretary of State Clinton’s former deputy campaign director as their chief lobbyist, and recently released Wikileaks documents show U.S. envoys working with Canadian energy bosses to insure “favorable media coverage.”

We can’t have business as usual anymore. This is the message that the sit-in will send loud and clear to TransCanada and the president, a former community organizer himself who has a bust of King in the Oval Office. The president knows what a people powered movement can accomplish.

King challenged the conscience of the nation, and he was shot down in Memphis as he was putting together the Poor People’s Campaign, a new effort to tackle economic justice and housing for the poor in the U.S. Today’s climate activists are channeling King’s courage by taking their message straight to the doorstep of the president. The eyes of the world are watching.

via Midwest Rising!

Yesterday, hundreds of folks attending the Midwest Rising! Convergence took to the streets of St. Louis to protest Bank of America and Peabody Coal. Fifteen community and climate activists were arrested.

The arrest action occurred in a downtown St. Louis intersection that connects Bank of America’s regional offices and Peabody’s world headquarters.

Peabody is the world’s largest coal company and mines states like Wyoming and Montana for coal bound for power plants in the U.S. and overseas markets. They are currently trying to build coal export terminals along the Washington coast to export coal to Asia.

Peabody has also recently taken a $61 million tax credit from the city of St. Louis. $2 million of that cash will be taken from St. Louis public schools.

Bank of America is the largest forecloser of homes in the nation and the largest financier of coal. Bank of America execs have taken over $35 million in bonuses and compensation even as the troubled financial institution took government bailouts.

Midwest Rising was a convergence for climate and economic justice that brought together a diverse coalition of groups fighting home foreclosures in cities like Chicago, St. Louis and Pittsburgh, communications workers on strike against Verizon Wireless, local labor organizers, Appalachian activists fighting mountaintop removal and climate justice activists from around the world.

In the morning, Midwest Rising activists also organized four decentralized actions at the corporate headquarters of Arch Coal and Monsanto, a Verizon Wireless store and the St. Louis Board of Education. By mid-morning, the Appalachian-Arch Coal contingent joined the striking communications workers at the Verizon store singing “solidarity forever” and telling the story of the new Battle of Blair Mountain.

Corporate America attempted to disrupt Midwest Rising as one company contacted the conference center trying to get the venue canceled, another pressured the transportation company to not deliver activists downtown in rented buses for Monday’s rally and they assembled a small army of police and private security to protect the Peabody and Bank of America buildings. There were also heavy police presences at Arch and Monsanto.

At one point a Rising Tide activist confronted a St. Louis police officer,who followed them into a coffee shop, and asked if he worked for “Peabody or the City of St. Louis. To which the officer replied “Peabody. And you. But they pay me more.”

Here’s the press advisory, post-action press release out soon:

Activists to March on Peabody, BofA in Unique Blend of Community, Climate Concerns

via Midwest Rising!

(St Louis, MO) — “Corporations need to respect both people and the earth,” says Chelsea Ritter-Soronen, a St. Louis resident. “No one should lose their home, their livelihood or, at worst, die from bad business practices, but that happens all the time. That’s why we’re demanding that Peabody Energy, the world’s largest coal producer, and Bank of America, one of its financial partners, be better corporate citizens,” says Ritter-Soronen. “Simply put: greed kills, and we won’t stand by and let that happen.”

On Monday at noon, Ritter-Sorononen will join over a hundred activists from St. Louis and around the country to march through downtown St. Louis in a creative direct action to spotlight Peabody Energy and Bankof America’s records of environmental and human exploitation. The group, coming together under the heading of Midwest Rising, demands that:

1.  Peabody Energy return the $61 million in recent tax breaks to the city, especially $2 million from the St. Louis Public Schools system, so that money can fund education and other social services

2. Peabody Energy halt its plan to build an export terminal in Washington state for the export of coal to China. Coal is a dirty fuel that worsens global warming at home and abroad; 3. Bank of America stops financing for companies engaged in mountaintop removal coal mining and companies pursuing coal export infrastructure

4. Peabody Energy end coal extraction and switch completely to renewable, sustainable energy. Bank of America shift its investment dollars away from coal and toward clean, green renewable energy.

With high levels of unemployment, increasing environmental fragility, endless wars, tax breaks for corporations, bailouts for the banks and an erosion of the social safety net that knit communities together, people find a common bond in the social justice movement. “The great support for Midwest Rising shows that people want to heal and reclaim our values of peace, justice, health, environmentalism and prosperity for all of us,” says Johnathan McFarland, organizer with Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment. “We are united against the common opponent of corporate greed run amok.”

Also planned for Monday are five delegations to corporations and public offices in support of good jobs, peace, healthy food, good schools and a healthy environment. The delegations will be visiting Monsanto headquarters, Arch Coal headquarters, the St. Louis Board of Education, the office  of Congressman Russ Carnahan (D-3, MO) and a local Verizon office. Each visit represents a spoke in the wheel of social justice, from demanding that Arch Coal protect Blair Mountain in West Virginia from mountaintop removal to supporting the 45,000 workers who are currently on strike at Verizon to protect their workplace benefits.

At Arch Coal, the country’s second largest coal producer, citizens will ask the company to end the damaging practice of mountaintop removal for coal extraction; and, in the immediate future, spare the historic Blair Mountain from destruction. Peace activists will visit the district office of Russ Carnahan (D-3 MO), who is currently on a trip to Israel on an AIPAC-affiliated junket. Peace activists are seeking Carnhahan’s support for Palestinian rights and a just and peaceful resolution of the conflict for everyone involved. At the Board of Education, community members will demand that corporations, like Peabody Energy, give back the tax breaks that divert funds from local schools. In St. Louis, funding for schools is needed to restore librarians and parent support specialists. In support of the ongoing strike by Verizon workers, Midwest Rising activists will join a local picket to show support for protecting good jobs over greed. At Monsanto, activists will demand that the corporation label  ts genetically modified food and stop disabling indigenous ways of agriculture.

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Take Action

1 Sign & Share the Petition to Obama

Only the President of the United States has the authority to block the Keystone XL pipeline. Tell President Obama to keep the Keystone XL oil pipeline out of our backyards. Everyone in North America needs to be aware of this dangerous pipeline proposal, so please share this petition with your friends and family. Make sure they know that the opportunity to stop Keystone XL is right now.

2 Join the Tar Sands Action in D.C.

From August 20-September 3, concerned people from across the continent—students, celebrities, scientists, Indigenous peoples, church groups, environmentalists, parents, and more—are gathering in Washington for a mass act of civil disobedience at the White House. Over 1500 individuals are already registered to join this wave of sustained sit-ins and send a clear message to the President: The People are saying NO to the 2000-mile climate-destroying Keystone XL pipeline.

If you’re ready to do whatever it takes to stop climate change, you can register to join the action at tarsandsaction.org.

via Bridge the Gulf

There are all kinds of action camps planned this month that will be challenging the root causes of climate change— i.e. the fossil fuel industry—in the Midwest, Southeast and Pacific Northwest.

August is already sizzling with small groups of environmental and Indigenous rights minded people stepping up and putting their bodies on the line to protect those places most near and dear to their hearts.

Last Thursday, in New Orleans about 100 people rallied at BP’s Regional Command Center to protest the oil giant’s continued lack of accountability in cleaning up one of the worst corporate disasters in U.S. history- the Gulf Oil Spill. As the event’s call to action put it “The Oil is Still Here and so are We,” and Louisiana residents are mobilizing to fight back against the poisoning of the Gulf of Mexico by BP.

Three were arrested staging at sit-in at the front entrance of the office during the rally. Cherri Foytlin, a Louisiana resident, an oil worker’s wife, a mother of six and one of the arrested said “They’ve told us we can’t cross this line or we’ll be arrested. Well they crossed the line a long time ago when 11 men died and they sprayed poisons into our water and made cleanup workers sick. Now fishermen can’t put food on the table and people are still sick. We’ve had enough. It’s time for us to cross the line now.”

Last year, BP spilled billions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico and has created an environmental and public health crisis throughout the Gulf States. For their part, the BP Support Network (aka the complicit politicians in both parties) seem to have the company’s back as the tax payers are footing the bill for any cleanup efforts and British Petroleum continues to operate in the Gulf.

via Alex Soto/Censored Media

Meanwhile in Northern Arizona, Native Americans are struggling to defend San Francisco Peaks, sacred to 13 area Native American Nations, from the Snowbowl Ski Resort. The Snowbowl Ski Resort is already destroying the sacred mountain with the clear cutting of grandmother trees, as a pipeline is put in to bring sewage water to the ski resort for snowmaking. Native American medicine men gather healing plants and conduct ceremonies on San Francisco Peaks. The healing herbs would be contaminated by sewage water snow.

Yesterday, six were arrested in Flagstaff in a march protesting the desecration of the San Francisco Peaks sacred sites and today another eight were arrested today while locking down to cement-filled barrels to stop work crews driving up to the peaks.

“As long as Arizona Snowbowl, the Obama Administration’s Forest Service and the City of Flagstaff continue this ecocide and cultural genocide, we will not stop,” said Klee Benally (Dine’), one of the arrested marchers. “We will pray, march, protest, and take whatever action is necessary to ensure that our basic human rights, dignity and environment are safeguarded.”

As environmental and climate activists wake up to the fact that D.C.’s politics of compromise have failed us and are not going to stop one clear cut or the release of another ounce of carbon, we’re seeing the increased use of direct action tactics. We’re seeing increase of people putting their bodies and freedoms on the line to stop greater environmental devastation.

As Ed Abbey said “At some point we must draw a line across the ground of our home and our being, drive a spear into the land and say to the bulldozers, earth movers, government and corporations, “thus far and no further.” If we do not, we shall later feel, instead of pride, the regret of Thoreau, that good but overly-bookish man, who wrote, near the end of his life, “If I repent of anything it is likely to be my good behavior.“

via ZGeek

Corporations are getting more nervous and more protective of their dirty secrets. Witness this incident at the American Legislative Exchange Council.

Originally posted at ThinkProgress:

Yesterday, at a conference in New Orleans, two ThinkProgress reporters were attacked by security guards for no apparent reason. Reporters Scott Keyes and Lee Fang were at the Marriott Hotel for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) annual meeting, an event that brings together state lawmakers with corporate lobbyists to draft “model” legislation.

While we stood by the second floor lobby of the conference hotel, security guards surrounded us, demanding that we leave. As we were leaving, they approached us, violently pushed us and twisted our arms. A guard approached Fang from behind, tackling him and later bending his arm to take his camera. Keyes, faced similar treatment: two security guards roughed him up on the escalator, taking his video camera, and cutting Keyes’ hand as he attempted to leave the premises. As Keyes asked why he was being forced to leave, he was shoved from the back.

Asked why they were being so belligerent, the security guards said they were acting on instructions from ALEC. At certain points during the incident, they were able to turn on their video cameras and record it:

Although ThinkProgress has attended ALEC conferences in the past as credentialed media (we broke the story about BlueCross BlueShield lobbyists writing ALEC’s anti-health reform legislation in 2009), we were denied credentials this time.

ALEC calls itself an open organization that exists simply to advance “principles of Jeffersonian democracy.” Facing recent scrutiny by the media, one prominent ALEC member told the Daily Iowan that there’s “nothing sinister, there’s nothing secretive about [ALEC].” However, the incident today underscores the suspicion that the organization is a secret conduit for corporate lobbyists to literally write legislation for state lawmakers without having their fingerprints on the bill. To maintain this secrecy, ALEC appears more than willing to kick out media and close their doors to the public.

Earlier in the day, when Fang and Keyes were sitting in the first floor lobby, they witnessed ALEC public affairs official Raegan Weber point to them while speaking to the hotel security. However, contacted by ThinkProgress over phone after the incident today, Weber denied telling the security to go after us, and said she would get back to us with a statement concerning what happened. Nearly a day later, we have not heard back from her.

via UK Climate Camp

It’s going to be some hot business this summer, and we ain’t talkin about the triple digit heat wave hitting much of the country. There is a rebellious spirit sweeping the U.S.A. as people are fighting back against the fossil fuel industry from coast to coast.

We all know about the big tar sands to-do happening in Washington D.C. at the end of August, but did you know about the various grassroots action camps targeting coal, corporations and other issues in various parts of the country? These camps will be turning up the street heat on King Coal.

Midwest Rising! Convergence for Climate and Economic Justice, St. Louis, MO (Aug. 11-15): Rising Tide North America, Climate Action-St. Louis, a number of Midwestern economic justice and environmental justice groups have organized Midwest Rising!, a convergence of the climate and economic justice movements in the heart of King Coal’s backyard. Arch Coal, Patriot Coal and the world’s largest coal company, Peabody Energy, are headquartered there. And St. Louis is also an area hit hard by the foreclosure crisis, which has mobilized groups like Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE) to launch campaigns against Wall Street’s big banks. We’re looking forward to this historic convergence and can’t wait to see what happens next.

Localize This! Action Camp, Vashon Island, WA (Aug 14-21): On beautiful Vashon Island, off the coast of Seattle, the Backbone Campaign is calling on trouble-makers from all over the Pacific Northwest to come together to build skills for our re-emerging anti-corporate movement. The camp will focus on trainings in the areas of campaigning, media skills,climbing and non-violent direct action. The Pacific Northwest coast is a region of growing importance in the national coal debate as coal exports are emerging as a vital issue in towns like Bellingham, WA and Longview, WA. RAN is fully engaged in the coal exports fight and will be at Localize This! giving trainings and issue briefings.

Reclaim Power Southeast Action Camp, Western NC (Aug 18-22): People working for justice, peace and a sustainable future in the Southeast are invited to join this long weekend of workshops, trainings, strategizing, and direct action. This camp merges folks from the peace, anti-nuclear, environmental justice and Earth First! movements in the Carolinas to share skills, share information, build community and put this awareness to ACTION. Mountaintop removal coal mining and coal burning power plants have long plagued communities in Appalachia and the southeast and Reclaim Power will continue to build campaigns against the coalistas.

Quit Coal Action Camp, Sandusky, OH (Sep 2-5): Greenpeace is sponsoring a Direct Action Training Camp for up to 80 activists to learn and share new skills and experiences so that we can all step up our game against extractive industries. Greenpeace activist James Brady has recently told us he really doesn’t like coal. This camp gives him the opportunity to show us all how to fight it. We hope Greenpeace films James’ workshops, but if not, he trains so much eventually you can probably see it in person. Plus James is pretty funny. (That’s funny ha ha, not funny looking.)

Grassroots direct action movements against the fossil fuel industry (particularly coal) are taking off. Last week, climate activist Tim DeChristopher was sentenced to two years in prison for derailing an illegal land sale to the oil and gas industry. Since then the number of concerned people showing up to fight King Coal and Big Oil has increased tenfold (so we hear). This fight is on and there’s no going back.  See you at camp.

“If A Tree Falls” examines the story of a group of environmental activists who were based in Oregon in the late 90s. It offers a history of the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), and asks why it was classified by the FBI in 2001 as the nation’s “Top Domestic Terrorist Threat”?

The story is told to us through the perspective of Daniel McGowan, who is currently serving seven years in Federal prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy and arson charges. We first meet him at his home in New York, where he is preparing for his trial. Daniel comes across as articulate, compassionate and devoted to his family, a very likeable guy.

Daniel’s preparations are illustrated with 10-15 year old footage from Oregon, including non-violent direct actions blockading old growth logging in Oregon, tree sits in Eugene, and confrontational policing. One of the most distressing scenes shows police officers rubbing pepper spray directly into the eyes of protestors who are locked to the ground and unable to move. The narrative implies that it was the failure of peaceful actions like these and the violent response of the police that motivated individuals like Daniel to take more extreme action.

Other footage shows the fires that were set by the ELF: logging company offices and a university research facility razed to the ground. While these fires were clearly economically destructive, do activities where no one is killed or injured really constitute the label of ‘terrorism’? Since Daniel lives in New York, there’s a convenient juxtaposition with 9/11.

There are interviews with a broad cast including loggers, police and many other activists. The success of this film, a winner at Sundance, owes much to the balance it provides.

One of the threads linking “If A Tree Falls” with “Just Do It” (JDI) is the heavy-handed police response to peaceful activism.

In JDI we are introduced to Marina. In the opening scenes Marina is asked why the British police have classified her as a “Domestic Extremist”. The extremist label seems absurd. Marina’s main activity at protests is making copious quantities of tea and offering cups to activists, police, workers and security guards. These cups of tea help Marina to connect with others in a calming manner. Also, she says, it’s “much better to save the alcohol for the after-party”.

JDI is an “embedded documentary.” Director Emily James spent two years following English climate activists as they planned and executed nonviolent direct action on airport runways, at coal-fired power stations, at banks, and at the Copenhagen climate summit.

I’ve never seen the planning of a direct action filmed like this before (apparently James went to lengths to hide all the footage until the actions were over to ensure security for the folks involved) and this makes it very educational. We learn about different action techniques: lock-ons, affinity groups, consensus-decision making and, somewhat ironically, security protocol.

I’m struck by the incredible energy of the activists. They all speak to the fact that time is running out to halt climate change and that they feel utterly let down by policy makers. With comments such as “I want to feel like I’m doing something, rather than nothing and not just watching the world go to shit.” The focus is very much on the actions and the motivations and politics are either glossed over or simplified.

That said, it’s fast-paced and nicely shot. After watching “If A Tree Falls” I felt despair about the implosion of a peaceful environmental movement. JDI reminds me that it’s very much alive and thriving. I recommend watching them both.

JDI is raising funds to bring their film to the U.S. You can find out more and support “Just Do It” here.

via photos.dailycamera.com

It’s been a tough week for the climate movement as Tim DeChristopher, one of our strongest and most articulate voices, was sent to prison for two years.

But amidst the crappy news about Tim, deCarbonize Colorado and other groups in Boulder gave us a bit of an uplifting story. Last year, activists organized an occupation action at the Valmont coal plant in Boulder where five were arrested. Soon after their action, the Boulder City Council voted to close the Valmont plant by 2017. That wasn’t good enough for them, so  last weekend they turned out 150 folks who rode their bikes to the Valmont plant and then did a massive guerrilla gardening action on the plant’s property.

Here’s the reportback from one of the activists working to end coal in Colorado:

On Saturday, August 16 close to 150 Boulder residents took part in a creative and empowering direct action at the Valmont Coal Plant in support of energy localization and local food. After a community bike ride from downtown Boulder, folks of all ages planted sunflowers — known for their use in natural soil remediation projects — on a vacant lot at the gates of the Valmont Coal Plant. The activists were calling for the immediate shut-down of the Valmont Coal Plant, as well as urging the City of Boulder to cut its ties with Xcel Energy and to create a truly sustainable community built on local democracy, locally-generated energy and locally-produced food.

Folks gathered in downtown Boulder for a free breakfast (complete with French Toast!) provided by the local chapter of Food Not Bombs. The community bike ride, which included a large contingent of children and families, occupied major east-west thoroughfares as we made the 5 mile trek to the Valmont Coal Plant, located east of town. Small teams of bikers carefully managed traffic in the intersections to ensure the safe passage of everyone on the bike ride, as folks enjoyed chants, small talk and a beautiful summer day.

After roughly an hour of pedaling from downtown Boulder, we arrived at the Valmont Coal Plant in high spirits. Community members started to turn over soil to prepare the ground for planting, while others erected signs reading “Our Power Our Future Our Choice”, “Planting a Clean Future”, and “Coal Plant in Transition.” We then planted sunflowers at the gates of the coal plant, to begin the transition away from dirty fossil fuels in our community. Sunflowers are useful in the soil remediation process, as they are able to extract arsenic and other coal-plant pollutants, out of the soil. They are also an example of a natural, sustainable and community-scale solution to the problems associated with coal and other fossil fuels.

via photo.dailycamera.com

Thanks to much community involvement, Boulder is well on its way to cutting its ties with Xcel Energy, a Minnesota-based, monopoly utility company that generates 90% of its electricity from fossil fuels. A ballot measure passed by a large margin last November allowed the city to take the first steps toward creating a publicly-owned municipal utility. This November, voters will have the opportunity to establish a municipal utility. Such a change would enable democratic decision-making over the source of our electricity, dramatically expand locally-generated renewable energy and — in tandem with efforts to expand the production of local food — help create a thriving and sustainable local community.

Solidarity to Tim DeChristopher and all our Rocky Mountain comrades from Utah to Montana.

The US is facing an incredible amount of challenges: rising health care costs, crumbling infrastructure from coast to coast, and a stumbling economy, leaving millions out of work.

In Chicago, the Crawford plant in Little Village, and the Fisk plant in Pilsen, both owned by Midwest Generation, bring the problems of public health, the economy, and infrastructure into sharp focus and demonstrate that there is a better path that can help renew the country — a switch to a clean, green energy economy.

Let’s start with how coal affects the economy. In 2011, Harvard published a report that found that “the life cycle effects of coal and the waste stream generated are costing the U.S. public a third to over one-half of a trillion dollars annually.” The study doesn’t even deal with the climate change; its estimate is just about public health. After all, every year, coal kills 24,000 Americans from associated health effects caused by coal plant pollution. And mercury from our 650 or so plants annually poisons 300,000 infants across the country.

Fisk and Crawford combined cost neighboring communities $127 million per year in hidden health damages, according to a report released in October, 2010 by the Environmental Law and Policy Center. The Clean Air Task Force found that air pollution from Fisk and Crawford causes more than 40 deaths, 720 asthma attacks and 66 heart attacks annually. Particulate matter from the Fisk and Crawford coal-fired power plants impairs visibility and contributes to lung cancer, heart attacks, premature deaths, acute and chronic bronchitis, emergency room visits, asthma and other respiratory illnesses.

The problems at Fisk and Crawford are mirrored across the country in communities affected by coal-fired power plants. Those who live closest to these plants bear the heaviest brunt.

That’s why LVEJO, Rising Tide, RAN Chicago and other groups are calling for the closure of Chicago’s two toxic coal-fired power plants, but thus far justice has escaped the communities around these plants. Action now would protect the community and create new green jobs, and, perhaps most importantly, serve as an example for communities and policymakers across the country that we don’t need 19^th century technology to power our communities any more.

You can take action here.

via publicbroadcasting.net

Time flies.

It was a little over two and half years ago that our dear friend and comrade Tim DeChristopher went into a federal land auction and stopped an illegal sale of Utah wilderness to the oil and gas industry. He was subsequently charged with two felonies and, last February, was convicted of them.

Next week, he’s set to be sentenced by a federal judge.

In the past six months, Tim’s voice calling for civil disobedience and a peaceful uprising against corporate fossil fuel companies has become louder and louder. And it’s working. In collaboration with grassroots activists all over the continent, direct action for climate justice is spreading and growing.

• In April, Rising Tide North America and Peaceful Uprising organized a mass unpermitted march through the streets of Washington D.C. to the Dept. of Interior in the aftermath of Power Shift. Over 300 people occupied the  lobby in protest of the department’s rubber stamp of fossil projects. 21 were arrested.
• In June, 250 people marched 5 days through West Virginia to historic Blair Mountain. On the final day, 1000 marched to the top of the mountain calling for an end to mountaintop removal mining.
• Last week, in Montana, Earth First! and Northern Rockies Rising Tide occupied MT Gov. Brian Schweitzer’s offices in protest of his support of tar sands development in his state. Five were arrested after locking themselves together with PVC pipes fashioned into a mock oil pipeline.
• Yesterday, the RAMPS campaign in West Virginia began two tree-sits on Coal River Mountain to stop strip mining on the iconic mountain. So far, two have been arrested and two remain in the canopy.
• On Aug. 4, community members are calling for direct action at BP’s New Orleans offices in protest of the oil company’s continued lack of accountability for the devastating oil spill.
• On Aug. 12, Rising Tide North America and the environmental justice community is teaming up with economic justice and labor groups in St. Louis to fight corporations destroying jobs and homes with economic collapse and the climate with coal.
• At the end of August, thousands are converging and risking arrest over 15 days at the White House in protest of the Keystone XL pipeline.

Next Tuesday, the group that Tim co-founded, Peaceful Uprising, is organizing actions at federal courthouses and federal buildings across the country in solidarity with the sentencing happening in Salt Lake City. The time for talk and compromise on vital issues like climate change and fossil fuel extraction is past. Now is the time to get involved, take risks and try to make a difference.

Here’s how you can plug in:

1.Solidarity Actions: We are calling on activists to demonstrate solidarity and show our rejection of a corrupt justice system, by staging actions at federal district courts around the nation. Help send the government a clear message of love and outrage: we will not be intimidated or deterred. Register here.

2. Letters to the Editor: Our goal is to flood the national press leading up to July 26th. You can use Peace Up’s letter to the editor template and their talking points as tools to buttress your own personal perspective when you express to your local media what the climate crisis and Tim’s prosecution mean to you. Reach out to publications, community radio, and any local networks and help us make this happen.

Real change will come from the bottom, not from Presidents or Kings, and not from silver bullet events that awaken the world with an “a-ha,” but from long hard work on the ground building a movement.

Mountaintop Removal Damage via RAMPS

I love the smell of direct action in the morning.

Last week, I was part of Earth First! and Northern Rockies Rising Tide taking over the governor of Montana’s offices in protest of tar sands development, and this morning, the RAMPS Campaign put a couple of tree-sitters up on Coal River Mountain to stop mountaintop removal coal mining.

The tree-sit has stopped Alpha Natural Resources strip mining operations on Coal River Mountain. Catherine-Ann MacDougal and Becks Kolins currently are sitting in trees 80 feet off the ground about 300 feet from active blasting operations.

Their banners read “STOP STRIP MINING” and “FOR JUDY BONDS.”

via americanswhotellthetruth.org

Judy Bonds was an Appalachian leader in the anti-mountaintop removal fight who died of cancer earlier this year.

Judy’s daughter, Lisa Henderson, said in support of the tree-sit, “I hope that today’s actions serve as a symbol that the struggle to live peacefully and pollution-free in the Coal River Valley did not end when my mother’s life did.  My mother and I often compared the fight to survive here on Coal River to the civil rights struggles of the 1960s.  I am sure that generations from now, our children will look back on this movement also and the actions of the people involved, and ask the question of their elders, ‘Whose side were you on?’”

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 20th, 2011
Contact: Mathew Louis-Rosenberg, 304-924-1836

Activists Block Mining Operations on Coal River Mountain Call for end to strip mining in the Coal River Watershed

MARFORK, W.Va. – Two protesters associated with the RAMPS Campaign halted blasting on a portion of Alpha Natural Resources’ Bee Tree mountaintop removal mine on Coal River Mountain today by ascending two trees.  Catherine-Ann MacDougal, 24, and Becks Kolins, 21, are on platforms approximately 80 feet off the ground within 300 feet of active blasting on the mine.  The banners hanging from their platforms read “Stop Strip Mining” and “For Judy Bonds” in honor of strip mining activist Julia “Judy” Bonds of Packsville, W.Va. who died of cancer earlier this year.  The activists demand that Alpha Natural Resources stop strip mining on Coal River Mountain and that the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection prohibit future strip mining in the Coal River Watershed.

“I feel, with the keen urgency of extinction, that Alpha Natural Resources cannot be allowed to tear apart Coal River Mountain and allow all those living below it to suffer for their profits. The Coal River watershed cannot tolerate any more damage. There is no way that I can begin to detail the comprehensive destruction that surface mining and mountaintop removal wreak on the forest ecosystem of the southern Appalachian mountains,” said Catherine-Ann MacDougal.

Coal River Mountain is the last major intact mountain in the watershed, which encompasses roughly 570,000 acres in the heart of the southern WV coalfields.  Nearly a quarter of total land area in the watershed is being mined or permitted to be mined in the future, including over 5,000 acres of Coal River Mountain.  As of January 2011, Marfork Coal Company, a subsidiary of Alpha, has destroyed about 75 acres of Coal River Mountain on the Bee Tree permit, the only active mountaintop removal permit on the mountain.  Activists say they are determined to prevent further strip-mining.

Elias Schewel, 27, and Junior Walk, 21, are supporting the sitters from the base of their trees.   Walk, who grew up in Eunice W.Va. at the foot of Coal River Mountain says that he was inspired to take action, in part, by his lifelong relationship with Judy Bonds.

“The last two families to be driven out of this holler we’re in today were Judy Bonds and my great uncle and they both died of lung cancer. Judy spoke often about how hard it was to leave, but black water spill after black water spill, the blasting dust clouds, and fears for the health of her family forced her out. Packsville is gone. We’re not just losing our clean air and clean water. We’re losing our communities, our history, and our culture.”

Judy Bonds’ fears of the health impacts from coal operations have been increasingly backed up by research from WVU.  A recent public health study found a correlation between residence in a mountaintop removal area and higher rates of birth defects, even accounting for other socio-economic factors(i).  Public health research has linked residence in coal-impacted regions to increased rates of cancer, kidney disease, and some chronic illnesses, confirming long-held community concerns.(ii)(iii)

“Those who are drinking tainted water, breathing coal dust, and watching the mountains fall around them don’t need a scientific study to tell them what’s wrong,” noted MacDougal. Fellow tree sitter Becks Kolins remembers their first visit to the home of a Coal River Valley resident last year.

“He showed me his yearbook and pointed out everyone that had gotten cancer. The only teachers that hadn’t gotten cancer had made a point of not drinking the water.”

Lisa Henderson, Judy Bonds’ daughter and Coal River Valley resident, sees this action as a continuation of her mother’s work.

“I hope that today’s actions serve as a symbol that the struggle to live peacefully and pollution-free in the Coal River Valley did not end when my mother’s life did.  My mother and I often compared the fight to survive here on Coal River to the civil rights struggles of the 1960s.  I am sure that generations from now, our children will look back on this movement also and the actions of the people involved, and ask the question of their elders, ‘Whose side were you on?’”

RAMPS (Radical Action for Mountain People’s Survival) is a non-violent direct action campaign based in southern West Virginia dedicated to ending all forms of strip-mining in Appalachia.  Ongoing updates about this action will be available at www.rampscampaign.org.

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i M. Ahern, M. Hendryx, J. Conley, E. Fedorko, A. Ducatman, and K. Zullig, “The association between mountaintop mining and birth defects among live births in central Appalachia, 1996-2003” Environmental Research in press, 2011 ii N.P. Hitt, M. Hendryx, “Ecological integrity of streams related to human cancer mortality rates.” Ecohealth. 2010 Aug;7(1):91-104.
iii M. Ahern, M. Hendryx, ““Relations between Health Indicators and Residential Proximity to Coal Mining in West Virginia.” American Journal of Public Health, 2008.

via RAMPS

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The film has gotten a lot of attention, to the point where the coal industry has created a public relations “war room” to combat it. Nice to see we’re getting under their skin.

Here’s where it’s opening and showing.

Here’s the trailer and movie poster:

via TheLastMountainmovie.com/