VIDEO: Mountaintop Removal is an American Tragedy

Mountaintop removal is an American tragedy. Plain and simple. The practice destroys hundreds of Appalachian mountains, contaminates drinking water and sacrifices America’s communities for small seams of coal. That’s exactly what actress and RAN ally Susan Sarandon has to say in our new video on mountaintop removal coal mining: This week, hundreds have convened in [...]

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Climate Action Fund: Get Action, Not Offsets

Research shows that carbon offsets aren’t working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and stall global warming. That’s why RAN has founded the Climate Action Fund. In theory, a carbon offset is a reduction in emissions of carbon or greenhouse gases made in order to compensate for or to offset an emission made elsewhere. Rather than [...]

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Kentucky Has Risen!

“Mountaintop removal is an act of aggression. Civil disobedience is an act of love.” – Terry Tempest Williams A mountaintop insurrection is underway in Kentucky, and it’s got be on Gov. Steve Beshear’s mind this week. As we contemplate Gandhi’s adage, “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you [...]

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Kentucky Rising! Twenty Occupy Gov’s Office in Kentucky Coal Mining Fight

**UPDATE: 14 Kentuckians to remain occupying Gov’s office over the weekend in anticipation of I Love Mountains day on Monday. Watch Live Streaming Here. Sit-In at Ky. Governor’s Office Demanding an End to Mountaintop Removal. Participants include acclaimed author Wendell Berry, retired coal miner Stanley Sturgill, activists Teri Blanton, Bev May and Mickey McCoy. Pictures [...]

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The Death of Irony

Are we living in Bizarro world? As a final kiss goodbye to Massey Energy, the coal industry has once again spit in the eye of everything we hold to be moral or ethical. The West Virginia Coal Association awarded Massey Energy with the “Mountaineer Guardian” Awards. That’s right, the WV Coal Association considers the poster [...]

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Dear Citi: You Have a Responsibility

Last week we got the news that Alpha Natural Resources had bought out Massey Energy, in a deal worth over $7 billion that creates the largest mountaintop removal coal mining company in Appalachia. Citi bank took the financial lead on this deal, a move that drew strong criticism. Here’s the transcript of a letter from [...]

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New UBS Policy Fizzles

‘Tis the season for new bank environmental and social policies! Last Friday, UBS was the latest to announce an updated “Responsible Banking” policy. Let’s see how it stacks up. First off, we have to commend UBS and other banks for choosing to make environmental and social commitments public. Transparency is a critically necessary component of [...]

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Goodbye Massey and Thanks For Nothing

After months of speculation, Massey Energy, the most controversial coal mining company in the USA, is no more. On Saturday Alpha Natural Resources announced that it had bought out the company in a deal worth $8.5 billion. That’s a high price for the stock – metallurgical coal looks lucrative to short-sighted investors as the competing [...]

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Judy Bonds, Presente

“Fight Harder” -Judy Bonds We’re mourning the passing of our friend Julia “Judy” Bonds. She was a mother, a grandmother, a coal miner’s daughter, a national leader in the mountaintop removal abolition movement, a director of Coal River Mountain Watch, and a community organizer. She’d been diagnosed with a very serious case of cancer back [...]

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Rainforest Action Network Victories: Top Ten of 2010

Making change in the world is hard work — some times decades-long hard work. But with the right combination of strategies, experience, tenacity, and allies, it is possible to achieve victories that have a lasting impact. This year, Rainforest Action Network took on corporate titans and secured real wins for the world’s forests, the climate, [...]

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