Climate Climate & Energy

Former journalist Stephanie Roth is battling against a gold mine in Romania

Stephanie Danielle Roth. Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize. The Apuseni Mountains of west-central Romania are rich in gold, iron, and history. The area’s gold once supplied the Roman Empire, and it is home to Rosia Montana, the country’s oldest documented mining settlement. But this past is threatened by the present: five years ago, the Romanian government […]

Umbra on the climate-change literacy of Umbra readers

Dearest Readers, Happy Earth Day. I have mixed feelings as I look forward to the planet’s special holiday tomorrow. Happiness on the occasion of anniversaries: Grist (six years), me at Grist (three years), Earth Day (35 years). Sadness, for this column shall be my last edited by my august editor, and we are having an […]

EIA, EIA … Oh

Greenhouse-gas limits affordable, study says; “Told ya so,” E.U. replies A new study by the Energy Information Administration, an independent arm of the U.S. Energy Department, reveals that mandatory limits on greenhouse-gas emissions would not significantly affect the country’s economic growth through 2025. Surprisingly, or perhaps not, the report contradicts the principal argument the Bush […]

How to Win Friends and Influence People

Iran using oil, natural gas resources to find fast friends Much in the way the kid with the backyard swimming pool and the trampoline always manages to rustle up friends, Iran is turning to its oil and gas reserves to leverage alliances with influential Eastern nations — and rather urgently, as it faces the threat […]

A Matter of Great Export

Arctic Refuge oil could be sent overseas A portentous U.S. commitment, sold with slogans about freedom and national security, that turns out to be all about the oil industry. No, not that one. We’re talking about drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Drilling proponents cite the fact that the U.S. imports most of the […]

The Best “Science” Money Can Buy

ExxonMobil plows millions into funding for 40 climate-skeptic groups In 1998, the American Petroleum Institute outlined a strategy to sow the seeds of doubt about global-warming science “with Congress, the media, and other key audiences.” “Victory will be achieved,” read an API memo, “when … recognition of uncertainty becomes part of the ‘conventional wisdom.'” Since […]

Platform Shoos

Abandoned oil rigs host thriving ecosystems, stir debate Discovery of thriving ecosystems on some abandoned oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico is refueling a debate over what to do with old rigs once their oil-drilling life is over. Some conservationists have been advocating a “Rigs to Reefs” program whereby old platforms are tipped over, […]

N.Y. Times columnist says climate change makes nuclear energy a must

Inspired, no doubt, by recent lively discussion in Ask Umbra and Gristmill on nuclear power (necessary evil or pure evil?), New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has decided to join the fray with his simplistically titled (and conceived) "Nukes Are Green" column. He's of the James Lovelock school of thought, arguing that with climate change bearing down on us and renewables not yet up to full speed, nuclear is our only hope.

Harper’s article on Appalachian mountaintop-removal mining causes outbreak of despair, depression

Its contents are not available online (as far as I can tell), but the recent issue of Harper's Magazine contains a piece that makes it worth buying on the newsstand. It's called "Death of a Mountain," by Erik Reece. The subtitle is "radical strip mining and the leveling of Appalachia," and apparently Reece is at work on a book on the subject. (For a quick primer on mountaintop-removal mining, go here.)

It is -- and I say this as someone who reads a lot of depressing stuff -- one of the most disheartening things I've ever come across. It is truly monstrous what's going on in Appalachia, difficult even to comprehend. I've been faintly cognizant of the issue, but Reece's piece really paints the picture. Some of the oldest and most diverse ecosystems in the country are simply being blown up, irrevocably destroyed. The poor surrounding communities suffer from polluted water and air, denuded landscapes, and showers of debris (last year a boulder dislodged by a mining explosion crushed and killed a three-year-old boy in his bed). The process has been aided and abetted by the Bush administration

Worse, the mines provide almost no jobs -- a crew of nine people can blow the top off a mountain and dig out the coal below -- and most of the coal is sold outside the state. Virtually none of the enormous profits benefit local communities. There's a reason those communities are, and remain, some of the poorest in the country. The presence of coal is an almost unmitigated curse for the region. But by and large, poor Appalachians view environmentalists as their enemies, people who want to steal their jobs and economic livelihoods, who care more about forest critters than about them.

The injustices involved -- both natural and socioeconomic -- are tragic on a scale that boggles understanding.

Compare the amount of attention this gets to the amount lavished on the Arctic Refuge. Why is that? At risk of offending some delicate sensibilities, I've come to think that the refuge plays the same role for the left that Terri Schiavo played for the right: It's almost an abstraction, distant and uncomplicated, a blank slate where we can project our own virtue. In contrast, Appalachia has a deep and complicated history and is populated by working class, culturally conservative whites -- the kind of people that upper-middle-class lefties refer to behind closed doors as "white trash."

But make no mistake, there's a huge crime taking place, the effects of which will be felt by our grandchildren, and theirs. Ecosystems are being wiped out, and vulnerable communities along with them. We need to force this stuff into the mainstream media. I can't imagine any human being with a heart or a brain remaining unaffected.

(If you'd like to do something to help, head over to Mountain Justice Summer and sign up. Thanks to them for the picture above.)

Two Paths Diverged in the Desert …

Battle between coal and renewables plays out in Nevada A drama in the small Nevada town of Gerlach is a harbinger of things to come for communities around the U.S. On one side is Sempra Energy, which wants to build a coal-fired power plant that would generate enough energy for 1.5 million households and pipe […]