Appalachia
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Are the South and the Midwest splitting on energy?
There’s one interesting aspect of the Waxman-Markey vote worth highlighting in its own post. Ron Brownstein’s analysis contains this intriguing information: The sponsors also maintained substantial support for the legislation even in the Midwestern states expected to generate the most opposition because of their heavy reliance on coal for electricity. Overall 48 of the 60 […]
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Live at Coal River — mass arrests against mountaintop removal
James Hansen getting arrested on June 23 at an anti-mountaintop-removal protest.Antrim Caskey Note: This blog will be updated during the day, with dispatches, video and photos being filed by Stephanie Pistello.) “When I get to the other side, I shall tell God Almighty about West Virginia!” — Mother Jones UPDATE: “The Sword of Damocles hangs […]
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Goodbye to Cancer Valley: In remembrance of my friend John Soley
John SoleyAfter a long struggle with cancer, my friend Mr. John Soley died at his home in Carbon County, Pa. on Saturday, June 20. He was only 62, which is too young to die of natural causes. But then, neither John nor I believe he got sick from natural causes. We believe he and many […]
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Will media and nation bear witness to coalfield tragedy this week?
A historic reckoning is taking place on Coal River in West Virginia this week-and in Washington, DC on Thursday. On June 25th, U.S. Senator Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD), Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Water and Wildlife Subcommittee, will hold the first bipartisan hearing in a generation to address the impact of mountaintop […]
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Will Sen. Rockefeller Snub or Praise Goldman Prize Winner?
Celebrations took place around the globe last week for the winners of the Goldman Prize, the largest award in the world given for environmental activism by grassroots leaders. One person is selected from each continent to receive this huge award–the Nobel Prize for today’s green innovators and brave citizens who are willing to risk their […]
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King coal takedown: Maria Gunnoe
Pray for the dead, and fight like hell for the living” — Mother Jones. Maria Gunnoe is one of seven recipients of the 2009 Goldman Environmental PrizePhoto: Tom DusenberyListen here, King Coal. Maria “Mother” Gunnoe, a fearless community organizer for the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition in West Virginia, whose home sits on the frontlines of […]
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Van Jones: Talk to Eric Mathis About Green Jobs in Appalachia
Dear Van Jones: You need to travel to Mingo County, West Virginia and meet Eric Mathis, a scrappy young economist in the Appalachian coalfields, who is putting together one of the most dynamic green jobs consortiums in the country. Their underfunded but clear-eyed, desperately needed and brilliant project–JOBS, or Just Open Businesses That Are Sustainable–is […]
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In coal country, mining is destroying cemeteries and faith
James Bowe, a lifelong resident of Whitesville, W.Va., knows the mountains around his home better than he knows himself. He’s seen friends and family buried there, and has devoted countless hours to protecting his loved ones’ resting places and the Indian burial grounds that stand alongside them. So when Bowe pulled up on his four-wheeler […]
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Mountaintop-removal mining is devastating Appalachia, but residents are fighting back
This article was originally published in Orion Magazine. Not since the glaciers pushed toward these ridgelines a million years ago have the Appalachian Mountains been as threatened as they are today. But the coal-extraction process decimating this landscape, known as mountaintop removal, has generated little press beyond the region. A mountaintop no more.Photo: Vivian Stockman/SouthWings.The […]
