Massachusetts

What do public support for clean energy and global temperatures have in common?

A: They both keep going up despite the anti-science, pro-polluter echo chamber. Joseph Romm recently noted the Earth is stuck in a “Groundhog Decade … where it’s always the hottest decade on record.” Temperature data from NOAA demonstrates that the ’00’s were warmer than the ’90’s, which were warmer than the ’80’s, and so on. […]

Companies that invest in states like Massachusetts and California are going to prosper

Is Arnold a carbon girlie man?United NationsAs mudslides on the west coast and an epic blizzard on the east coast competed for news coverage last week, nothing could dim the glow of an economic report that contained a remarkable conclusion: Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick is trying to make California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger look like a […]

Whatever happened to the government’s war on raw milk? Just a shift in tactics

When the current phase of a nearly century-long government campaign to convince American consumers to abandon raw milk launched in 2006, heavy-handed intimidation tactics were the order of the day. Kentucky farmer Gary Oakes was questioned so intensively by agents from the Ohio Department of Agriculture and U.S. Food and Drug Administration while delivering milk […]

Why We Fight

We fight, even against insurmountable odds, because sometimes we win. As I get ready to head to Copenhagen this Saturday for the international climate negotiations, I’m thrilled to see the success of The Leadership Campaign and their efforts to have Massachusetts use 100% clean electricity by 2020. On Monday, Representative William Brownsberger will file their […]

WWLD: What Would Lincoln Do?

Dear President Obama, cc: Sen. Kerry, Rep. Markey Our nation faces the gravest threat to our security and well being and the most profound moral challenge since the great struggle to end slavery. We were blessed, then, to be led by another tall, slim politician from Illinois. However, the terrible prospect of climate cataclysm, though […]

Obama energy speech contained few policy specifics, but shaped forward-looking narrative

Obama speaking on clean energy in MIT’s Kresge Auditorium. Photo: Dominick ReuterObama delivered a speech on energy at MIT on Friday, marking the kick-off for what is likely to be a protracted effort by the administration and Democrats in the Senate to pass the Kerry-Boxer clean energy bill. Those hoping for policy substance or firm […]

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, champion of the environment and clean energy, dies at 77

Kennedy, the last surviving brother in a unique American political dynasty and one of the most influential senators in history, died late Tuesday night at his summer home on Cape Cod after a 15-month battle with brain cancer. He was 77. He was a great champion of progressive causes, and his death is a great […]

Clean-tech and urban renewal in one fell swoop

Clearer skies ahead for Holyoke?Leslie Adams via flickrTo say that Holyoke, Mass., has seen better days would put you squarely in the running for Understatement of the Year. One of the poorest cities in the state, it is the sort of post-Industrial town that is scattered across New England: crumbling smokestacks, shuttered mills, “modern” housing […]

Power Past Coal communities host anti-coal events during first 100 days of Obama administration

Appalachia needs no defense: It needs more defenders.

Check out the footage of the bright blast that greeted Bo Webb, a decorated Vietnam veteran, and his community last night and today in Clay's Branch, Peachtree, W. Va. A shower of rock dust mixed with a toxic brew of diesel fuel and ammonium nitrate explosives swept down their hollow, as the Richmond-based Massey Energy behemoth detonated another round of explosives in their haste to bring down the mountain for a thin seam of coal. Nearby, children attended the Marsh Fork Elementary School, the blasting in the distance like a harbinger of Massey's brutal force -- the company is now infamously embroiled in a U.S. Supreme Court case for compromising judicial neutrality in their efforts to contribute their way into the good graces of West Virginia judges -- as 2.8 billion gallons of coal sludge held back by a 385-foot-high earthen dam hover a few football fields above the school like an accident waiting to happen.

Good morning, Appalachia!

Just another day of mountaintop removal; that process of wiping out America's natural landmarks, dumping the waste into waterways and valleys, and effectively removing historic communities from their homeplaces through a campaign of horrific blasting, dusting, poisoning, and harassment.

We've reached a new landmark in the central Appalachian coalfields of West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and southwest Virginia: Over 500 mountains in one of the most diverse forests in the Americas -- the same kind of mountains that garner protection and preservation status in a blink of an eye in other regions -- -have now been eliminated from our American maps.

Five hundred mountains are gone. For what? Less than 5 percent of our nation's supply of coal, while 50 million tons of West Virginia coal are annually exported to CO2-spewing plants in countries like China.

As a new report [PDF] by Quentin Gee, Nicholas Allen and their colleagues at the Associated Students Environmental Affairs Board of UC Santa Barbara recently found, the overlooked external costs of coal further debunk the black diamond's image as a "clean" and "cheap" source of energy.

Gee and Allen write: