The landscape from Plaquemines Parish, south of New Orleans, through to Biloxi and North into Selma is some of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen in my life. Continue reading
Tag Archives: coal mining
Sally Jewell can end the Department of Interior’s coal industry giveaways
As the new Secretary of the Interior, Secretary Sally Jewel has an important opportunity to end the Department of the Interior’s (DOI) giveaways to the coal industry, which are unlocking enormous amounts of carbon pollution, wasting taxpayer dollars, and subsidizing the coal industry’s efforts to export publicly-owned coal to Asia.
A federal coal leasing program run by DOI’s Bureau of Land Management has resulted in almost $30 billion in government handouts to the coal industry. The giveaway happens through noncompetitive “auctions” where the Department sells the rights to publicly-owned coal for a fraction of what it’s worth. Continue reading
Supporting Appalachian Communities
A destroyed mountaintop after the Mountaintop Removal process.
Today would have been Larry Gibson’s 67th birthday. I only met him a few times, but he was the kind of person that met just about everyone — and stamped a deep impression on you. So, we wanted to take today to do something that would have been the right thing to do by Larry.
As people rally in Charleston, WV to save Blair Mountain and stop Mountaintop Removal (MTR) altogether, we thought we’d make our position clear – that Mountaintop Removal mining must stop immediately. Continue reading
New video highlights Peabody, Arch, and Ambre’s plan to export coal and derail the climate
For years, coal has been the dominant source of electricity in our country, spewing dangerous levels of pollution into our air and water. But the world is changing. Communities are saying no to the smokestacks in their backyards, our federal government is moving forward with life-saving health and environmental standards, and renewable energy is growing fast and providing safe, cost-competitive electricity. Continue reading
Senators Call for Investigation of Coal Export Royalties Scandal
Bipartisan initiatives are rare events these days, but the coal industry’s scheme to export millions of tons of publicly owned coal overseas is proving scandalous enough to bring Democrats and Republicans together. Continue reading
As an Indian, I speak out against Coal Crimes
‘Lights, camera, action’ are three words I have become used to in my professional career. If my stint at Charminar is anything to go by, then ‘Arrested ‘is going to be a new phrase I will become accustomed to as an activist with Greenpeace India.
My first Greenpeace police detention or arrest came on Monday afternoon when I joined a team of activists who had organised a banner-drop to mark the opening of a major United Nations conference on biodiversity, on one of Hyderabad’s most iconic land marks, the Charminar. The demand: Indian government, hosts of the UN conference, needs to stop their wanton destruction of the forests with their environmentally flawed mad dash for coal. Continue reading
The BLM’s corrupt coal leasing program: billions in subsidies for Peabody, gigatons of carbon pollution for the rest of us
Next week, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is scheduled to hold an “auction” for 721 million tons of taxpayer-owned coal in the Powder River Basin. This is for the North Porcupine tract, and like the South Porcupine tract that BLM leased to Peabody last month, even though this coal is owned by you and me, the lease was drawn up by Peabody itself for its own profit. This is what’s known as a “lease by application,” and under BLM’s corrupt coal leasing program, Peabody will almost certainly be the only bidder and pay next to nothing – WildEarth Guardians’ 2009 report “UnderMining the Climate” found that over the last 20 years, only 3 of 21 lease by applications had more than one bidder. Since Peabody knows it will face no competitive pressure, it can simply offer the lowest possible price, secure in the knowledge that if it doesn’t meet BLM’s absurdly low minimum price, it can just try again later. In fact, that’s just what happened with the South Porcupine tract; Peabody’s initial offer of just $0.90 per ton was rejected as too low by the BLM – so they simply held another auction a few weeks later and accepted Peabody’s offer of $1.11 per ton. In both “auctions” Peabody was the only bidder. Now, the company is once again seeking cheap access to more of our coal, so it can strip mine it from public lands and export it to lucrative markets in Asia. (See Will the Bureau of Land Management subsidize Peabody’s plans to export coal to Asia?)
Will the Bureau of Land Management subsidize Peabody’s plans to export coal to Asia?
Peabody Energy, the world’s largest coal company, will be bidding on Thursday for the privilege to mine hundreds of millions of tons of taxpayer-owned coal on a tract of land in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, hoping to score some bargain prices – so they can export much of it to Asia. Peabody’s offer last time for the South Porcupine tract – $366.6 million for 400 million tons of coal, just 90 cents a ton – was rejected by the BLM as too low, and a new auction was set for May 17.
This auction comes as the Bureau of Land Management is coming under increased scrutiny for subsidizing coal mining companies like Peabody at the expense of US taxpayers, ignoring the huge amounts of global warming pollution that will be generated when the coal is burned, and failing to account for Peabody’s plans to export increasing amounts of this US coal to foreign markets. Continue reading
Mega coal mines threaten Great Barrier Reef
Blogpost by John Hepburn, Greenpeace Australia
© Tom Jefferson/Greenpeace
In our campaign to stop dangerous climate change, Greenpeace is taking on one of the most urgent issues: the enormous expansion of coal mining and coal exports from Australia. Not only does coal expansion spell disaster for our global climate but it threatens one of the world’s most precious treasures, the Great Barrier Reef.
The Galilee Basin, located in the heart of Queensland, is the site of a series of proposed mega mines that could see Australia’s coal exports more than double within a decade. Enormous coal mines mean enormous amounts of carbon pollution and supporting infrastructure – including at least one rail line and multiple massive port terminals. Australia is on the brink of turning the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area into an industrial estate. Continue reading
Rockstar/Activists 2/3 Goat Speak Out Against Mountaintop Removal Mining
By: Dan Schreiber
Blog cross-posted from QuitCoal.org
Annalyse: We’re 2/3 Goat, a metrobilly band based out of New York City. Like most artists in NYC, we’re all from different places. I’m the Lead Singer/Mandolinist, and I come from the small town of Inez, KY, deep in the hills of central Appalachia. But the rich, craggy valleys of my homeland are getting shallower as we speak.
Mountaintop Removal coal mining is ravaging the region I call home. Thirty percent of the surface area of my home county has already been leveled by strip mining and mountaintop removal. Mountaintop Removal (MTR) is a violent process of coal mining in which the tops of mountains are blown off to gather the seam of coal within (sometimes the seam can be as shallow as 2 feet), and the leftover material is placed into hollows, deemed “hollow fills” or “valley fills.” Over 500 mountaintops have already been blown off, and over 1500 miles of freshwater streams have already been buried. More and more flooding now occurs due to this, in areas where it never before was a problem. And worst of all, the water supplies of citizens are ruined by heavy metals in the runoff from these MTR sites as well as from coal slurry impoundment releases. The highest cancer rates per capita in the nation, according to the CDC, are found right in the heart of Central Appalachia, right in these communities where MTR takes place.
I grew up around this stuff; I saw mountains being leveled by the side of the highway. Due to a slurry impoundment break in 2000, most in my community don’t drink the water that comes out of the faucet. The majority of citizens buy bottled water to drink; it is the highest selling item in the supermarket, in a county where unemployment and poverty rates are higher than most places. I’ve seen how the coal industry can wreak havoc on a community firsthand. Once I moved away to NYC to pursue my artistic dreams, I began yearning for home more and more. It really sunk in how much of my home was disappearing through MTR. My parents are activists against it. Human rights and environmental & social justice were always a topic of conversation in my house growing up. I was drawn to join the fight against mountaintop removal in full force, and to write a song to inspire others to do so too.
I set out to write a call-to-action song to try and get people fired up about stopping mountaintop removal. I wanted something people could relate to on a lyrical as well as a musical level. I started writing some words, but couldn’t quite find the catchy, driving groove that I wanted. This is where Ryan and I always come together well. I’m always focused on the details, and he’s always looking at the “big picture,” as he calls it.
Ryan (other Lead Singer & Guitarist): I had been working on a new song for a while but I only had the chord changes and structure. I couldn’t figure out what to make the song about, and Annalyse came to me and said, “I want to write something that inspires people to stand up and take control of this MTR situation.” Now I am not from KY or WV, but as my relationship with Annalyse grew, my knowledge and familiarity of MTR grew as well. Her family was the first to inform me of the atrocities that were happening in Appalachia, a place I thought was some of the most beautiful land I have ever seen.
I am from the Jersey Shore (insert laughter) and I had never heard of Mountaintop Removal. I barely knew anything about underground mining. As I learned more, I immediately wanted to join the McCoys and the rest of Appalachia and stand up to the companies that were profiting off of the death and destruction of some the oldest land and cultures in our country. I knew that most Americans were like me, and if they could just have a chance to see and hear about what was happening, then they too would want to become part of the solution. You see, we all blindly contribute to the problem, from running the electricity in our house to having retirement funds that are vested in coal companies that do MTR. We are all very much involved in this destruction, but none of us are aware that we are doing it. I also learned from many years of Anti-War protesting in the early 2000′s that you can’t change peoples’ minds by screaming at them in the streets. Sometimes you have to just to show that you are strong and willing to take a stand.
But the best way in my mind to educate someone is to lead them to their own decisions. I wanted to write a song that was thought-provoking and made people ask, “What in the world is this song about, what is it they are so passionate about?” Then through our website, or live at shows, we could inform people on where to go to learn about what is happening. I knew that after listeners educated themselves and learned about it, they couldn’t turn their backs to it and would inevitably join the fight. The music video is just another extension of this same idea: We wanted people to watch it and say, “Wow, what are they showing here, what are they protesting here?” Sadly, leadership in our country has failed us in many ways, and certain people we are supposed to look up to and certain people who have the ability to help are now just in it for themselves. We need to rise up as a country, as a culture of informed and educated people in a democracy. We have the opportunity to be the change that the world needs, but we just have to care enough to look a little deeper and think a little more about what we’re doing in our everyday choices.
Annalyse: It can be a scary thing to look around you for the first time, breathe fully, and face the destruction and corruption of corporate greed, no matter what issue you’re talking about. The number and scale of problems and atrocities that occur in this world can be overwhelming. But in the end, it’s liberating and empowering if you do so. You take it one step at a time, one day at a time, and you do what you can. That was our goal with this video. We were just trying to “serve” in the best way we know how. And if everyone does that, that is totally enough. It’s more than enough.
Guest blog post by exciting new band 2/3 Goat