coal

Posts Tagged ‘coal’

Victory: this is how to stop global warming

Monday, March 2nd, 2009

More amazing images from the largest mass civil disobedience for the climate in U.S. history where thousands of activists shut down the Capitol Power Plant. The only way we’re going to solve the climate crisis is by coming together and taking action. Like this:

More images and video up on flickr:

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Tags: capitolclimateaction, climateaction, coal, global warming
Posted in Live Update, Photo | No Comments »

Photos as the march begins!

Monday, March 2nd, 2009

We’ve got out first round of photos up from the beginning of the Capitol Climate Action! Plus, check out pictures from participants on the flickr badge over on the right side of this page.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

You can see all the images at Flickr.com/capitolclimateaction

Tags: capitol climate action, capitolclimate, climateaction, coal, dc, direct action, global warming, march 2, washington
Posted in Live Update, Photo | No Comments »

Coal is dirty

Monday, March 2nd, 2009

Here’s 5 reasons why coal isn’t so hot. I’ll post 5 more later.

1. Coal Fuels Global Warming
Coal is the largest single source of global warming pollution in the United States. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has reported that global warming threatens human populations and the world’s ecosystems with intensifying heat waves, floods, drought, extreme weather, and by spreading infectious diseases. Furthermore, it is conservatively estimated that the climate crisis will place a $271billion annual drag on the U.S. economy alone by 2025. According to the IPCC, the United States and other industrialized countries need to reduce global warming pollution by 25–40 percent by 2025 to avoid the most severe impacts of the climate crisis.

2. Coal Kills People and Causes Disease
According to the American Lung Association, pollution from coal-fired power plants causes 23,600 premature deaths, 21,850 hospital admissions, 554,000 asthma attacks, and 38,200 heart attacks every year. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that 12,000 coal miners died from black lung disease between 1992 and 2002.

3. Coal Kills Jobs
The coal industry is one of the least job-intensive industries in America. Every dollar we invest in coal is a dollar we can’t spend creating jobs in the clean energy economy. In fact, the country’s wind sector now employs more workers than the coal industry. Investing in wind and solar power would create 2.8 times as many jobs as the same investment in coal; mass transit and conservation would create 3.8 times as many jobs as coal.

4. Coal Costs Billions in Taxpayer Subsidies
The U.S. government continues to subsidize coal-related projects despite its impact on health, climate and the economy.

5. Coal Destroys Mountains
Many coal companies now use mountaintop removal to extract coal. The process involves clear-cutting forests, using dynamite to blast away as much as 800–1000 feet of mountaintop and dumping the waste into nearby valleys and streams. Mountain-top removal has leveled more than 450 mountains across Appalachia.

Mountain-top removal destroys ecosystems, stripping away topsoil, trees, and understory habitats, filling streams and valleys with rubble, poisoning water supplies, and generating massive impoundments that can cause catastrophic floods.

Tags: coal, global warming
Posted in In the Media | No Comments »

Why civil disobedience?

Monday, March 2nd, 2009

We just got done with a legal briefing. This seems like a good time to talk about why we are choosing civil disobedience at the Capitol Power Plant. Civil disobedience is a time-honored tactic and strategy of peaceful social movements. It has been used throughout history as an effective way to demonstrate the seriousness of an issue, the morality of a situation, and the commitment people have to bring about change.

The American author Henry David Thoreau pioneered the modern theory behind this practice in his 1849 essay Civil Disobedience, originally titled “Resistance to Civil Government”. On November 2, 2008 Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore, speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City, urged young people to engage in civil disobedience to stop the construction of coal plants:

“If you’re a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration.”

Why the Capitol coal-fired Power Plant?
The Capitol Power Plant, sitting just blocks from Capitol Hill, symbolizes the stranglehold coal has over our government and future. It’s not the largest or the dirtiest power plant in the country, but as the plant that is actually run by and for Congress it serves as an incredibly iconic symbol of what is wrong with our country’s energy and climate policy. From being outdated and inefficient, to burning dirty fossil fuels including coal, to having its clean-up blocked by politicians pandering to coal industry interests, we see this plant as the strategic target to address our concerns.

Tags: civil disobedience, coal, legal briefing
Posted in Live Update | No Comments »