Will 'The Last Mountain' Stop Coal Mining?

[wtmusic]

"As I type this, it's been little more than a half-hour since I saw The Last Mountain, the environmental documentary that opens today. The horrors of mountaintop-removal mining are fresh in my mind; I've seen how coal companies routinely shatter Appalachian mountains, poison water supplies and dirty the air. I've seen how families are affected by this. And I know that in all likelihood, the electricity running through my house comes from the techniques depicted in the movies.

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The Last Mountain examines how companies systematically detonate and level the tops of mountains to get at the coal inside. Old mining techniques had their own sets of issues, but they at least left the surfaces of mountains alone. New methods leave behind barren, pockmarked moonscapes.

The documentary moves through a standard three-act story: the problem, the conflict, and the resolution. In this case, the problem and conflict come from the efforts of activists--including Robert F. Kennedy Jr.--to protect Coal River Mountain from destruction. Through sustainable energy, the movie argues with graphs and statistics, we can all move away from coal and the harmful techniques that come with it."

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/06/will-the-last-mountain-stop-coal/239769

(Thx to txlibdem for link)

[buddysmellgood]

1. No. But it will help speed the move toward solar which in the next

decade will be less expensive than coal, even with coal's enormous subsidy.

[lfairban]

2. Opens in the US tomorrow.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1787816/

[stuntcat]

3. I've told some people in NC about it

Showed the trailer to a couple people who I could tell had never seen what happens to the mountains.
The more people see of what's happening the more they'll demand it stop.
That picture is heartbreaking, and that lady has worked hard for years to get it stopped.

Once, on my way home from a anti- mountaintop removal rally in DC, I was stopped and harassed by a close friend of my high-carbon in-laws. Harassed for environmentalism :eyes: I tried to describe mountaintop removal to him and the prick told me, "That's just those stupid mountain people." He said it because he knows I'm from NC, but the people who live in those mountains are not the power company. And the electricity from mountaintop removal goes to everyone on the east coast.

[stuntcat]

4. Just saw it this morning and it is great.

It does a great job showing what mountaintop removal does to the people, the workers and the towns nearby. And Kennedy goes to the flattened mountains that were removed in the past and shows how not much can grow there. Oh and the sludge :puke:

I wish everyone could see it.

[wtmusic]

5. Thanks for info.

:thumbsup:

[Petrushka]

6. Thanks for the link! Posted it on Facebook.