I've only said something similar to http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x271149">"Must See" once before, I know how annoying it can be and refrain from doing it. But this short documentary really is a must see for anyone who cares about the future of our energy supply & the health of local communities/ecosystems/environment and how corporate lobbies are influencing politicians to work against our best interests...---- --- ----
Two opposing sides of America's energy future are at war in the coalfields of southern West Virginia.
Massey Energy, a coal company, wants to mine Coal River Mountain using a surface mining technique called mountaintop removal, but local residents and environmentalists through acts of civil disobedience are trying to save the mountain in order to build a wind farm instead and mine coal underground.
This struggle at local level reveals a national conflict, confronting global warming while simultaneously stimulating the US economy.
Residents are hoping that Barack Obama, the US president, who criticised mountaintop removal as a presidential candidate, will intervene by banning the practice altogether, probably the only way the wind project on Coal River Mountain could prevail.
Part 2 (This part has some great comments from James Hansen and Robert Kennedy Jr. & some blatant global warming denialism propaganda from a spokesman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHnhLoTz1hkEdited to add:
http://www.coalriverwind.org/?page_id=143">The Landmark Wind Energy Report
http://www.crmw.net/index.php">Coal River Mountain Watch
---- --- ----
On Coal RiverAt the heart of Americas hope for a clean coal future lies the decimation of West Virginias richest landscapes. More profound still is the heavy toll on human lives playing out just beneath the surface. Armed with the power of their convictions, four individuals emerge as heroes from the scattered voices of their valley, forcing America to look into the eyes of those being sacrificed On Coal River.
4 minute Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1iVqpL3Zpwhttp://oncoalriver.com/ ---- --- ----
This four-minute video clip, featuring the voices of local residents Judy Bonds and Gary Anderson, describes in vivid terms the battle to save Coal River Mountain. As Massey Energy Company begins the devastating process of mountaintop removal coal mining, local residents hope to convince decision makers to adopt their plan to build a major wind farm on the ridge instead. Studies have shown this plan would bring more long-term tax revenue to the local economy and safer, permanent jobs while protecting nearby communities from the effects of mountaintop removal. Residents worry that an eight-billion gallon toxic coal sludge dam will rupture when the blasting begins. If the dam broke, the tidal wave of toxic sludge released could endanger thousands and would dwarf the destruction of the December 2008 TVA coal ash disaster. As bulldozing begins to prep part of Coal River Mountain for mountaintop removal, some people are engaged in direct action to forestall it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGh7KyJO0qU---- --- -----
Coal River Mountain, WV: Coal River Wind ProjectAmerica's Most Endangered Mountains - Coal River Mountain, WV
Pledge to Help End Mountaintop Removal. Visit:
www.iLoveMountains.org
- - - COMMUNITY STORY - - -
"We don't live where they mine coal. They mine coal where we live.... Our concern today is our homes, our environment, and the sustainability of the environment."
Lorelei Scarbro's house in the little community of Rock Creek, West Virginia is the same house her husband built with his own two hands when they were married, on land handed down to him from his parents. They raised their children in this house. Lorelei watches the deer in the field below, enjoys a fresh mountain stream running by the property and says that her granddaughter takes particular delight in the wild turkeys that frequent the neighborhood. Her husband, a coal miner for 35 years who died of of black lung, is buried in the family cemetery next to their home.
Lorelei's property in Rock Creek borders Coal River Mountain, one of the most beautiful mountains in the Coal River Valley of West Virginia, and one of the few untouched mountains in the region. Miles of pristine creeks and waterfalls, horseback trails and stunning vistas are often overlooked as a prime eco-tourism location.
Now Coal River Mountain is slated for a mountaintop removal coal mine. If the coal company's plans go through, nearly 10 square miles of the mountain will be destroyed, and 18 valley fills will devastate the Coal River watershed.
But residents in the Coal River Valley have joined together to propose a new idea - one of sustainable energy. In 2006, a study of the wind potential on Coal River Mountain demonstrated that the mountain is an ideal location for developing utility-scale wind power.
The proposed Coal River Wild Project would produce enough wind power to keep the lights on in 150,000 homes, pump $20 million per year in direct local spending during construction, and $2 million per year thereafter. It would create hundreds of jobs and allow other uses of the land that would benefit local communities. Sustainable forestry, tourism, and harvesting of ginseng and other wild plants are just a few options for Coal River residents that would ultimately preserve the natural environment of Coal River Mountain for generations to come.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39Ce7I6nXIw ---- --- ----
Coal Country: Big Coal does not want you to see this filmWhy is Big Coal so afeared of this documentary film by native Appalachian daughters Mari-Lynn Evans and Phylis Geller, producer and director of three-part award-winning landmark PBS series, “The Appalachians”?
If anything, Coal Country goes out of its way to include the views and voices of the Big Coal lobby and its executives, engineers and miners. This, in fact, might be why Coal Country is so compelling; far from any hackneyed agenda, Coal Country simply allows the coal industry and those affected by its mountaintop removal operations and coal-fired plants to tell their personal stories. The end result is devastating. In a methodical and deliberate fashion, Coal Country brilliantly takes viewers on a rare journey through our nation’s coal-fired electricity, from the extraction, processing, transport, and burning of coal.
Once you see the breathtaking footage by cameraman Jordan Freeman, and the unaffected and heart-rending portraits of coal mining families, you will never flick on your light switch again without thinking about Coal Country.
From the git-go, West Virginia governor and coal peddler Joe Manchin declares: “There is no replacement for coal. There might be 30 or 50 or 100 years from now, but there’s not today.”
A French engineer cheerfully proclaims, “Coal is a wonderful resource. It’s too bad it’s dirty.”
As one coal company executive coldly states, the millions of pounds of ammonium nitrate/fuel oil explosives that rip through the Appalachian mountains and poison the watersheds and air of local communities daily, “might make some people uncomfortable.”
Another coal engineer playfully recalls teaching his children to refer to coal-fired plants as “cloud factories” to bring the rain, in the face of some of the highest cancer and heart disease rates in the country, and an American Lung Association study that 24,000 Americans die prematurely from coal-fired plant pollution each year.
One reclamation engineer even breaks into tears, lamenting that his dedication and work are misunderstood. He waves his hand at denuded hills, stripped of the hundreds of species of flora and fauna in one of the most diverse deciduous forests on the American continent, and lauds his planting of a small stand of sycamores. After 30 years of reclamation laws and over 1.5 million acres of clear cut and destroyed hardwood forest, he champions the novelty of his tree-planting efforts: “We’re trying them out on some mountaintop removal sites and seeing how they do.”
Whew. Big Coal doesn’t want you to see this stunning expose because they have been allowed to let the truth slip out of their mouths.
Michael Shnayerson, the author of Coal River, and a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, wonderfully plays the role of an informative commentator throughout the film, delivering his facts in a no-nonsense and quiet manner. Yet, he tells an interviewer: “Nothing prepared me for the visual devastation…” of mountaintop removal.
And this is where Coal Country shines the light on one of the darkest human rights and environmental violations overseen by federal and state regulators in our times. Through a series of moving portraits of coalfield residents, the film chronicles the extraordinary and largely overlooked toll of coal mining on the lives of Appalachian residents.
In a gripping montage, Coal Country shows how those affected by mountaintop removal and coal-fired plants have emerged as the most informed and articulate spokespeople against the ravages of the out-of-state coal companies. In effect, it is the gross indifference and recklessness of Big Coal that turns former coal miners and farmers and shopkeepers into the nation’s leading coal and climate change activists—and true American heroes.
More:
http://www.grist.org/article/coal-country-film-premiereTrailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ9n_Fu_ItE ---- --- ----
Coal River resident and community organizer, Lorelei Scarbro talks about the positive impact the Coal River Wind Project can have on Appalachia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6IjH16aH9w
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