Archive - Feb 3, 2009

Last week I blogged about the ongoing saga of Coal River Mountain. Today, residents of Coal River Valley took their anti-mountaintop removal struggle one step further:

Residents of the Coal River Valley, accompanied by supporters from across Appalachia, took a stand this morning against the impending destruction of their mountain in the name of coal. Five activists with Climate Ground Zero and Mountain Justice chained themselves to an excavator and a bulldozer at the Massey operation near Pettus, West Virginia.

If you plan to be in the Washington D.C. area this Thursday, make sure you drop by the Green Jobs Expo at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel (closest subway is the Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan Metro station). The green economy is one of the few bright spots in in the global economy today, so this may be a good opportunity for you to look into switching your career to a green field. From the Expo website:

Expo attendees can visit over 85 booths from academic institutions, manufacturers, non-profit agencies, corporations and governmental agencies highlighting interactive and dynamic displays that portray a multitude of career options in the emerging green economy.

Here's a list of all the exhibitors at the Expo (PDF). If you can swing by, keep an eye out for the 1Sky table where volunteers will be handing out literature, collecting names and talking to attendees about the campaign and the climate movement.

Power Shift '09 is less than one month away! Register today and be sure to select 1Sky as your coalition member-group affiliation. -- Luis

In 2007, I was one of 6,000 students who participated in Power Shift, the largest youth climate conference in the history of the world. Thinking back on it now, I'm feeling rather nostalgic because Power Shift undeniably changed my life.

Along with several other organizations, we've sent a letter to Congress to keep the coal and nuclear industries from getting $50 billion in loan guarantees. In the letter, which you can read in whole below, we explain the need to invest the recovery money in clean jobs and clean renewable energy. There are numerous reasons why nuclear and liquid coal loan guarantees do not belong in an economic stimulus bill and in the attached letter we, along with many of our partners and allies, urge Senators to oppose loan guarantees for non-renewable energy.