Showing posts tagged “mountaintop removal”
Matt Saldaña ·
27 Jul 2009, 3:46 PM ·
Comment
2008 Green Party presidential nominee, and former U.S. Representative (D-GA), Cynthia McKinney was scheduled to deliver a keynote speech to the roughly 100 Green Party members who attended last week’s convention in Durham. Due to health issues, she instead spoke to the group about her recent brush with the Israeli Navy, and her involvement with the “Free Gaza” movement, via online video.
Audience members lined up to ask McKinney questions, but because of a communications mishap, McKinney only referred to Gaza-related questions from the video stream’s live chat. One question involved Hurricane Katrina, though she responded by talking about Palestine. In fact, other than a brief reference to her 2008 run (disparaging those who didn’t understand it), and general praise for the Green Party candidates who spoke at a live-streamed news conference Friday, McKinney made almost no mention of her party’s gathering in Durham.
Last month, McKinney and 20 others were seized by the Israeli Navy after attempting to sail through a blockade to deliver humanitarian supplies to the Gaza Strip. The Israeli Consulate has said McKinney’s group could have delivered humanitarian supplies by land, and accused the group of making a “reckless political stunt.”
McKinney was scheduled to be deported immediately, but refused to sign deportation papers and spent a week in jail, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“I spent seven days in prison because I wanted the children in Gaza to have crayons,” McKinney said in her video address. Continue reading »
national, politics Cynthia McKinney, Gaza Strip, green party, Israel, Jesse Johnson, mountaintop removal, Palestine
Matt Saldaña ·
22 Apr 2009, 12:40 PM ·
Comment
2009 Goldman Environmental Prize winner Maria Gunnoe. Photo courtesy the Goldman Fund.
Boone County, W.V. resident Maria Gunnoe is one of the six recipients of this year’s Goldman Environmental Prize, which awards grassroots activists $150,000 to “pursue their vision of a renewed and protected environment.” For the past five years–despite threats and intimidation to her family–Gunnoe has fought coal mining companies who employ the environmentally destructive practice known as “mountaintop removal” in her native Appalachia. In 2007, she helped win a series of federal lawsuits that halted the construction of new mountaintop removal mines in Boone County.
She was featured in the Indies Arts Award-winning film, Mountaintop Removal.
Last month, the new EPA chief announced the agency would aggressively review mountaintop removal permit requests, which the Bush administration had allowed to expand greatly. Shortly before leaving office, Bush issued a controversial rule, allowing mining companies to dump the toxic debris from mountaintop removal into valleys and streams.
Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, has introduced a bill– known as the Appalachian Mountains Preservation Act–that would make it illegal for electric public utilities in North Carolina to purchase, or use, coal derived from dynamiting mountaintops in southern Appalachia. Half of the coal used to produce electricity in North Carolina is derived from mountaintop removal, resulting in radically altered ecosystems, polluted streams and rivers, and billions of gallons of toxic “coal slurry,” collected in artificial pools, or injected into ground soil. Other than Georgia, no other state in the U.S. uses more mountaintop removal-derived coal. Continue reading »
Uncategorized Goldman Environmental Prize, Maria Gunnoe, mountaintop removal
Matt Saldaña ·
26 Feb 2009, 11:05 PM ·
1 Comment
Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, has introduced a bill that would make it illegal for electric public utilities in North Carolina to purchase, or use, coal derived from dynamiting mountaintops in southern Appalachia. Half of the coal used to produce electricity in North Carolina is derived from the process, known as mountaintop removal, resulting in radically altered ecosystems, polluted streams and rivers, and billions of tons gallons of toxic “coal slurry,” collected in artificial pools, or injected into ground soil. Other than Georgia, no other state in the U.S. uses more mountaintop removal-derived coal.
“Because North Carolina burns a significant amount of coal extracted by mountaintop removal coal mining, we have an obligation to eliminate or reduce the devastating social and environmental impacts of this mining in the Appalachian Mountains,” the bill states.
Harrison introduced a similar bill last year, saying she was motivated in part by 2008 Indies Arts Award winner Michael O’Connell’s documentary, Mountaintop Removal, which focuses on the devastating effect on Appalachian families.
Continue reading »
North Carolina, Pittsboro, arts, environment Michael O'Connell, mountaintop removal, NC General Assembly, Pricey Harrison
