Follow this link to learn about progress by Appalachian Voices NC Team working with Representative Pricey Harrison to end the use of mountain top removal energy by NC (30% of its energy comes from MTR coal production.)
For breaking news in VA follow this link. Oral argument took place today before the Virginia Supreme Court in Appalachian Voices, et al. v. State Corporation Commission, et al. (No. 081433), in which a coalition of environmental groups is attempting to block construction of Dominion Virginia Power’s 583-MW coal-fired power plant in Wise County, Virginia.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Sunday, February 22, 2009
High Country Excursion
Over the last month I have seen my father through two surgeries and into rehab, closed down a personal business, put my things in storage, moved to Boone, N.C. in High Country of western North Carolina. Moving from the Gulf Coast of Florida to the Appalachian Mountains - especially in the winter months - is a jarring experience.
Staying at a friend's condo, complete with her wonderful library of mountain literture, I've reentered a world I once knew well when I lived in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains in Johnson City, Tennessee where I was born. The Appalachians are old and embued with a distinct energy that is both dark and disturbing as well as mysterious and inspiring. Here in these hills and hollers my relatives lived, worked, and struggled to make a good living. They were farmers and tinkers from Germany and Ireland; on my mother's side, Cherokee blood flows through our family tree. My great grandmother grew tobacco and corn on the Clinch River where her Cherokee relatives had lived for millenia.
Coal is richly laced through these mountains and therein lies the struggles of the mountain people, and the wealth of a few companies to which we are all dependent today for our energy. North Carolina obtains 80% of its energy from coal combustion. Much of it is now coming from mountain top removal, a relatively new method that while efficient for coal companies is literally blowing up mountains and covering or polluting streams, rivers, and wells - and thus thousands of Americans living on or near these ancient mountains.
Go to iLoveMountains to listen to the voices of the American citizens living in the wake of MTR.
Read one person's testimony to Barack Obama about living in terror: MTR in West VA.
This will be a theme of my blog for some time as this issue is directly related to sustainable energy production and the imperative to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Coal burning contributes more per unit of energy to the CO2 emissions than anyother kind of energy.
Staying at a friend's condo, complete with her wonderful library of mountain literture, I've reentered a world I once knew well when I lived in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains in Johnson City, Tennessee where I was born. The Appalachians are old and embued with a distinct energy that is both dark and disturbing as well as mysterious and inspiring. Here in these hills and hollers my relatives lived, worked, and struggled to make a good living. They were farmers and tinkers from Germany and Ireland; on my mother's side, Cherokee blood flows through our family tree. My great grandmother grew tobacco and corn on the Clinch River where her Cherokee relatives had lived for millenia.
Coal is richly laced through these mountains and therein lies the struggles of the mountain people, and the wealth of a few companies to which we are all dependent today for our energy. North Carolina obtains 80% of its energy from coal combustion. Much of it is now coming from mountain top removal, a relatively new method that while efficient for coal companies is literally blowing up mountains and covering or polluting streams, rivers, and wells - and thus thousands of Americans living on or near these ancient mountains.
Go to iLoveMountains to listen to the voices of the American citizens living in the wake of MTR.
Read one person's testimony to Barack Obama about living in terror: MTR in West VA.
This will be a theme of my blog for some time as this issue is directly related to sustainable energy production and the imperative to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Coal burning contributes more per unit of energy to the CO2 emissions than anyother kind of energy.
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