Coal River Vally, WV, has become home to a civil disobedience campaign against Massy Energy company in an attempt to halt their destructive mountaintop renewal coal mining practices.Kay Sexton, with her regular run down of environmental protests, has been examining the “imperatives and complexities” of protests that are unique to the environmentalist movement. Here’s another data point to add into the discussion.
I’ve mentioned before that I don’t always think that the environmental movement benefits from protests. Channeling the Greenpeace mentality of chaining people to trees often seems to generate bad press more then it advances a cause. But, there are times when even my cynical take on the efficacy of protest has to be subverted by out-and-out necessity.
Obama Versus Coalbama
While Obama has been great for many issues near and dear to environmentalists, his stance on coal leaves a lot to be desired. Consider:
He keeps hitting the idea of “clean” coal, a fact that groups like ACCCE are using to their advantage. Every time he mentions coal on the list with other Alternative Energy sources, environmentalists wince. Even coal that burns cleaner then it does now has a tough road to walk to get to “clean” across the board.
His department of justice recently refused further consideration of a lower court ruling that would result in more closely regulated mountaintop removal, effectively negating the positive buzz generated by Ken Salazar’s reversal of a Bush strategy that allowed a particularly destructive type of mountain top removal mining.
While the EPA is set to review 150 to 200 permits for new or expanded surface mines (good news for regulation), legal action is still considered by many to be light years away from actually slowing destructive Mountain Top Removal policies. Ending it altogether is not on the board.
In short: Obama seems to be rational on the issue of the environment, but he has a blind spot when it comes to coal. The blind spot may be something that he could get around, but it’s not going to happen soon.
All Protests are not created equal
For those of you not familiar with mountaintop removal, the scale of the mining operations in West Virginia is pretty shocking. Over 1 Million acres of land have been flattened, but since those acres are at the tops of the Appalachians, the real effect of the damage is an order of magnitude larger.
So here is a situation where I am talking myself into protest by any means necessary. Public perception is turning against coal, especially the most draconian and damaging removal processes. A group called Climate Ground Zero has been gumming up the works for months now, and the mining company has now taken out a restraining order against them. Those already arrested are barred from any interference with Massy’s mining operations, and are being held in contempt of court for violating the temporary restraining order (TRO). Not content with that, however, the TRO goes one further, limiting anyone who has seen or heard of the order from protesting as well. (That’s right: as of reading that last sentence, I think you, dear reader, are legally barred from action against Massy.)
My feelings on protest tend to switch 180 degrees when civil disobedience is met with such sweeping legal action against the protesters. Attempts to silence protesters are, in many ways, playing right into the hands of civil disobedience, giving them the aura of legitimate wrongs. Massy has given up whatever high ground (mountain top pun intended) they had when they make this into a first amendment thing.
I am still concerned that protests (in general) provide the wrong public perception. Generally, the nature versus man debate comes down on the side of jobs and families for many Americans. However, when confronted with the harsh reality of peoples homes and lives being destroyed by coal run off, to go along with the complete decimation of entire mountain ranges, it seems more valuable to stop the process first and then hash out the next step. The debate of how we relate to nature can’t continue in good faith as millions of acres on the tops of watersheds are being knocked off. Good luck to all the Climate Ground Zero folks as they get bogged down in legalese instead of actual on the ground results. While they wait for the Obama administration to catch on about the process, I’d urge you to check out (and sign) their open letter here.
I’d also like to hear what people think about the results of protest. Are the actions that Kay is writing about having tangible results? I am curious to see how people react to this sort of civil disobedience when compared to something like this:
On 25 April, more than sixty climate campaigners ate their lunch in the check-in hall at Leeds Bradford Airport. Their picnic was a protest at the planned £28 million two-storey extension to the terminal building which they say will increase greenhouse gas emissions. Protesters ate cucumber sandwiches and gingerbread aeroplanes and said theirs was ‘… a very civil way to protest’ In reply, the airport authority claims it will ‘… improve and refine …method[s] of monitoring air quality in line with EU requirements and industry standards’.
Image: from flickr user ddimick
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