Comments on: West Virginia Mountain Top Removal Coal Protests Heating Up

By: Prithvi

Prithvi — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:46:30 +0000

Robert @14Better under the rug than in the midlde of the dinner partyNot if there’s a prospect of it not staying under the rug for the whole of the party, and if sweeping it under the rug won’t be cdomplete until the party has been going for quite some time and if the only way it can be done involves the guests shelling out for someone to do the work, when the host could have avoided making the mess in the first place.

By: NASA’s James Hansen, Civil Disobedience and Mountaintop Removal Mining : Red, Green, and Blue

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:13:14 +0000

[...] He took his knowledge of a subject and made a push to have something done about it. The actions at Coal River Mountain, though, have the potential to push the issues a scientist finds important so much farther into [...]

By: Mike Roselle

Mike Roselle — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 06:40:36 +0000

Watcher,

I am indeed calling for action on mountain top removal, and this does not violate the TRO. Our protests have succeeded where others have failed. We have shut down blasting on Clay Branch for the last two months. This blasting threatened the community of Naoma, West Virginia and it was not until the EPA learned of our repeated interventions did they cite Massey Energy for several serious violations of their mining permit.

I suspect that those who trivialize non violence have never really studied the Civil Rights Movement nor do they understand our campaign. go to climategroundzero.org to get another perspective.

By: watcher

watcher — Thu, 07 May 2009 10:22:35 +0000

Mr Roselle of climate ground zero continues to violate the terms of the T R O by recruiting protesters on http://www.ruckus society.org Roselle is calling for folks to come and join them to "take action on Massey Coal property" this May and June!

By: Michael Condon

Michael Condon — Tue, 05 May 2009 12:28:58 +0000

I wonder about the media and the effects in has on populations world wide these days.

Lately, I'm thinking if Gandhi was trying to free India today the world would not respond as it did back in the day.

Look how long it took to wake up to Dafur.

I'm still looking for the audacity of hope to outshine the destroyers of the planet.

Solar powered since '88.

By: americangreen

americangreen — Mon, 04 May 2009 11:12:29 +0000

I agree Kay. One of the things that I am always struck by at protests (of pretty much any liberal issue) is the feeling of "have sign, will travel" I get from many participants. Protests, unto themselves, are the things people look at: their size, their effectiveness, the number of rubber bullets fired at them etc. What I think they don't look at often is the reason people are there in the first place… and I don't know how to solve that except complain about the media some more.

Why do you think it contributes to the complexity issue though? Because people aren't talking about the actual environmental issues? Because it needs to bleed (or at least have some compelling perp walks) to lead?

By: Kay Sexton

Kay Sexton — Mon, 04 May 2009 00:35:40 +0000

Interesting questions. One thing that worries me about environmental protest is that it's increasingly being categorised as 'cute newsworthy' or 'scary newsworthy' by the media – ie the nature of the protest is becoming more notable than the issue being protested. This not only denigrates protest, in all areas, not just environmental, but also contributes to the common myth that 'all that environment stuff' is too complicated for the average voter or citizen to understand, comment on or react to. And that turns protestors into a professional group, rather than a voicebox for a section of society.

By: Mike Roselle

Mike Roselle — Sun, 03 May 2009 18:24:02 +0000

We couldn't agree more. One thing I'd like to mention is that we have no intention of letting the TRO stop our protests and we are prepared to go to jail if necessary. We also have a decent chance if vacating the TRO on June 1st, our next appearance in court. By all means, go to climategroundzero.org and sign the petition which we will present to the Judge at that time.

Mike Roselle

Climate Ground Zero