Think these coal goons care about trashing the earth, killing miners, or intimidating jurors? Here’s a mob boss doing his own strong-arming: threatens, assaults cameraman. Don Blankenship, he’s not just the president, he’s a front line thug: “If you’re going to start taking pictures of me you’re liable to get shot.”
Activists Amber Nitchman and Eric Blevins, who brought a halt to Massey Energy’s mountaintop removal blasting of West Virginia’s Coal River Mountain, have been forced down by the cold. Bail and expenses exceed $6,000, contact Climate Ground Zero if you can help.
As you come in from the cold spell, think of the Coal River Mountain tree-sitters who are passing their seventh night in drizzling cold, getting by with just what they could pack in the first day, their support crews arrested, their trees now blockaded by fences. Attempts to resupply their brave squats have been intercepted, yesterday Ben Fiorillo was arrested, this morning, David Baghdadi. A flyover today yielded great photos, but no means of reaching the sitters with food, water, heat, batteries or ear protection against the high decibel air horns with which the coal mine security men have been harassing the activists. If you can conjure any alternatives for support, contact Climate Ground Zero. The good news: calls from internet supporters have persuaded West Virginia authorities to temper their aggressive counter-eco-insurgency tactics, and thus far Massey Energy has been prevented from blasting in its Mountaintop Removal efforts because of the treesit presence.
I was hoping to provide some insight into the logistics of manning a treesit. So far I’ve not found much available by way of tutorials online, except for a slim pamphlet (PDF) from Reach Out Publications, and great video instructions for cooking in a tree: Buck’s Canopy Cooking.
One reason perhaps is the need to keep the adversaries in the dark. Another very good reason might be that treesitting skills might be best taught like any skill labor, from journeyman to apprentice. Suffice it to say, treesits are 90% about tree climbing. Hence the majority of your focus will be rope skills. Experts recommend these two titles: The Tree Climbers Companion by Jeff Jepson, and On Rope: North American Vertical Rope Techniques
by Bruce Smith and Allen Padgett.
The complexity of climbing should not stop anyone who’s determined to save our wilderness from the industrial rapists. If extreme sport is your thing, why not look into thrills which go beyond your own adrenalin levels? You want to support the troops? These are our troops. Can you think of any braver?
CLIMATE GROUND ZERO activist enter their fifth day of their treesit against Massey Energy’s mountaintop removal operations at Coal River Mountain. Tree-sitters David Aaron Smith, Amber Nitchman and Eric Blevins are going strong despite efforts by mine operators to disrupt their perches 60ft above. Support crew Josh Graupera and Isabelle Rozendaal were arrested for trespass and then released on bond; Josh has the latest update on the Bee Tree site. Get involved here.
UPDATE: David Aaron Smith is now in police custody. Nitchman and Blevins remain aloft.
Youtube video updates are provided here. And photos from the treesits are viewable here. The Coal River Wind website details the alternatives to coal mining and mountaintop removal.
High Country Earth First is hosting the EF! ROADSHOW, in DENVER, May 25-26: Monday 2pm in Cheesman Park, and Tuesday 6pm at the Gypsy House.
Four ongoing EF! projects in Colorado: DENVER: Stop I-70 Expansion through North Denver; SAN LUIS VALLEY: Halt gas drilling in Baca National Wildlife Refuge: and WESTERN SLOPE: Red Cliff mine campaign and Feral Futures (May 24 – June 7).
From “Rockslide,” High Country Earth First!
The need for resistance in solidarity with the wild has never been louder or clearer than it is today; the EF! roadshow is a great tool for growing that resistance. There are countless examples to draw from in the story of radical movements before us: militant labor organizing tours, anti-fascist resistance recruitment and international speaking tours to build cross-border solidarity. The origin of Earth First! itself is credited to a few roadshows that kicked it all off in the early 1980s. We are building on this tradition; akin to a fellowship crossing Middle Earth to amass insurgents to face Mordor head-on.
List-serves and websites aren’t enough
This Roadshow’s primary intention is to strengthen our radical grassroots ecological network. For almost 30 years, we have been an organized voice bridging conservation biology with grassroots community organizing, road blockading and eco-sabotage. In the past 5 years we have seen numbers and experience-level in the EF! movement decline drastically. Yet, our place has never been more urgent. New groups are popping up across the country, but they are detached from many of the groups, history, and skills that came before them. We can’t afford to stumble and make the same mistakes over again.We are at the tail end of a decade where corporate globalization rooted itself in the US and spread across the planet like a plague. And now that the reality of climate change is finally sinking into the mainstream consciousness, the same superpowers that pushed so-called ‘free trade’ policies to exploit wild nature more efficiently are promoting carbon trading in attempt to make a profitable industry out of the disasters they’ve created. The spineless Big Green environmental NGOs are scrambling for crumbs and cutting deals with the industry for shallow public relations victories. Earth First! must rise and recognize that it’s presence is a strong component of making the broader environmental movement truly effective. We are its spine, or as an EF! co-founder, Howie Wolke, has put it, we are the lions of a movement ‘ecosystem’. Our niche is critical, and its presence (or absence) is felt deeply by our surroundings.
We need to reconnect the multi-generational aspect of Earth First! that has fallen by the wayside in recent years. We need to broaden our network’s base—from radical rural grandparents to revolutionary urban youth. We need re-establish lost relationships with scholars and scientists who resonate with us. We need to re-inspire musicians and artists to contribute their passion to our battles.
When it comes down to it, solid movements are based on strong personal relationships; and real relationships don’t go very far over the internet. We need face-to-face interaction to build trust with—and support for—each other.
From EF! Here is a glimpse of ongoing local and national campaigns and projects related to EF!. They could all use your support in a variety of ways—from fundraising to showing up in person. Please contact the organizing groups directly to find out what they need most:
Northern California Redwood Defense
Since the fall of Maxxam/Pacific Lumber, forest defenders in the Redwoods have been directing attention on another logging empire: Green Diamond Resource Company (formerly Simpson). In the last 10 years they have clear-cut 52,000 acres of Northern California forests. They are killing off endangered Spotted Owls and have aspirations to sell off thousands of acres in Humboldt County for Salmon killing suburban development. We have set up multiple treesit villages to oppose the destruction, and we need your help TODAY.
www.efhumboldt.org
Appalachian Anti-Mountain Top Removal
The presence of coal plants are threats to the lives within both the human community and the mountain ecosystem. One of the most biologically flourishing areas of the world is being environmentally and socially impoverished by companies practicing mountain top removal. Mountain top removal clogs streams, destroys forests, threatens biodiversity and forces coalfield residents into the unjust choice between income and well-being.
www.blueridgeef.com
Stop I-69 in Indiana
I-69 is a NAFTA superhighway, already constructed from Canada to Indianapolis and projected to extend down into Mexico. This highway is intended for the mass transportation of goods and resources, to further exploit workers and the land, and to lessen companies’ accountability in terms of human and environmental rights. In 2008, they began construction of this road through southwestern Indiana, which will evict hundreds of rural families, destroy hundreds of acres of land, and devastate the habitats of countless species of animals, including the endangered Indiana Bat. www.stopi69.wordpress.com
Fight Development in the North Woods of Maine
The largest piece of undeveloped land east of the Mississippi is under attack. Plum Creek, the nation’s largest corporate landowner, is in the process of rezoning 20,000 acres of the Moosehead Lake region in Maine for luxury house and resorts, while trying to balance it off with a fraudulent conservation easement plan. This plan would still allow timber harvesting, commercial water extraction and the building of new infrastructure, among many other ecologically devastating practices. www.maineearthfirst.wordpress.com
Defend the Last Free-Roaming Wild Buffalo in Montana
The Buffalo Field Campaign (BFC) is the only group working in the field, everyday, to stop the slaughter and harassment of Yellowstone’s wild buffalo. Volunteers from around the world defend buffalo on their traditional winter habitat and advocate for their protection. Our daily patrols stand with the buffalo on the ground they choose to be on, and document every move made against them. Tactics range from video documentation to nonviolent civil disobedience. www.buffalofieldcampaign.org
Fight new Copper Mines and Roads in the Deserts of Arizona
Chuk’shon Earth First! is fighting the proposed Rosemont Copper Mine in the Santa Rita Mountains, which is greenwashing itself by claiming a need for increased copper extraction for the solar panel industry. The group is also opposing the expansion of I-10, part of the Department of Transportation’s “Corridors of the Future” program to increase capacity of global industrial commerce. The proposed I-10 Bypass would bisect wild/rural lands and facilitate more sprawl between Tucson and Phoenix. www.chukshonef.wordpress.com
Blue Mountain Biodiversity Project in eastern Oregon
Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project (BMBP) formed in 1991 to increase regional and national awareness of the Blue Mountains ecosystems, to ensure the protection for and reintroduction of diverse native wildlife species, to promote ecologically sound restoration and address the root causes of ecological and community instability. They have trained countless EF!ers is forest monitoring. They are one of the country’s premier grassroots ‘paper-wrenchers’, filing legal challenges that help make our blockades successful. They can be reached at 541-385-9167
Stop Florida Power & Light from trashing the Everglades
Everglades Earth First! (EEF!) have been battling FPL’s plans to build the country’s largest fossil fuel power plant in the Loxahatchee Basin; a headwaters to the remaining Everglades ecosystem. EEF! Is also challenging over 500 miles of new gas pipelines and 2 new Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) facilities. Get more details: www.evergladesearthfirst.org
Stop Gas Drilling in Western New York
There is a proposal on the table to begin one of the largest fossil fuel exploration projects in the country. This project would result hundreds of millions of tons of CO2 emissions, along with the impacts of pipelines, power plants, and new LNG storage facilities. Get in touch with Shale Shock: www.shaleshock.org
Bank of America, Stop Funding Coal!
A national campaign is well underway to stop Bank of America (BoA), who is the largest investor to Mountain Top Removal coal mining. The company recently offered lip-service to address their support for the coal industry, but have made no real steps towards cutting ties with King Coal. With BoA locations in cities across the U.S., this campaign can easily be supported in a decentralized fashion. Give ‘em hell! For more info: www.ran.org
No 2010 Olympics
The Native Youth Movement and other First Nations groups in occupied Canada have called for full-scale resistance to the Winter Olympics proposed in British Colombia. The Olympics proposal includes a mess of development, ski-resorts and infrastructure on indigenous land. Learn more at: www.no2010.com
Root Force
This project is a research database and strategic think tank for direct action intended to target corporate/colonial infrastructure, such as: roads, dams, power plants, and mines. Their website offers background information on transnational companies, government agencies and their local affiliations across the United States. www.rootforce.org
APRIL 20 MARKS THE 95TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE LUDLOW MASSACRE.
From her 1925 autobiography, Mother Jones wrote about the UMWA strike in Ludlow Colorado, over the harsh winter of 1914.
From Chapter 21:
No one listened. No one cared. The tickers in the offices of 26 Broadway sounded louder than the sobs of women and children. Men in the steam heated luxury of Broadway offices could not feel the stinging cold of Colorado hill-sides where families lived in tents.
Then came Ludlow and the nation heard. Little children roasted alive make a front page story. Dying by inches of starvation and exposure does not.
On the 19th of April, 1914, machine guns, used on the strikers in the Paint Creek strike, were placed in position above the tent colony of Ludlow. Major Pat Hamrock and Lieutenant K. E. Linderfelt were in charge of the militia, the majority of whom were, company gun-men sworn in as soldiers.
Early in the morning soldiers approached the colony with a demand from headquarters that Louis Tikas, leader of the Greeks, surrender two Italians. Tikas demanded a warrant for their arrest. They had none. Tikas refused to surrender them. The soldiers returned to quarters. A signal bomb was fired. Then another. Immediately the machine guns began spraying the flimsy tent colony, the only home the wretched families of the miners had, riddling it with bullets. Like iron rain, bullets’ upon men, women and children.
The women and children fled to the hills. Others tarried. The men defended their home with their guns. All day long the firing continued. Men fell dead, their faces to the ground. Women dropped. The little Snyder boy was shot through the head, trying to save his kitten. A child carrying water to his dying mother was killed.
By five o’clock in the afternoon, the miners had no more food, nor water, nor ammunition. They had to retreat with their wives and little ones into the hills. Louis Tikas was riddled with shots while he tried to lead women and children to safety. They perished with him.
Night came. A raw wind blew down the canyons where men, women and children shivered and wept. Then a blaze lighted the sky. The soldiers, drunk with blood and with the liquor they had looted from the saloon, set fire to the tents of Ludlow with oil-soaked torches. The tents, all the poor furnishings, the clothes and bedding of the miners’ families burned. Coils of barbed wire were stuffed into the well, the miners’ only water supply.
After it was over, the wretched people crept back to bury their dead. In a dugout under a burned tent, the charred bodies of eleven little children and two women were found-unrecognizable. Everything lay in ruins. The wires of bed springs writhed on the ground as if they, too, had tried to flee the horror. Oil and fire and guns had robbed men and women and children of their homes and slaughtered tiny babies and defenseless women. Done by order of Lieutenant Linderfelt, a savage, brutal executor of the will of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. The strikers issued a general call to arms: Every able bodied man must shoulder a gun to protect himself and his family from assassins, from arson and plunder. From jungle days to our own so-named civilization, this is a man’s inherent right. To a man they armed, through-out the whole strike district. Ludlow went on burning in their hearts.
Everybody got busy. A delegation from Ludlow went to see President Wilson. Among them was Mrs. Petrucci whose three tiny babies were crisped to death in the black hole of Ludlow. She had something to say to her President.
Immediately he sent the United States cavalry to quell the gunmen. He studied the situation, and drew up proposals for a three-year truce, binding miner and operator. The operators scornfully refused.
A mass meeting was called in Denver. Lindsay spoke. He demanded that the operators be made to respect the laws of Colorado. That something be done immediately. The Denver Real Estate Exchange appointed a committee to spit on Judge Lindsey for his espousal of the cause of the miners.
Rockefeller got busy. Writers were hired to write pamphlets which were sent broadcast to every editor in the country, bulletins. In these leaflets, it was shown how perfectly happy was the life of the miner until the agitators came; how joyous he was with the company’s saloon,. the company’s pigstys for homes, the cornpany’s teachers and preachers and coroners. How the miners hated the state law of an eight-hour working day, begging to be allowed to work ten, twelve. How they hated the state law that they should have their own check weigh-man to see that they were not cheated at the tipple.
And all the while the mothers of the children who died in Ludlow were mourning their dead.
My favorite of the ads debunking “Clean Coal” features a coal industry executive telling TV viewers that coal is so clean, it even smells clean.
Except that having held the lump of coal to his nose, the exec has left a large black smudge.
Absolutely brilliant!
I count four literary allusions. The image invokes: Pinocchio’s duplicity undone by his growing nose; a lie as plain as the nose on his face, a thing so obvious as to lie right beneath his nose; and an embarrassing conceit staring at us like a big piece of spinach stuck between his lying teeth.
Except that embarrassment is Clean Coal.
There’s no such thing as Clean Coal. The concept is an ingenious public relations gambit like Clean-Skies, an No-Child-Left-Behind. Colorado’s supposedly progressive Governor Bill Ritter is an dirty backer. The attempted makeover of the dark fossil fuel has prompted an equal and opposite public reaction.
Laudably, the industry is trying to raise public awareness to “what lies behind the plug.” They ask energy consumers to face the reality that lights –their television even– have to be powered somehow. The image they use is a piece of coal being tapped by an extension cord. It certainly looks magically detached from any complication. Leaving alone that you have to burn the coal (imagine depicting steaks cooking on a stone cold barbecue grill), I’d defy anyone to handle the piece of coal without getting the orange plug completely smudged.
Of course, clean or not, coal is a fossil fuel, the consumption of which is one of the primary causes of Global Warming, aka Climate Change. “Clean Coal” is just a way for the oldest energy industry to get in on the alternative energy gravy train.
The Coen Brothers have directed a hilarious television ad which parodies the Coal Companies pitching their product as an air freshener, even as the aerosol spews pure smoke.
It’s absolutely dispiriting to see Barack Obama championing “Clean Coal” in a TV spot. Who would not like to think that American ingenuity can figure out a way to burn coal cleanly? If we can reverse osmosis, halt aging and make 0% fat fat, why disbelieve we can’t strip carbon of its essence?
At the America’s Power website, the coal industry promises to use Clean Coal to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and of course, to provide jobs. A US map reveals several Clean Coal research sites in Colorado. They are Boulder, Denver, Englewood, Littleton, Wheat Ridge, Nucla and La Vita.
Even if the lipstick on pig research is just a boondoggle to snag Federal funded jobs, aren’t there real alternative energy sources to pursue?
Rita’s form response to the MOVEON.ORG FORM LETTER “Thanks so much for going to a Platform Meeting to urge that Al Gore’s energy challenge be part of the Democratic Party’s issue platform!”
Hi Noah:
Please note a correction. I did not go to a “Platform Meeting”, rather I am having one on Tuesday night, July 29. At that meeting, we will allow attendees to list and prioritize issues, and we’ll send results to both the DNC and directly to Obama Headquarters in Chicago.One of the main reasons for this approach is that a group of us (I was one of a group of eight or nine) was elected as a Platform Committee at the El Paso County Democratic Assembly. The entire assembly elected us, choosing from a number of nominees. Open nominations occurred.
Within days, the local party had unseated and disbanded us, refusing even to allow those of us publicly elected to even know the names and contact information of the others elected. That same day, elected delegates and alternates had stood in the cold for hours, waiting to be allowed into the assembly, only (as I witnessed and signed an affidavit regarding) to be intimidated and turned away at the door by a former NSA man and recent head of the ACLU in this fair, fascist city of ours.
Soooo… such is life in our no longer a democracy city, county, state and nation. Goggle “Colorado Springs St. Patrick’s Day Parade 2007 police brutality” for an eyeful.
I am in the process of documenting numerous instances of violations of civil rights by elected and appointed officials and so called supporters of the progressive movement here in the last couple of years, including the arrest of two peace demonstrators at the recent Colorado State Democratic Convention, and the attempted arrest eight days ago of four people of peace as we (yes, I was among them) were leaving from a brief meeting on a public easement in front of the building that houses Pikes Peak Justice and Peace, an organization with a new chair of the board who asked the police to cite us for trespass.
So yes, we will certainly be considering Al G ore’s excellent proposals. One planned attendee has already stated to me that he considers renewable energy sources vital, and wants to end reliance on coal and new strip and other types of coal mining.
But our emphasis may well turn first in priorities to ways and means of “Undoing the Coup” in what was once a democratic nation, i.e. supporting and cooperating in Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s proposed congressional investigation into the activities/surveillance/infiltration of police and others. We will also be considering various ways and means of insuring that the vote be legitimately counted and recorded, etc.
Hope MoveOn can and will continue its great work and support all the vital “UNDO THE COUP” efforts that are needed so desperately. Thanks many times over for all you do and have done.
-Rita Ague
