Global Warming and CO2 Emissions Blog

In mountaintop removal mining, a coal company literally blasts apart the tops of mountains to reach thin seams of coal buried below. To minimize waste disposal costs, they then dump millions of tons of the waste rock into the valleys below, permanently burying streams and polluting rivers that provide drinking water to millions of Americans.

Representatives Frank Pallone (D-NY) and Christopher Shays (R-CT) have introduced H.R. 2169, the Clean Water Protection Act - legislation that will effectively end mountaintop removal mining by preventing companies from dumping their waste in rivers and streams. Act now: sign our petition asking your representative in Washington, D.C. to support this important legislation.

When President Bush legalized mountaintop removal mining in 2002, this destructive practice had already been banned for a quarter century. Since then, coal companies have jumped with both feet back into the business of obliterating whole mountains.

The federal government has estimated that past and future mountaintop removal mining could destroy more than 1.4 million acres. People, plants and wildlife are at risk from the blasting, coal dust, clogged streams and poisoned drinking water.

Please sign your petition to your congressional representative today and support the Clean Water Protection Act. Your action will help us end this form of mining and move our nations focus to developing clean, safe renewable forms of energy.

Thank you for your support,

Greg Haegele
Director of Conservation

P.S. Our nation's dependence on coal tears up the land, pollutes water, devastates communities, and makes global warming worse. Send your message today and help the Sierra Club stop the devastation of mountaintop removal mining.

Labels: coal mining, legislation, Sierra Club

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Labels: climate change, environmental activism, presidential campaign 2008

I'm no big fan of Dicaprio's acting skills. In the 11th Hour he proved that his speaking skills were no less wooden than his acting. Despite that, this film is a must see for everyone - liberals, conservatives, moderates and anarchists alike.

Why? This film is not partisan. Opinions are provided from diverse source including the former chief of the CIA, top scientists and thinkers, policy makers, entrepreneurs and activists. Absent from the film is the ghost of partisanship that hovered over Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth.

The film does a decent job laying out the causes and consequences of anthropomorphic climate change. But that is not its primary mission. More importantly, it seeks to answer the question of 'why?'. Why has the human race brought itself to a state of existence so disconnected from the biosphere - our home. And, unlike Gore's film realistic solutions are presented - not the sort of solutions that might be characterized as "tightening the belt" of consumption. Rather, the solutions presented paint a picture of the way many of us might agree the world ought to be, with or without climate change.

Labels: 11th hour, carbon dioxide emissions, climate change, documentary, environmental activism, global warming, leonardo dicaprio