Last night the University of Charleston hosted a debate about mountaintop coal removal between Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the CEO of Massey Energy, Don Blankenship. Massey Energy the major player in mountaintop removal – including at Coal River Mountain – where Climate Ground Zero treesitters just halted the blasting.
RAN folks were there, you can check out their play by play tweetcast of the debate on RAN’s twitter.
Check out Kate’s report back on The Understory about the debate, here’s an excerpt:
Certainly one of my favorite parts of the evening was when Don held up a clear bottle of water to make a point that this is the water “we” are fighting to clean up. Suffice it to say he didn’t mistake this water for his drinking glass- water which he claims is discharge from a mine that failed EPA testing. Unfortunately, much of the water in areas where surface mining is practiced is laden with toxic heavy metals like selenium, often resulting in a brackish orange color and completely unsuitable for consumption.
You can imagine the responses when Welch brought up global warming, especially given Blankenship’s previous claims that “Global warming is a hoax and a ponzi scheme.” Bobby prefaced the conversation by pointing out that neither he nor Blankenship are scientists and therefore they should rely on the science that does exist on climate change. He pointed out that 98% of scientists agree that global warming is happening, “2% disagree, some of them- not all of them are paid by Exxon and the carbon cronies. I have a choice to believe the 98 or the 2 percent.”
Blankenship’s retort was that the real issue is whether global warming is manmade, which, according to him “its clearly not. Its all totally nonsensical.” Better yet, he went on to say that regardless of what the climate is going to do, “there isn’t anything we can do about it.” Well I guess we should all just quit already and go sun tan on the beach.
Kasha is the RYSE Blog Content Coordinator. She is a lover of justice and nature. Kasha formerly worked on the Rainforest Agribusiness Campaign for RAN, and is currently managing the RYSE Blog remotely from Hawai'i.
Kasha is committed to making this world better, and especially working with Native communities in the struggle for environmental justice and self-determination. In addition to RYSE, she blogs at www.cultivatingdomesticity.com in an effort to reposition the “domestic” as central in our acts of revolution.
She wants to help you blog about your own passions and activism right here – so hit her up on the “apply to be a blogger” page!
Want to contribute posts and media to RYSE? We're always welcoming applicants to be a part of this project: please click the icon
RYSE is the youth branch of RAN, Rainforest Action Network, which works to protect the Earth and support human rights through education, grassroots organizing, and non-violent direct action.
Powered by Wordpress | Now let's get off the internet and get busy!
[...] Massey Energy, poster child of mountaintop removal? JP Mogan Chase supplies the money that funds [...]