Live from DC: Thousands Converge for Capitol Climate Action Against Dirty Coal [Updated]

By Jeff Biggers, AlterNet. Posted March 2, 2009.

While the coal industry may have invested over $40 million dollars in fictitious "clean coal" ads, the stunning array of banners and placards -- Clean Coal is Like Dry Water, Coal is the Mother's Liver, Topless Mountains Are Obscene, Coal is Dirty, Power Past Coal -- drove home the dirty reality of coal and coal-fired plants today.

Dirty coal has indeed left the Capitol Power Plant.

See you at Cliffside in Charlotte, North Carolina on April 20th for the next coal-fired plant to retire.

UPDATE 12:55 pm EST

Spirit of Justice Park

Contingents of marchers are gathering in the park just to the south of the Capitol, a few blocks from the Capitol Power Plant. A long line of hundreds of younger marchers have just entered from the Powershift rally at the Capitol building. Dividing into four banner areas, Red (Power), Blue (Change), Green (Justice), and Yellow, the activists are chanting "Clean Coal is a Dirty Lie," among other chants. It's an energetic crowd, on a very windy and cold day, though the sun keeps attempt to break through the clouds.

Ahjani Yepa-Sprague, from the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, in Michigan, is handing out a statement that declares: "Mercury from coal-fired power plants, like this one, are of special concern to children and women of childbearing age like myself...Tribal lifeways have had to be altered because of the existing mercury in lakes and streams in Michigan....Tribal communities in Michigan and around the world are threatened by the pollution and harms caused by coal plants."

Cassie Robinson, a young activist from eastern Kentucky with Mountain Justice, told me she has traveled to Washington to draw attention to climate change, the destruction of her communities from mountaintop removal, and an increasing concern about the problems of natural gas development in Appalachia, an issue often overlooked.

Carl "Pete" Ramey, a great-grandfather from Wise County, Virginia, and VFW chaplain, who spent 37 years laboring in an underground mine, as just read an opening prayer: "Is faith asleep? Let it wake. Today is ours. Let's take it." Addressing the largely young crowd, Ramey recalled his increasing activism with the environmental movement after witnessing the impact of mountaintop removal in his region. "I'm inspired by these children."

Author Bill McKibben held down the corner of the park with plenty of media cameras. He declared simply: "Coal is killing the planet. Green energy is going to drive us out of this recession."

Kentucky farmer-poet Wendell Berry has arrived, stocking cap afixed, bracing in the cold wind as a crowd of young admirers swelled around him.

The Capitol Power Plant action is set to begin in the next 30 minutes or so.

***

UPDATE 11am EST

The great snow storm has passed. The clouds are parting. The sun is breaking through. Those tiny ripples of hope, that Robert Kennedy once invoked, are beginning to gather near Capitol Hill.

The Capitol Power Plant: It was built at the same time the first Ford Model T cars rolled onto the streets. A century later, the Capitol plant will finally end its use of coal in the age of the iPhone and Blackberry.

There's a new era in Washington, DC--a clean energy era. And with an Obama administration that wants to double our renewable energy production in three years, and has called for cap 'n trade legislation to limit carbon emissions, thousands of clean energy and coalfield activists are converging on the snow-swept streets of Washington, DC today to remind Capitol Hill that a growing and incredibly organized movement is ready to make this new clean energy era a reality.

The Capitol Climate Action today is more than a historic protest against coal, coal-fired plants and their role in climate change. It's a celebration of a road map to end our dependence on our nation's dirtiest fossil fuel.

The denials of coal's dirty past are over: Thousands of citizens are prepared to engage in civil disobedience at the Capitol Power Plant today to make clear the sense of urgency in dealing with climate change legislation and policy in an effective and timely manner.

See more stories tagged with: global warming, climate change, coal, powershift, coal plant, capitol climate action, powershift09

Jeff Biggers is the author of The United States of Appalachia, and the forthcoming book, Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland (The Nation/Basic Books).

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