BP, Climate Blues? ON COAL RIVER Film Premieres Inspiring Story of Fearless Activists

[G_j]

http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/06/24/bp-climate-blues-on-coal-river-film-premieres-inspiring-story-of-fearless-activists/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=alternet_blogs_peek

Posted by jeffbiggers at 6:15 am
June 24, 2010

BP, Climate Blues? ON COAL RIVER Film Premieres Inspiring Story of Fearless Activists

<snip>

A road map to clean energy hope has arrived in Washington, DC from the Appalachian coalfields in the long-awaited blockbuster new film documentary, ON COAL RIVER.

<snip>

Six years in the making, ON COAL RIVER goes straight to ground zero in the energy debate–the coal war frontlines in the battle with Massey Energy over devastating mountaintop removal mining operations. Far from any dour cautionary tale of despair, the film chronicles a besieged mining community’s determined and often revelatory steps to get beyond their anger, hopelessness and grief, and demand that their state and federal officials live up to our nation’s promise of environmental justice and human rights.

If hope, as civil rights activist William Sloane Coffin once noted, “arouses, as nothing else can arouse, a passion for the possible,” then ON COAL RIVER just might be the most inspiring and triumphant story of a possible clean energy future.

“Stopping mountaintop removal and strip-mining in the coalflelds,” says Stephanie Pistello, the national field coordinator of Appalachian Voices and a coal miner’s granddaughter from southwestern Virginia, “is the first step in addressing problems of climate change and fossil fuel corruption.” As a long-time advocate who has worked with coalfield activists to bring their stories to Capitol Hill and cities around the nation, Pistello considers the film documentary to be a timely and powerful boost for national environmental campaigns:

“ON COAL RIVER illuminates and clearly articulates the incredible grip dirty coal holds on communities and their politicians, a grip that is so strong, communities have to beg and plead with their representatives for clean water, a safe elementary school for their children, and protection from blasting above their homes. This is a place where, like we are seeing in the Gulf Coast, what is best for the industry is often put before what is best for the people.

Bo, Judy, Ed and Maria are living, breathing examples of democracy in action, of citizens standing up to corporate greed. As we move forward through the muck of the BP oil spill disaster, and watch Don Blankenship continue to steer Massey Energy with a deplorable record of negligence and violations, Americans are becoming more aware of the power that the fossil fuels industries wield over Washington. We know that now is the time to turn the tables in favor of the health and happiness of our communities, and these four Americans show us how it’s done!”

..more..

[Uncle Joe]

1. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, G_j.:thumbsup:

[G_j]

2. **

[HCE SuiGeneris]

3. Thanks, G_j

:kick: