itsyournature

Many eyes may be on Ireland today, but quite a few are on Washington D.C. where the 4th Annual End Mountaintop Removal Week is taking place. Citizens from across Appalachia and the rest of the country are lobbying Congress to put an end to mountaintop removal coal mining and pass the Clean Water Protection Act(H.R. 1310). The bill would ensure clean drinking water by preventing mining companies from dumping mine waste into valley streams, a provision made legal during the Bush Administration which has already buried an estimated 1,200 miles of waterways. You can help by contacting your representative and asking them to co-sponsor the bill.

Call the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121.

If you can't make a phone call, take action by writing your representative here.

Then urge the EPA to enforce…

Here at ItsYourNature we're no strangers to blogging about coal and growing up in West Virginia, it was impossible for me to ignore the impact that coal mining had on the state. This past week citizens of Appalachia as well as from the rest of the country got the chance to let Congress know how they felt about a relatively new but destructive form of coal mining known as Mountaintop Removal.

While much of the media's attention was focused on the War in Iraq, over a hundred volunteers were in Washington to raise attention about another war being waged just a short distance from the nation's capitol. In Southwestern Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky, mountaintop removal is having a devastating effect on the local environment and economy. By leveling mountains to quickly and cheaply…

Last Monday, the Democratic presidential candidates debated on CNN. And once again, there were exactly zero questions asked about global warming. The perplexing absence of discussion about an issue that countless scientists, economists, and politicians hold up as the fundamental challenge of our times is fast becoming familiar. (Earlier debates in Nevada and Florida similarly didn't touch the subject.) It seems a bit dubious, then, that all three of these CNN-hosted events have been sponsored by the coal industry lobby group Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC).

Now the League of Conservation Voters has been calling attention to Big Media's blind eye towards global warming for awhile now through their "What Are They Waiting For?" campaign. And, indeed, on MSNBC last Thursday, Tim Russert finally brought clean energy and global warming into the primary conversation.…