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Climate Ground Zero
Climate Ground Zero (CGZ), founded in February 2009, is a non-violent civil disobedience campaign against mountaintop removal mining based in the southern coalfields of West Virginia. According to their website, Climate Ground Zero believes “that the irrevocable destruction of the mountains of Appalachia and its accompanying toll on the air, water, and lives of Appalachians necessitates continued and direct action". The organization seeks to end mountaintop removal mining by drawing attention to the issue through protests involving trespass on the property of mining companies. By locking down to machinery on mine sites, occupying trees in the blast zone, or blockading haul roads to mine sites, protesters associated with Climate Ground Zero directly interfere with mining practices. Other protests draw attention to the alleged negligence of regulatory agencies such as the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) or the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Civil Disobedience
Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders or commands of a government (or any other authority). By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be called "civil". Hence, civil disobedience is sometimes equated with peaceful protests or nonviolent resistance. Henry David Thoreau's essay ''Resistance to Civil Government'', published posthumously as '' Civil Disobedience'', popularized the term in the US, although the concept itself has been practiced longer before. It has inspired leaders such as Susan B. Anthony of the U.S. women's suffrage movement in the late 1800s, Saad Zaghloul in the 1910s culminating in Egyptian Revolution of 1919 against British Occupation, and Mahatma Gandhi in 1920s India in their protests for Indian independence against the British Empire. Martin Luther King Jr.'s and James Bevel's peaceful protests during the civil rights movement in the 1960s United States contained impo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Restraining Order
A restraining order or protective order, is an order used by a court to protect a person in a situation involving alleged domestic violence, child abuse, assault, harassment, stalking, or sexual assault. Restraining and personal protection order laws vary from one jurisdiction to another but all establish who can file for an order, what protection or relief a person can get from such an order, and how the order will be enforced. The court will order the adverse party to refrain from certain actions or require compliance with certain provisions. Failure to comply is a violation of the order which can result in the arrest and prosecution of the offender. Violations in some jurisdictions may also constitute criminal or civil contempt of court. Restraining order provisions All protective order statutes permit the court to instruct an alleged abuser to stay a certain distance away from someone, such as their home, workplace or school ("stay away" provisions), and not to contact the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SourceWatch
The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) is a progressive nonprofit watchdog and advocacy organization based in Madison, Wisconsin. CMD publishes ExposedbyCMD.org, SourceWatch.org, and ALECexposed.org. History CMD was founded in 1993 by progressive writer John Stauber in Madison, Wisconsin. Lisa Graves is the former president of CMD. Author Sheldon Rampton was formerly an editor of PR Watch. In a report released on April 6, 2006, CMD listed information on 77 television stations that had broadcast video news releases (VNRs) in the prior 10 months. CMD said that in each case the television station actively disguised the VNR content to make it appear to be its own reporting, and that in more than one-third of the cases, the stations aired the pre-packaged VNR in its entirety. In August 2006, the Federal Communications Commission mailed formal letters to the owners of the 77 television stations, asking for information regarding agreements between the stations and the creators of V ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition
Mountaintop removal mining (MTR), also known as mountaintop mining (MTM), is a form of surface mining at the summit or summit ridge of a mountain. Coal seams are extracted from a mountain by removing the land, or overburden, above the seams. This process is considered to be safer compared to underground mining because the coal seams are accessed from above instead of underground. In the United States, this method of coal mining is conducted in the Appalachian Mountains in the eastern United States. Explosives are used to remove up to 400 vertical feet (120 m) of mountain to expose underlying coal seams. Excess rock and soil is dumped into nearby valleys, in what are called "holler fills" ("hollow fills") or "valley fills".U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, "Mountaintop Mining/Valley Fills in Appalachia: Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement," issued 2005 June 25, available ahttp://www.epa.gov/region03/mtntop/index.htm(accessed 2006 August 20). The practice of M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Brune
Michael Brune (born 24 August 1971) became the youngest executive director of the Sierra Club at 38, an American environmental organization founded by preservationist John Muir, UC professor of botany Willis Linn Jepson, and attorney Warren Olney in 1892. He was hired by the 15 member board of directors to his position in January 2010, after Carl Pope was fired. Prior to the Sierra Club, Brune was the executive director of the Rainforest Action Network for seven years. He also worked as an organizer for Greenpeace. In 1999, while working at the Rainforest Action Network, Brune ran a successful campaign to get Home Depot stores to stop purchasing and selling wood from old-growth forests. ''Time'' magazine listed this as its top environmental story of that year. Brune is a regular contributor to the '' Huffington Post'', a progressive website founded by Arianna Huffington, as well as Daily Kos. In 2008 he published a book called ''Coming Clean -- Breaking America's Addicti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Julia Bonds
Julia "Judy" Belle Thompson Bonds (August 27, 1952 – January 3, 2011) was an organizer and activist from the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia, United States. Raised in a family of coalminers, she worked from an early age at minimum wage jobs. Bonds was the director of Coal River Mountain Watch (CRMW). She has been called "the godmother of the anti-mountaintop removal movement." Environmental activism Much of her organizing activity focused on the role of the mine operator Massey Energy of Richmond, Virginia and the devastation in Coal River Valley's Marfork Hollow as well as other communities in Appalachia. Bonds testified against the company at regulatory hearings, filed lawsuits against surface mining and led protests against Massey. By 2003, she had led the CRMW into a partnership with the United Mine Workers Union to halt mining companies' dangerous use of overweight coal trucks and to convince the state's mining oversight agency to better protect valley communities ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ken Hechler
Kenneth William Hechler (September 20, 1914 – December 10, 2016) was an American politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented West Virginia's 4th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1959 to 1977 and was West Virginia Secretary of State from 1985 to 2001. Biography Early life and military service Of German-American descent, Hechler was born in Roslyn, New York on September 20, 1914 to Charles Henry and Catherine Elizabeth (Hauhart) Hechler. He held a BA from Swarthmore College, and an MA and PhD from Columbia University in history and government. Hechler served on the faculty of Columbia University, Princeton University, and Barnard College in the years leading up to World War II. Hechler held a series of minor appointed positions in the federal civil service until he was drafted into the United States Army during World War II in July, 1942. After graduation from Armored Force Officer Candidate School, he was assigned as a comb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daryl Hannah
Daryl Christine Hannah (born December 3, 1960) is an American actress and environmental activist. She made her screen debut in Brian De Palma's supernatural horror film '' The Fury'' (1978). She has starred in various movies across the years, including as Pris Stratton in Ridley Scott's science fiction thriller ''Blade Runner'' (1982) and as Cathy Featherstone in Randal Kleiser's romantic comedy ''Summer Lovers'' (1982), as the mermaid Madison in Ron Howard's fantasy-romantic comedy ''Splash'' (1984), Roxanne Kowalski in the romantic comedy '' Roxanne'' (1987), Darien Taylor in Oliver Stone's drama ''Wall Street'' (1987), and Annelle Dupuy Desoto in the comedy-drama ''Steel Magnolias'' (1989). In 2004, Hannah won a Saturn Award for her role as one-eyed assassin Elle Driver in Quentin Tarantino's two-part martial arts action film ''Kill Bill''. In 2015, she appeared in the Netflix series ''Sense8'' as Angelica Turing. Early life Hannah was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Susan Jean ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Hansen
James Edward Hansen (born March 29, 1942) is an American adjunct professor directing the Program on Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He is best known for his research in climatology, his 1988 Congressional testimony on climate change that helped raise broad awareness of global warming, and his advocacy of action to avoid dangerous climate change. In recent years he has become a climate activist to mitigate the effects of global warming, on a few occasions leading to his arrest. Early life and education Hansen was born in Denison, Iowa, to James Ivan Hansen and Gladys Ray Hansen. He was trained in physics and astronomy in the space science program of James Van Allen at the University of Iowa. He obtained a B.A. in Physics and Mathematics with highest distinction in 1963, an M.S. in Astronomy in 1965 and a Ph.D. in Physics in 1967, all three degrees from the University of Iowa. He participated in the NASA graduate traineesh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martin County Sludge Spill
The Martin County coal slurry spill was a mining accident that occurred after midnight on October 11, 2000, when the bottom of a coal slurry impoundment owned by Massey Energy in Martin County, Kentucky, broke into an abandoned underground mine below. The slurry came out of the mine openings, sending an estimated of slurry down two tributaries of the Tug Fork River. By morning, Wolf Creek was oozing with the black waste; on Coldwater Fork, a stream became a expanse of thick slurry. The spill, which contained arsenic and mercury, killed everything in the water. It was over five feet deep in places and covered nearby residents' yards. The spill polluted hundreds of miles () of the Big Sandy River and its tributaries and the Ohio River. The water supply for over 27,000 residents was contaminated, and all aquatic life in Coldwater Fork and Wolf Creek was killed. The spill was 30 times larger than the Exxon Valdez oil spill, spilling . It was one of the worst environmental disas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brushy Fork Sludge Impoundment
The Brushy Fork Coal Impoundment, also known as the Brushy Fork Coal Sludge Dam, is a large tailings dam on the Brushy Fork near Marfork in western Raleigh County of West Virginia, United States. It is located northwest of Beckley, the seat of Raleigh County. Brushy Fork flows into Little Marsh Fork, which then enters Marsh Fork, which is a tributary of the Coal River. The purpose of the dam is to store a sludge consisting of tailings and waste from a nearby coal mine. In 1995 Massey Energy received a permit to construct the dam. Over the years additional permits to increase the size and storage volume of the dam have been issued in the midst of local and regional opposition to its structural integrity. Currently at approximately in height, it is the tallest dam in the Western Hemisphere The Western Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth that lies west of the prime meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and east of the antimeridian. The other half is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
