Tag Archives: Clean Water Act

Video

Calling All Angels for Renewable Energy

As spring begins, I am keenly aware of the urgency the renewable energy movement is facing. Fracking is moving at lightening speed across the country and the world, poisoning water, air and, of course, people. Elected officials in Congress are doing their best to get the Keystone XL pipeline passed, even as tar sands spills continue to rear their ugly head.

The fossil fuel industry has the deepest pockets on the planet, and at times it feels as if we can’t beat them in this fight for a viable future. Yet, we continue to grow as a movement in numbers and strength. The coordination between people, towns, cities, states and organizations is impressive and essential to our capacity to impact the shift to renewable energy.

This video was made to inspire all those giving so much of their energy and time to this dire cause. After all, there is no Planet B. Just us and the choice to create a safe and viable future. I say, in the end, our passion will tip the scales away from dirty energy toward renewables. Let’s keep it up!

Calling All “Moms-In-Chief”: The Mothers Project and the Fight to End Fracking

I wasn’t able to listen to the First Lady’s speech the night she delivered it at the Democratic National Convention.  My 8-year-old daughter Claire is a night owl who loves to be read to sleep, so we lay in bed together reading Katie Kazoo Switcheroo as Michelle Obama spoke from her heart about the man she married and the country she so loves.

The next day I watched the speech on YouTube.  Toward the end, Michelle spoke about who she was first and foremost amidst the many roles in her life.  It was the only noticeable moment where tears filled her eyes.

“And I say all of this tonight not just as First Lady and not just as a wife. You see, at the end of the day, my most important title is still ‘mom-in-chief.’ My daughters are still the heart of my heart and the center of my world.”

As I listened to her, my eyes filled with tears, knowing that I, too, am first and foremost a mom-in-chief to a daughter I love more than words could ever convey.  I was moved to tears by that extraordinary love and a future my daughter and all children will be inheriting – a future that I’m not feeling very good about.

Granted the future has always and will always carry with it burdens and responsibilities that the next generation must take on when they have grown.  But when it comes to poisoning water and air, the adults in this world right now have a responsibility to stop that poisoning.  And right now fracking is at the top of the culprit list.

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No Top on Old Smokey

“Almost heaven, West Virginia, Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River…”

When I was in high school in the garden state of New Jersey, it wasn’t exactly cool to be into John Denver. What you listened to behind closed doors was one thing, but out in public you didn’t make a point of letting anyone know about it. Kind of like mountaintop removal.

Mountaintop removal is a jaw-dropping mining technique that few people know much about in this country, and the coal mining industry likes it that way. They don’t want you to know that they have blown up and leveled close to 500 mountains (an area the size of Delaware) in Appalachia, mountains older than the Himalayas – three hundred million years old, in fact. Well, they were, but now they’re dead and gone.    Continue reading