Join Us at the Coal Plant

Posted by Jeffrey St. Clair on December 19th, 2008 | Link

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE TO STOP COAL

By Wendell Berry and Bill McKibben

Dear Friends,

There are moments in a nation’s — and a planet’s — history when it
may be necessary for some to break the law in order to bear witness to
an evil, bring it to wider attention, and push for its correction.

We think such a time has arrived, and we are writing to say that we
hope some of you will join us in Washington D.C. on Monday March 2 in
order to take part in a civil act of civil disobedience outside a
coal-fired power plant near Capitol Hill.

We will be there to make several points:

** Coal-fired power is driving climate change. Our foremost
climatologist, NASA’s James Hansen, has demonstrated that our only
hope of getting our atmosphere back to a safe level — below 350 parts
per million CO2 — lies in stopping the use of coal to generate
electricity.

** Even if climate change were not the urgent crisis that it is, we
would still be burning our fossil fuels too fast, wasting too much
energy and releasing too much poison into the air and water. We would
still need to slow down, and to restore thrift to its old place as an
economic virtue.

** Coal is filthy at its source. Much of the coal used in this country
comes from West Virginia and Kentucky, where companies engage in
“mountaintop removal” to get at the stuff; they leave behind a leveled
wasteland, and impoverished human communities. No technology better
exemplifies the out-of-control relationship between humans and the
rest of creation.

** Coal smoke makes children sick. Asthma rates in urban areas near
coal-fired power plants are high. Air pollution from burning coal is
harmful to the health of grown-ups too, and to the health of
everything that breathes, including forests.

The industry claim that there is something called “clean coal” is, put
simply, a lie. But it’s a lie told with tens of millions of dollars,
which we do not have. We have our bodies, and we are willing to use
them to make our point.

We don’t come to such a step lightly. We have written and testified
and organized politically to make this point for many years, and while
in recent months there has been real progress against new coal-fired
power plants, the daily business of providing half our electricity
from coal continues unabated. It’s time to make clear that we can’t
safely run this planet on coal at all. So we feel the time has come to
do more — we hear President Barack Obama’s call for a movement for
change that continues past election day, and we hear Nobel Laureate Al
Gore’s call for creative non-violence outside coal plants. As part of
the international negotiations now underway on global warming, our
nation will be asking China, India, and others to limit their use of
coal in the future to help save the planet’s atmosphere. This is a
hard thing to ask, because it’s their cheapest fuel. Part of our
witness in March will be to say that we’re willing to make some
sacrifices ourselves, even if it’s only a trip to the jail.

With any luck, this will be the largest such protest yet, large enough
that it may provide a real spark. If you want to participate with us,
you need to go through a short course of non- violence training. This
will be, to the extent it depends on us, an entirely peaceful
demonstration, carried out in a spirit of hope and not rancor. We will
be there in our dress clothes, and ask the same of you. There will be
young people, people from faith communities, people from the coal
fields of Appalachia, and from the neighborhoods in Washington that
get to breathe the smoke from the plant.

We will cross the legal boundary of the power plant, and we expect to
be arrested. After that we have no certainty what will happen, but
lawyers and such will be on hand. Our goal is not to shut the plant
down for the day — it is but one of many, and anyway its operation
for a day is not the point. The worldwide daily reliance on coal is
the danger; this is one small step to raise awareness of that ruinous
habit and hence help to break it.

Needless to say, we’re not handling the logistics of this day. All the
credit goes to a variety of groups, especially the Energy Action
Coalition (which is bringing thousands of young people to Washington
that weekend), Greenpeace, the Ruckus Society, and the Rainforest
Action Network. A website at that latter organization is serving as
a temporary organizing hub.

If you go there, you will find a place to leave your name so that
we’ll know you want to join us.

Thank you,

Wendell Berry, Bill McKibben

P.S. This is important: Please forward this letter to anyone and
everyone you think might be interested.