News
Destroying History
Thursday, September 25th, 2008
The following email was sent to the 31,000+ supporters of iLoveMountains.org. To sign up to receive free email alerts, click here.
Dear Supporters,
In September of 1921, 13,000 union workers marched to Logan County, West Virginia. More than 2,000 armed deputies met them at Blair Mountain.
The battle that followed represented the biggest armed revolt in America since the Civil War, and it prompted the passage of labor laws currently in effect in the USA.
To this day, Blair Mountain, West Virginia is steeped in the cultural and political history of Appalachia. Historic markers tell the story of the confrontation, and on the battlefield the artifacts from both sides of the armed standoff still lie where they fell.
Yet all of that history is under threat — as are the beautiful hardwood forests and the mountain itself — because Big Coal has plans to blow up Blair Mountain as part of a massive mountaintop removal coal mining operation.
That’s why Blair Mountain is the latest addition to the list of America’s Most Endangered Mountains.
Learn more about Blair Mountain by watching this short video:
http://www.iLoveMountains.org/Endangered
After you watch the video, please be sure to forward it on to 5 friends, and ask them to join us at iLoveMountains.org. They can join by clicking here:
http://www.iLoveMountains.org/Take_Action
Your efforts to help us spread the word are critical — and they make a tremendous difference. In the last year alone, you’ve helped us:
- Reach a total of 92,000 views of the America’s Most Endangered Mountains video series
- Recruit more than 600 bloggers for the iLoveMountains Bloggers Challenge, who are helping everyday to get the word out about the dirty secret behind “clean coal”
- Recruit more than 31,000 supporters at iLoveMountains.org
And what have we achieved by growing iLoveMountains.org and helping to spread the word about the devastation of mountaintop removal coal mining?
Despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent in PR and advertising by the coal industry, your actions– and the actions of tens of thousands of other activists working across the country — have delivered major setbacks to Big Coal’s plans. In the last year, people like you have:
- Stopped a proposed Coal-to-liquid fuels plant in West Virginia
- Haulted plans for the construction of over a hundred new coal power plants around the United States
- Led the way in proposing positive alternatives to mountaintop removal coal mining through the Coal River Mountain wind power project
- Helped us reach a record 150 co-sponsors in Congress for the Clean Water Protection Act, which would sharply curtail mountaintop removal coal mining
Big Coal has been dealt setback after setback by the combined actions of thousands of people like you who love our mountains.
So please, take just a moment to watch the video about Blair Mountain, and then take a moment to forward it to five friends:
http://www.iLoveMountains.org/Take_Action
Together, we can save Blair Mountain — and help turn this country toward a clean and sensible energy future.
Mary Anne Hitt
iLoveMountains.org
