Beginning the morning of Oct. 8, I will be participating in a 25 mile, 5 day walk by senior citizens to protest the practice of mountaintop removal. We will begin on the capital grounds in Charleston and proceed from there to the entrance of the Mammoth Coal Company, where we will be asking for an audience with the manager. This is to be a peaceful, nonviolent action, but we do not rule out acts of civil disobedience by individuals who feel the need of a more forceful demonstration of their convictions.
But all of us—whether or not we choose to break the law—will adhere to a strict discipline of nonviolence. By announcing our intentions in advance, we are following the Gandhian tradition of open communication with our adversaries, which includes well publicized reasons for a particular action.
The latter are obvious; mountaintop removal is arguably the single most egregious environmental crime in the history of civilization, and it is continuing to happen without effective intervention by government agencies charged with its’ regulation. Throughout Appalachia, an area the size of Delaware has been totally denuded, and only token efforts have been made to reclaim a few of the sites. These and other abuses have been thoroughly documented, and there’s no need here for further discussion.
As the instigator and one of the organizers of the march, I have been part of the Climate Ground Zero campaign against MTR since late June, and have seen that most of the direct action, which has resulted in arrests and court trials for the participants, has involved young people who have yet to celebrate their 30th birthday. They have risked their careers and their rights as citizens over a clear cut issue of right vs. wrong that has defied all legal and conventional means to rectify. Unlike many of their elders, they have had the vision to take in the larger picture; and to make the chain of connections at play here that jeopardize our future. The burning of coal and deforestation, both the results of MTR, are major causes of climate change, and the youths here at CGZ are justifiably impatient with the sluggish response of the power structure to a problem with such negative and ramifying consequences.
At age 80, I have concluded that it’s time for the senior generations to assume some of this rather weighty responsibility, hence the plans for the march. We invite all citizens, age 50 or older, to join us in making this statement with our walking shoes: that our young people are not alone in their defense of our planet, and that we will continue to enjoin their efforts to promote justice and ecological sanity.
See you on the road……………
Roland Micklem
Let me know when you find the MTR site will ya? Planning is such a high end benefit these days.
There again , Roselle cowering in the background, while senior citizens do his bidding.
When you got there did you find the MTR site?
Guess you never found it, per no responses.