My friend, NASA scientist James Hansen and more than two dozen other mountaintop removal mining opponents have been arrested during a protest in southern West Virginia – United States.
Virginia State Police said about 30 people were arrested and charged Tuesday afternoon after they blocked State Route 3 near a Massey Energy subsidiary’s coal processing plant in Raleigh County.
They were among several hundred protesters who held a rally outside an elementary school that sits about 300 feet away from the plant’s coal storage silo.
After the rally, the crowd marched quietly to the plant and attempted to enter the property. They were blocked by several hundred coal miners chanting “Massey.”
Dr. Hansen said:
I am not a politician; I am a scientist and a citizen. Politicians may have to advocate for halfway measures if they choose. But it is our responsibility to make sure our representatives feel the full force of citizens who speak for what is right, not what is politically expedient. Mountaintop removal, providing only a small fraction of our energy, should be abolished.
Now you are an activist and an advocate for a cause and that is a natural evolution for a scientist.
Is this different than the Persian people fighting and getting arrested practicing civil disobediance for a measure of Democracy and freedom. We are fighting for a measure of breathing air and a just humane climate. And that is just as important. Coal is evil. How long will it take us to realize that much like tobacco is now the coal energy companies that should be held to the book and not the activists pointing this out.
Yours,
pano
