Fasting and Frustrations In the Mountains of West Virginia

There’s been a lot going on in the hills of Appalachia in the last week or so. Unfortunately for me, I’ve been busy with other work and writing. So here is a brief rundown of what’s been happening in the mountains.

For the last two weeks, actually a bit longer, 16 days total now, Roland Micklem, a retired science teacher who is now 85 years old, has been conducting a fast at the West Virginia state capitol building to inspire awareness of climate change, which includes mountaintop removal mining. He has fought for the mountains and the people of Appalachia for some time. In 2009 he organized a walk of senior citizens in West Virginia to protest mountaintop mining. He says his environmental awareness goes back to the 1950s, when he noticed that some of his favorite birds and animals were disappearing from his native Virginia.

Micklem has been joined by two other activists, Vincent Eirene and Mike Roselle. Here is a short video of Micklem from a couple days ago as he explains his motivations:

You can keep up with Micklem’s efforts through a Facebook page that follows the fast.

And I thought this was very interesting. Over at Coal Tattoo, the excellent blog about all things coal, Ken Ward points out the blatant subservience Senator Joe Manchin has to all things coal, as he held a stakeholder meeting to discuss the EPA’s new rule on emissions from existing power plants and to “find a balance between economic and environmental concerns.” As Ward point out this “balance” is a sort of Fox News type of balance that only included the interests of the fossil fuel companies. No one from any environmental organization or agency was invited to this stakeholder meeting.

            For blog posts, I only rarely read any of the comments, but please read the comment from Bo Webb on this post. Webb is of course the man who, in hopes of finding a simple rural life, returned to West Virginia only to find his homeland ravaged and his neighbors sickened by mountaintop mining. The story of his growing awareness and activism makes up part of the documentary On Coal River. In his comment Webb recounts his absurd meeting with Manchin as an environmental stakeholder in the state of West Virginia. I don't believe that Manchin could have sent a clearer message to Webb that the Senator did not care one fig about Webb, his community, or his mountains.