Join us in asking the Bank of America to phase out loans to the coal industry and fossil fuel-burning utilities, and greatly increase their loans to clean, safe, carbon-free and nuclear-free renewable energy sources. Banks contribute to climate change through their financed emissions -- the emissions induced by a bank’s loans to and investments in companies that emit greenhouse gases. Bank of America is one of the largest financiers of coal mining, mountaintop removal, and dirty coal-fired power plants.
We’re working with a wide coalition of organizations to ask Bank of America to “clean up” their loan portfolio by phasing out those loans and investing instead in clean, safe, carbon-free and nuclear-free renewable energy sources.
Add your name to our letter to Bank of America. I’ll be delivering it next week at their shareholder meeting in Charlotte, NC. I’d love to have your signature on it.
An Open Letter to Bank of America
We, the undersigned physicians, health professionals, and members of Physicians for Social Responsibility, urge the Bank of America to phase out its portfolio of loans to companies engaged in extracting, processing, or burning fossil fuels. The carbon dioxide from those activities is the single biggest factor causing climate change and the associated severe health risks to the world’s population.
As the earth warms, the delicate balance of climate, weather events and life is being disrupted. Consequences are already emerging that threaten human health and, ultimately, survival.
Heat waves contribute to heat stroke, which can lead to delirium, convulsions, coma, and death. More than 70,000 people died due to the European heat wave of 2003.
Drought is causing large-scale crop loss, driving up world food prices and worsening malnutrition and famine.
Wildfires increase dangerous particulate air pollution.
High summer temperatures increase ground-level ozone, provoking asthma attacks and aggravating diseases like bronchitis and emphysema. Repeated exposure may cause asthma in previously healthy people and permanently scar lung tissue.
Changes in climate are increasing the range of infectious diseases carried by insects, including malaria, West Nile virus, dengue and Lyme disease.
Severe storms now threaten communities on a far more frequent basis than seen before.
Rising sea levels will create millions of environmental refugees.
Bank of America, as a top financier of companies whose industries contribute disproportionately to U.S. greenhouse gas emissions – such industries such as coal mining, oil and gas production, and fossil fuel-based electric power generation –facilitates these climate-induced threats to health and survival.
Yet as a top financier, you are also in a position to do great good. We ask you to phase out your loans to fossil fuel industries and greatly increase your portfolio of loans to clean, safe, carbon-free and nuclear-free renewable energy sources.
Appalachia, a region of extraordinary beauty and natural diversity, is under attack. Mountaintop removal is strip mining on steroids—a radically destructive form of surface mining whereby coal companies bulldoze the forest, decapitate the peaks with explosives, push the shattered rubble into adjacent valleys, and destroy the ecologically crucial headwater streams that had been there before. This is an ecological and human tragedy of epic proportions—and yet few Americans realize how the coal industry, seeking maxium profit and abetted by lax government regulation, is turning an entire region into an undeclared national energy sacrifice zone.
Plundering Appalachia is a searing exposé, in words and images, of the greatest ecological calamity now being wreaked upon America—an outrage justified by the desire for “cheap” power. With large-format photography and engaging writing from Wendell Berry, Judy Bonds, Ross Gelbspan, Denise Giardina, Richard Heinberg, Mary Anne Hitt, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., David Orr, Carl Pope, Erik Reece, Vivian Stockman, and others, Plundering Appalachia illuminates Big Coal’s assault on the people and wildlife of the region. The book includes first-person testimonies from coalfields residents about life in the shadow of mountaintop-mining operations, and dissects the current coal-powered energy economy that is toxic to people and nature—and helping cook the planet.
Since 2010, the Beyond Coal campaign has secured plans for retirements from more than 100 coal plants and clean energy sources like wind and solar are rapidly taking their place.
We couldn't have done it without your support!
Help us continue the momentum. Share the huge news on your social network highlighting the story of the End of Coal Era and invite your friends and family to join the grassroots movement for a clean energy future!
In 2002, we got word that then-Vice President Dick Cheney was holding secret backroom meetings with the coal industry to plan a new “Coal Rush” — a massive effort to build over 150 new coal-fired power plants across the country.
Coal plants last only about 50 years, and since it was clear that the country’s aging fleet of dirty power plants would soon be retired, industry lobbyists wanted to lock-in our nation’s reliance on coal before solar, wind, and clean power would have a chance to step in.
This made no sense to us — coal is an outdated, backward, 19th-century technology. It’s the single biggest source of global-warming and mercury pollution, and it causes hundreds of thousands of asthma attacks every year. In my home region of Appalachia, mountaintop-removal coal-mining operations have blown up 500 mountains, buried 2,000 miles of streams, and turned small towns into ghost towns. Why would we want to lock ourselves in to a future of dirty energy — especially just as new technologies and innovation are making solar and wind cheaper?
CARMA Blog - About CARMA: At its core, Carbon Monitoring for Action (CARMA) is a massive database containing information on the carbon emissions of over 50,000 power plants and 4,000 power companies worldwide. Power generation accounts for 40% of all carbon emissions in the United States and about one-quarter of global emissions. CARMA is the first global inventory of a major, emissions-producing sector of the economy.
CARMA is produced and financed by the Confronting Climate Change Initiative at the Center for Global Development, an independent and non-partisan think tank located in Washington, DC.
In Appalachia, mining companies blow the tops off mountains to reach a thin seam of coal. They then dump millions of tons of rubble and toxic waste into the streams and valleys below the mining sites.
This destructive practice, known as mountaintop-removal mining, has damaged or destroyed nearly 2,000 miles of streams and threatens to destroy 1.4 million acres of mountaintops and forests by 2020. The mining poisons drinking water, destroys beautiful forests and wildlife habitat, increases the risk of flooding and wipes out entire communities.
Who Gets Hurt
Mountaintop removal pollutes waterways and allows toxic heavy metals such as cadmium, selenium, and arsenic to leach into local water supplies -- the same water that Appalachia's people rely on. But the danger isn't limited to drinking water; mountaintop removal also causes air pollution that affects communities for miles around. Many of the toxins that pollute mountaintop-removal sites are carcinogens, and cancer rates are twice as high for people who live near mountaintop-removal sites.
The Future of Mountaintop Removal
Ending mountaintop-removal mining and transitioning to clean energy will benefit Appalachia by creating good jobs in the clean-energy and tourism industries and by improving public health.
The EPA is evaluating the practice of mountaintop-removal mining and has slowed the permitting process for new mountaintop-removal sites. However, sites with existing permits continue to destroy Appalachian mountains, pollute waterways, and make people sick. You can get involved in the effort to stop mountaintop removal now and ensure protection for Appalachia and the families who call its mountains home.
Mountaintop removal mining - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Mountaintop removal mining (MTR), is a form of surface mining that involves the mining of the summit or summit ridge of a mountain. (Coal industry proponents often refer to MTR as mountaintop mining [MTM][1].) Entire coal seams are removed from the top of a mountain, hill or ridge by removing the overburden above them, and restacking the overburden back on the ridge to refect the approximate original contour of the mountain.[2] The excess amounts of overburden that can not be placed on the ridge top is moved into neighboring valleys.[3] It is most closely associated with coal mining in the Appalachian Mountains in the eastern United States. The process involves blasting with explosives to remove up to 400 vertical feet (120 m) of mountain to expose underlying coal seams. Excess rock and soil laden with toxic mining byproducts are often dumped into nearby valleys, in what are called "holler fills" or "valley fills."[4][5][6]
Peer-reviewed studies show that mountaintop mining has serious environmental impacts, including loss of biodiversity, that mitigation practices cannot successfully address.[7] There are also adverse human health impacts which result from contact with affected streams or exposure to airborne toxins and dust.[7]
Learn about and take action against the destructive effects of the dirty life-cycles of coal and natural gas!
Why Mountain Justice?
- Mountain Justice is both a call to action and a request for help from the people of the Appalachian mountains. We seek to save our mountains, streams and forest from greedy coal companies. Why are we asking for help?
Over 1200 miles of streams have been buried and destroyed and countless mountains and ridge tops have been blown up–gone for all eternity. The Bush administration has altered laws to encourage and accelerate the destruction. The price of coal has doubled and the destruction of our watersheds is accelerating and spreading out like cancer. Our state and federal agencies charged with protecting our environment are liquidating our mountains.
We are losing. Our loss is not only for our own generation–but for future generations. Where there once were water producing mountains - now there are barren scraped-biologically-dead toxic wastelands. Water is going to be more important to future generations than coal. You cannot drink coal. The Pentagon has predicted than many of the future wars on our planet will not be fought over coal or oil–but for water. The lack of clean drinking water is already a global problem for humanity - as our population increases it will only get worse. The destruction of water producing mountains is not only a crime of the present–it is a very real attack on the future generations.
We cannot afford to continue losing this struggle. A few already rich coal company executives are getting wealthier at the expense of us all. The acceleration of mountain top, side and ridge removal is a curse on the future and present generations. We need your help.
We can use anything you are able to offer. If you would like to come and defend the mountains with us, please join us! To learn what we've been up to, look at our previous actions. To learn more about mountaintop removal, just look at the facts.
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