Mountaintop Removal Destroys Wildlife and the Way of Life for Local Residents

Imagine earth-shaking explosions, rock and debris flying through the air, and mountains blasted to smithereens by explosions 100 times more powerful than those that blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City.

When the dust settles, the remaining land looks like another planet: no trees, no plants, no animals - just a barren moonscape.

These are the shocking images of Jeff Barrie's documentary, Kilowatt Ours, that prompted me to write the song, "Don't Blow Up the Mountain."

Corporate Curriculum: Teaching the 'Science of Death'

For more than a decade, writing for numerous newspapers, magazines and websites, I have attempted to cast a light on "industrial strength" science curriculum: "that curriculum of the corporation, by the corporation and for a corporation's profits...shall indeed hasten the rate of destruction of the earth's resources and indeed, people may perish from the earth." I have been an utter failure at convincing many in the environmental community of the importance of reaching out to these 55 million students as future voting citizens that must be ecologically literate and that

The Sierra Forests Can Prevent Global Warming

California's Global Warming Solutions Act is a landmark attempt to cap greenhouse gas emissions across all sectors of the state's economy. Signed into law in September 2006, the California Air Resources Board is figuring out the precise formula by which the state will reduce emissions 25 percent by 2020.

Imagine a grand formula that somehow left out - cars. Or industrial manufacturing. Leaving out one of these huge emissions sources would render any climate legislation toothless.

Bees, Trees, Wind and Dynamite

There's a showdown in West Virginia today pitting old dirty energy against renewables -- and one side is armed with explosives.

Coal giant Massey Energy is planning as early as today to begin blowing up the mountains in the Bee Tree Branch area of Coal River Mountain, West Virginia. More specifically, Massey is planning to blow off the top of a local mountain, push all the debris into the surrounding valleys and repeat until they hit a big fat coal seam.