Wow,

Some real despair being expressed here. I can empathize; I've felt it many times, but please trust that you don't have to feel that way. "The therapy for despair is action," said psychologist Judith Lipton.

If you do nothing you will continue to feel depressed, hopeless, empty and despairing, there is virtually no chance at all that we will win, and after, you will wonder if you HAD done something, could you have helped? Then you can add guilt and shame to the list of horrible things you'll be feeling.

If you do something you will almost certainly feel much better, and there IS a chance we will win. However small it is, you will still be left with feeling better, and you will also have the satisfaction of knowing that you did everything you could. And even if we lose you will have the satisfaction of saying to us annoying pollyannas "I told you so."

Give it a try. Think it's bad no one pays attention to Appalachian coal country? We're paying attention now. Commit to writing a series of update articles for Common Dreams, Grist.org, Sierra Club online, and other blogs, websites and email newsletters. Start you own blog, alone or with a community. Make sure people do pay attention.

Start with something small, then do something else small, and then do something else small. Never stop.

snydly
Dr. Hansen will be a great resource for their lawyer, Mr. Johnson, even if he is not allowed to testify. The IPCC ice core data charts show the present buildup of CO2/GHG well past historical norms. They also show that the earth has experienced climate reversals in the past that were sudden and violent, but survivable by humans. The activists are on the front lines of the effort to save human civilization---millions of lives---from a climate reversal that, by virtue of the excess CO2 super-charging planetary warming beyond historical levels, will be unsurvivable. The activists are shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater THAT IS ACTUALLY ON FIRE. THEY SHOULD BE COMMENDED AND SUPPORTED BY THE COMMUNITY, NOT ARRESTED.
Show the judge the chart from Gore's book, he/she can read a chart and analyze the simple, confirmed data gathered by reputable and peer-reviewed scientists.
For that matter, so should Dominion Power.
I would like to believe that DP is operated by people who are different from those who have run our banking system into the ground. Their actions will tell us. This court case will tell us.

(Coal Fired) Drought moving into Kentucky, West Virginia

Associated Press : Saturday, Oct. 18, 2008

In parts of the South, a lack of water remains a big concern. About six counties in northwestern South Carolina are still in exceptional drought, the most severe classification, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Western North Carolina and northeastern Georgia remained in extreme drought conditions.

About half of Mecklenburg County was in moderate drought; the other half was rated abnormally dry. Staff reports
CHARLESTON, W.Va. The drought that has plagued the South for more than a year is creeping north.

Extreme drought conditions, the second-worst possible, have spread into Kentucky, and severe conditions have returned to West Virginia and southwest Virginia, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

“The last three months have sucked every bit of moisture we've had,” said Ben Webster of the West Virginia Division of Forestry.

In eastern Kentucky, retailers are sending bottled water to drought-stricken Magoffin County after its main water source, the Licking River, fell to low levels and residents were told to conserve tap water.

The county's school system is serving meals on disposable plates with plastic utensils. Lunch trays have been temporarily shelved to save on dishwashing.

QED

Back to the topic.

Sorry to say, but the justice system of the UK or Ireland is vastly fairer than that in the us. Acquittals for civil disobedient actions like the Kingsnorth 6 or the Shannon-ploughshares will NEVER happen in the USA until we have a revolution and new institutions. The US justice system is corrupt, there is little hope or getting fairness from it.

Surely, Dr. Hansen isn't so naive that a US Judge will ever allow him to testify! The judge will absolute prohibit any such activity - and will kick off the jury any one who isn't a global-warming denialist.

Outside of largely unsympathetic coverage in the tiny towns of Wise or Norton, the trial will get none of the publicity that the UK trial did.

tmullins:
Being a native of West Virginia I can certainly empathize with you.For more than a century,W.Va.,Va. and Kentucky have been raped of their natural beauty to enrich Big Coal.
Fifty years ago I thought that nothing could be worse than strip mining.Little did we know.

"... Dominion, the No 2 utility in the U.S. ..."

Gee, you learn something everyday. Will have to look up its holdings and find out why it is No 2 and who is No 1 and No 3, etcetera.

Such power the "managers" and stockholders of corporations and corporate conglomerates have to destroy the earth without blinking an eye, likely without giving much consideration to overloading the atmosphere with CO2. What does it matter to desecrate [to violate the sanctity of] beloved mountains by lopping off their tops and shaving off trees and foliage for roads and heavy machinery to pass? "Plant a little grass later ... good as new," so say the press releases.

What does it matter to scalp mountains and hills and and dump the debris over the side? What does it matter to clog and pollute sustaining streams and rivers cherished by generations going back to the first human inhabitants here and rendering uninhabitable the natural habitats of countless creatures and countless forms of plant life?

What does it matter indeed?

The Unconscious will give you all the reasons in the world why this is good for the pocketbook, for the stockholders, for the area people, for Wall Street, for the nation, for the world. The Unconscious will give you all the reasons in the world why this is progress and progress is important for continued growth of the economy ... the Gross National Product: "The Gross National Product (GNP) is the value of all the goods and services produced in an economy, plus the value of the goods and services imported, less the goods and services exported." For the Unconscious this seems to be quite a meaningful definition. For the Conscious, it is horribly ... even wickedly ... limited.

If all the trees are cut down, taken to the mill and made into board feet, distributed and sold, etcetera, what counts are the number and amounts of transactions covering everything having to do with the whole OPERATION suffered by Gaia/Mother Earth, Planet Earth, whatever you want to call it. What does not count at all is that now where once trees grew, doing and being all the things that they did and were, there is nothing too much there anymore. That is never on the ledger, the big empty place of old stumps and scraggly roots and some punky limb wood that once was a forest teeming with life--color, sound, aromas, births and deaths, and everything in between--a whole world unto itself.

The Conscious, in touch with some deeper core of themselves, struggle with this everyday; try to do something to help everyday, even if it is a small, but Conscious, choice.

But it is not just forests; it is mangled young men and women on battlefields; it is indigenous peoples herded into refugee camps where they go hungry, thirst, fall prey to disease and are subject to all kinds of dangerous and vicious indignities because some Unconscious human beings from particular nations or multi-national corporate conglomerates want something from their land -- maybe oil or minerals or lumber or pharmaceutical plants or they just want the land and the streams to build a new Cola factory, for example, ... because labor is cheap, and the millions of people who live there can be taught to drink Cola instead of water.

Lot of money to be made passing out AK-57's and ammunition and land mines and all kinds of equipment to opposing groups ... the dictator's regular army against the rebels who are objecting to their lands being taken away, ravaged, polluted, plundered.

The Unconscious would continue to have it so ... because they are Unconscious, no matter what fancy words they use about the economy and diplomacy and agreements and bringing freedom and democracy to others. The Unconscious can never acknowledge that "The Other" might have a reasonable beef; instead the Unconscious label the opposition, especially the ones that fight back, as just another variety of terrorist.

My respect and gratitude to the Kingnorth protestors, Dr. James Hansen, the so young and so brave Dominion 11 protestors--Conscious people.

Throughout history there have always been Conscious people and usually they have had a hard time. It's not easy putting oneself on the line, ... chaining oneself to a barrel, smearing one's own blood on the nose cone of a missile, walking across the country with hundreds of others, storming the gates of government buildings or palaces, standing still while someone beats you over the head with a club while a dog bites into your calf, ...

I suspect there used to be far fewer Conscious people than now, although I don't really know that, but last I researched Conscious people may be about 8 to 10 per cent of the world's population now, and that doesn't mean that that 8 to 10 per cent are all chaining themselves to barrels or fences everyday or even just handing out leaflets somewhere.

What will it take or will it ever take? I don't know.

I do know that some days when I feel the shudderings of the earth and hear and feel the anguished cries, moans, shrieking of so many, I can hardly stand it, ... especially up againt the kinds of grotesque comedies that are marketed as tough and honest debates or fair and just diplomatic efforts with "The Other" for us to ponder, perhaps support, in the interests of keeping us safe or to save our respective skins ... So much of this stuff is Unconscious, hypocritical and smarmy; a little of it sometimes shows the light of Consciousness, with the acknowledgement that this increasingly fragile planet of ours needs some truly Conscious attention by a good number of truly Conscious people whose visions and implemented know-how can help wake up the Unconscious majorities so we do have a viable earth fifty years from now.

++++++++++

Respect and gratitude also to many of the commondreams commentors from whom I frequently learn much about Consciousness ...

We tilt at windmills. We will burn fossil fuels until there are none left. We will continue to pollute the earth, the air and the water until it is all nothing but toxic sludge. I believe the oxygen content of the atmosphere will begin to decline due to all of this combustion and destruction of oxygen producing plant life along with continued massive output of CO2 from the burning. Its a juggernaut and we will not be able to stop it. Sorry to make it sound so hopeless but thats just the way I see it. I'm not saying we shouldn't work against it, but I see our efforts as a losing battle. It was a beautiful planet but it has been overrun by the human bacteria.

-- EKATON --

I am a bitter, angry, frustrated resident of Wise County, Virginia . We hear on the news about people loosing their homes to eminent domain, foreclosure, wildfires, hurricanes. Here in the Appalachian Mountains due to a redneck mentality, our home, heritage and culture is being destroyed all for the love of money. 350 million year old Appalachian Mountains are being blown up so we can ship the coal to China to power their CO2 belching power plants to power their factories so we can buy cheap toxic products. The schools in Wise County are so old and outdated they can't even power up the latest educational technology our students deserve. 25% of Wise County is destroyed, land, water, air. There are mountain top removal permits going through the motion to destroy 33% more of our county. The Wise County Virginia web site proclaims "WISE COUNTY, THE SAFEST PLACE ON EARTH". This community is being poisoned and polluted with toxins and disease at our expense, breaking our backs and bank accounts. Wise County should look more like Dubai than a toxic waste dump. Sean Hannity says the GOP is the party of God. Well Mr. Hannity, I doubt He put these beautiful Southwest Virginia mountains here to be decapitated all for greed.

http://www.wisecountyissues.com

Big Coal can become as radioactive as big tobacco or the current bailout of Wall Street. The public is mad at both right now. Once Big Coal becomes the typhoid Mary of contributors no politician is going to want to receive any money from them and the neccessary greening of our energy system will take off.

The good thing about a Dem president though is having the ability and popular support to legislate against campaign bribes from coal, nukes, M/I/I or any other Big Money "donor".

Obama is coal's biggest friend. Center for Responsive Politics reports Obama accepted 500,000 for both Senate and Presidential runs.