Jeff Biggers
Jeff Biggers is the author of The United States of Appalachia, and more recently, Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland (The Nation/Basic Books). Follow him on twitter: @JeffRBiggers
Articles by this author
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Views Tuesday, February 27, 2018 My Kid Doesn’t Need Permission To Walk Out My 15-year-old son texted me from the streets of Iowa City last week, as he joined other kids in a walkout to support survivors of the shooting that took place earlier this month at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. By the time they reached the historic Old Capitol of Iowa... Read more |
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Views Friday, October 27, 2017 Coal Kills And Coal Is Not Dead Amid all the “war on coal” and climate denial banter, you never hear one basic fact from either side: Coal kills. And far from the “coal is dead” trope that well-meaning environmental observers stress now, another fact is that our nation is on track to mine 785 million tons of coal this year. That... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, August 15, 2017 Trump’s Arpaio Pardon? Instead, Arizona’s Confederate Monuments Must Come Down Any pardon of disgraced and criminally convicted former Sheriff Joe Arpaio by Donald Trump would be a de facto monument to “the most egregious racial profiling in the United States” and “chronic culture of disregard for basic legal and constitutional obligations,” at least according to a federal... Read more |
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Views Friday, August 04, 2017 Dear Media: Trump’s “Beautiful, Clean Coal” Is Another Lie. Please Hold Him Accountable. Joined on stage by billionaire coal baron and Gov. Jim Justice, Donald Trump returned to West Virginia last night with another barnstorming lie that should make a Boy Scout cringe: His administration has “ended the war on beautiful, clean coal.” The August 3rd rally actually marked the 40th... Read more |
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Views Sunday, March 26, 2017 Let Us Now Praise A Coal Miner: Chuck Nelson Is An American Hero Among the hundreds of coal miners I have interviewed over the years, retired coal miner Chuck Nelson has always been among the most fearless truth-tellers in the coal country of West Virginia. An indefatigable presence at hearings, meetings, media briefings, and in his beloved mountains, Nelson’s... Read more |
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Views Thursday, March 09, 2017 Call It What It Is: Climate Cover-Up, Not Climate Denial Today’s remarks by EPA administrator Scott Pruitt that human activity is not “a primary contributor to the global warming that we see” should effectively bring an end to the term formerly known as “climate denial.” Dear media: Call it what it is—a climate cover-up. As our nation’s top official... Read more |
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Views Wednesday, October 19, 2016 Mountaintop Removal Never Ended: Coal River Mountaineers Fight On Standing in solidarity with the water protectors on the Standing Rock Sioux Nation, Coal River Mountain residents already fending off seven square miles of devastating mountaintop removal mining permits are planning a protest on Monday at the Department of Environmental Protection in Charleston,... Read more |
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Views Saturday, October 08, 2016 Hillbilly Shuffle: Don't Blame Appalachia For Trump The phenomenon of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, we’ve been told for months in the media, has been fueled by the coal-fired alienation and anger of the nation’s working-class whites. Appalachia, more than any other region, has been targeted as ground zero. And J.D. Vance’s best-selling and... Read more |
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Views Friday, April 01, 2016 Spare Me Your Coal Requiems: Time for a Reckoning With Peabody and Coal Industry As Peabody Energy teeters on the brink of bankruptcy, edging toward a Chapter II reorganization that will most likely allow it to walk away from massive reclamation and mine worker commitments, a flurry of poetic musings and giddy celebrations over of the death of Big Coal has begun to flow. Spare... Read more |
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Views Thursday, December 03, 2015 Reckoning in Appalachia: Why Coal Mining Outlaw Don Blankenship's Conviction Matters The landmark conviction of former Massey Energy CEO and coal baron Don Blankenship today on a misdemeanor conspiracy charge to violate mine safety laws is a small, but historic first step in holding mining outlaws accountable for their reckless operations. For the first time in memory for those of... Read more |