The AFL-CIO blog reported a little while ago that black lung disease in coal miners has doubled.

Overall, 9% of miners with 25+ years of experience had developed black lung when examined in 2005-6, opposed to just 4% ten years ago. And this is almost forty years after the a federal mining law limiting the coal dust allowable in miner's air.

Obviously, this is a terrible trend - imagine if 1 in 10 people in your profession suffered a debilitating and terrible disease like black lung. Also, imagine if that profession also led to the destruction of some of our most beautiful wild places as mountaintop removal mining is doing in Appalachia, and also contributed to the world's growing global warming crisis. Seems like maybe we should find an alternative to even having this profession, no?

Sadly, that is not how our current political leaders see it. Instead, they want to expand coal mining, and have somehow managed to get the expression 'clean coal' into the public vernacular.

This new information about the increase in black lung really only underscores the point that 'clean coal' ranks up there with other concepts like "War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength."

Welcome to what may or may not be a new feature here at the EA blog: Snark Thursday. As everyone around the enviro blogosphere has been covering Bush's 'climate summit', I don't really feel it needs more commentary per se. But, I have to throw this one out.

CNN reports today that Sec. of State Condoleeza Rice (who, in the interest of full disclosure, once had an oil tanker named after her) has announced that we need to fight climate change like terrorism.

I can only assume this means the administration is going to completely ignore climate change and launch the world's most massive recycling program instead.

Zing!

Seriously though, could there be anything more hypocritical than any member of the Bush Administration calling for 'action' on climate change? Well, maybe not, but it's also a genius move on their part.

By calling for 'change' but actually pushing for 'the status quo' the Administration, yet again, gets to set the terms of the discussion, even if everyone on the world stage knows it's a complete joke, though not a particularly funny one.

I'm sure you're all thinking how terrible I am. Before you whip off the angry email, please know that I am in no way talking about immigration. I'm referring to corporate America. While poking around ExxonMobil's website, I can across this quote:

ExxonMobil believes that registering and voting, keeping informed on political matters, serving in civic bodies, and campaigning and office-holding at local, state, and national levels are important rights and responsibilities of the citizens of a democracy.

According to Open Secrets, ExxonMobil contributed $9,253,864 to candidates between 1990 and 2006. As that figure represents more than 50 times what I've earned working my entire life, I've donated substantially less to political campaigns and parties. And I'm an actual citizen. Pretty frustrating.

The thing is, the courts deemed ages ago that a corporation has all of the rights of a flesh and blood American citizen, but has severely limited their responsibilities. So, a corporation can donate seemingly through the roof because they're a 'citizen', but can also get away with spilling millions of gallons of oil into our oceans and get away nearly scott free.

Imagine if say, your next door neighbor took a 55-gallon barrel of crude oil, and poured it directly into your hot water heater? Odds are you could have them charged with aggravated assault at the minimum. Not so for corporate America.

This is perhaps one of the greatest legal injustices of the last century. But beyond that, corporate America has taken the cue and all of the worst companies have a section on their website devoted to 'corporate citizenship'. Using the word 'citizenship', which most people associate as a good thing, they've hornwinked the public into thinking that they're just regular joes, or as State Farm describes themselves, 'Good Neighbors'.

Look at BP. Beyond Petroleum, right? Wrong. They recently proposed increasing the toxic dumping into Lake Michigan. Thankfully a number of state environmental groups responded quickly, and helped get the proposal stalled (check out their excellent ad here).

The bottom line is that corporate America deserves none of the privileges of citizenship, until they embrace the responsibilities as well.

I found out about the Taos Mountain Film Fest recently, and it sounds pretty great. If you live in New Mexico, you should go check it out.

It runs from Oct. 5-7, and their website lists their mission as:

Taos Mountain Film Festival features films of adventure, culture and wildlife of the world's remote regions. Mountain Film also examines threats to the environment and human rights.

The Festival presents mountaineering films and personalities, as well as symposia, photography exhibits, and readings from mountaineering literature.

Through still and moving images, Taos Mountain Film Festival is committed to conveying the inspiration to be found in wild places.

There may be no better town on Earth to hold this festival than Taos, New Mexico. Taos has a special blend of landscape... everything from high Alpine peaks to upper Sonoran desert. The terrain affords the outdoors enthusiasts world-class skiing, hiking, climbing, mountain biking, rafting and kayaking.

Through its remote location, pristine air quality and low-impact development, Taos has earned the reputation of an environmentally aware community. Taos also has deservedly gained a name for having a 'spiritual awareness.' These facets of Taos character are reflected in the festival programming.

Pretty good indeed. Check it out.

In an interesting turn of events, the Nunavut government is cutting its polar bear hunt by nearly a third.

This is a fairly surprising move from the community who launched a massive PR campaign last year to convince people that cutting the polar bear hunt would be detrimental to the health of the tribe.

A few short months ago, they were decrying listing the polar bear on the U.S. endangered species list, and now they're voluntarily limiting themselves.

Aside from this, of course, I'm extremely happy that the Nunavut have turned around on their views, and thankfully are doing so based on the science of polar bear species' decline, and not on politics.

The net result is that their original hunt would've gone after 56 bears, and will go down to 38, and if there is no improvement in population data, down to 8 next year.

I meant to write about this last week, but 700Mountains.org released the results of their survey on MTR last week.

The results are not terribly shocking. Two-thirds of the people are against Bush's proposed weakening of environmental regulation around MTR. 71% say they would oppose MTR if it was happening within 50 miles of their home, and 77% agreed with the statement that the Bush Administration should focus on conservation, not more mining.

But, you know what was shocking to me?

On an unaided basis, almost half (45%) of Americans say that they 'have heard of a coal mining industry practice known as 'mountain top removal,' which involves the leveling of an entire mountain to get at caol.

This ridiculously low percentage is exactly why we need to get the message about this issue out far and wide.

Yesterday, a federal judge in Vermont bolstered state's rights to limit tailpipe emissions. Vermont along with a dozen other states has followed California's lead in limiting tailpipe emissions. These limits on greenhouse gases could actually have the impact of increasing fuel economy, a move the Congress has failed to do for over two decades.

This is an amazing ruling because the reality of the market dictates that if automakers have to make one kind of car for thirteen of fourteen states, it's unlikely they'll make ANOTHER car for the rest of the country - particular if 10% of the country's population lives in one of those thirteen states.

Obviously, this could be a major boon in the fight against global warming and CO2 emissions.

The LA Times reports:

Kim Custer, the communications director for the Assn. of International Automobile Manufacturers, which includes Toyota, Nissan, Honda and other foreign firms, said the association was worried that the country could "end up with a patchwork of different regulations as more and more states opt for the California regulations."

This is ridiculous. First of all, the states in question are basically copying the California emissions regulations, so there would be no patchwork, it would all be the same! Secondly, maybe, just maybe, if the auto industry hadn't fought any and every type of emissions legislation for the last....forever...and had compromised, then groups wouldn't have taken it to state governments to make change. I'm sorry, but they bought Congress, and they got what they paid for. Now they're just sad they couldn't afford all the state houses too. If you listen closely, you'll hear the world's smallest violin, playing softly for the auto industry today.

There's a great article in Grist today written by Rev. Allen Johnson talking about his work to organize Christians into fighting mountaintop removal mining.

I couldn't applaud this effort more. For way too long, the environmental and religious movements in America have seemingly been at odds. Unfortunately, environmentalists seem all to often to write off 'Christians' as 'George Bush-style cronies', and Christians seem to write off environmentalists as 'Gaia worshiping tree-hugging pagans'. Obviously, neither side is correct in their gross over generalization of each other.

The ironic thing is that the majority of Americans identify themselves as having a level of spiritual faith, and the majority of Americans support environmental efforts like wilderness protection, clean air & water, and fighting global warming - so why on earth would these two segments of society be at odds?

I know it's a bit of a cliche, but I have to point out the media's interpretation of both groups. When writing stories about Christianity, they're often described as 'right-wing christians', and a large percentage of stories about 'environmentalists' focus on the fringe elements of that movement - be they direct action activists, or the Sheryl Crowe-use-one-sheet-of-toilet-paper variety.

Of course, my experience has been that when religious and environmental groups actually talk to each other, there are way more similarities than differences.

We're starting to see some good coverage on mountaintop removal mining. Today, Wired News did a great story on the dangers of MTR.

Wired reports:

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, MTR destroyed more than 1,200 miles of Appalachia's streams and 7 percent of its forests between 1985 and 2001. Approximately 800 square miles of mountains were leveled.

According to the EPA, waste from MTR will bury another 1,000 miles of streams in the next decade. Mulhern says the effects are also felt downstream.

The EPA estimates that at least 2,300 square miles of forest -- an area the size of Delaware -- will be lost by 2010. In the past, cleared mountaintops have been vegetatively reclaimed by grass and shrubs rather than the region's characteristic hardwood forests.

Frightening news indeed.

It came as not much of a shock that in meeting with Australian Prime Minister John Howard, that President Bush called for a massive increase in nuclear power as a solution to global warming.

They then proposed, boldly some would say, that any emissions limits placed would have to be non-binding. Admittedly, I've never passed a law before, but would say, speed limits work if they were non-binding? What about theft and murder laws?

Yet another example of the complete and total lack of U.S. leadership on coming anywhere near solving global warming. Sadly, it's turning into a world leader problem, not just a Mr. Bush problem.

One of the scariest things to me about mountaintop removal mining is the reality that if we let this happen in Appalachia, we're opening up the doors for it in our own neighborhoods. What if they found coal in the Rockies? More gold in the Sierras? What if they do these things where you live?

So the next step in our campaign to stop mountaintop removal mining is to make sure it's known how much we love and treasure our mountains - so, on Columbus Day weekend, we want to have people around the country hiking up their favorite mountains or hills to make our voices heard. Obviously, we need people to host these hikes - click here if you think you can help out.

These hikes should be pretty easy and fun. Just let me know where it'll be, and when. Then, I'll invite other folks from Environmental Action to join in, and you can invite your friends and family too. Then, take a hike!

Once at the top of a mountain or hill (or Central Park, for you New Yorkers) take a picture of your group with a sign calling for an end to mountaintop removal mining, and we'll get them out all over the internet, and into the hands of the media and elected officials.

I think these events will be really fun, and I definitely hope you'll join in!

I've got to admit that so far I've been amazingly underwhelmed by the media coverage of mountaintop removal mining. For example, a Google news search of 'mountaintop removal' brings up 110 stories. A Google news search on 'Paris Hilton' brings up 6,525, Burger King brings 1,807, and iPhone a whopping 11,337.

This is a little ridiculous.

Thankfully, what little coverage does exist, has been quite good. For instance, The Boston Globe editorialized against the new Bush proposal today, and the NYT ran six letters on the subject last week.

But, let's face it, this isn't nearly enough coverage.

And, truth be told, it's not just the 'mainstream media' failing to cover the issue. So far I've found very little coverage in any of the major political blogs or online outlets, save Grist, and in particular David, 'coal is the death of us all' Roberts, who have stuck by this story for quite some time.

The bottom line is that this is an issue that needs to be picked up on. It may not be as (forgive the pun) sexy as the Sen. Craig story, or seem as important as the Gonzales issue, but the bottom line is that we're allowing the coal industry to run roughshod through Appalachia, and the people fighting this battle down there need our help, our encouragement, and our support.

So, I'm throwing down the gauntlet - talk about this issue. Blog about it, write letters to newspapers about it, talk to Presidential candidates when they stump in your town, and dear God in heaven, if you haven't done so, please tell the Bush Administration you oppose an expansion of mountaintop removal mining.

Because you know what? This is kind of activity is not acceptable in ANYBODY'S backyard.

It was announced today that former Senator John Edwards got the backing of the United Mine Workers of America, which poses an interesting conundrum.

It's true that all too often the environmental movement and the union movement find themselves on opposite sides of a battle, which is a problem I think needs to be overcome.

I don't buy the arguments that 'jobs leave America because the unions are so demanding'. I believe they leave the country because of the greediness of the corporate higher-ups and the desire to squeeze every nickel out of the bottom line. I also don't buy the argument that environmental legislation costs a significant number of jobs.

I'm not suggesting there's no legitimate tension here, but I believe it's been exacerbated by the same folks who perpetuate the myth that unions cost us jobs - the corporate higher ups. Remember, the auto industry swore up and down that fuel economy would cost auto jobs, and the timber industry was successful at getting people to believe that if we protected an endangered species, we'd lose all sorts of logging jobs.

All that being said, I'm concerned about this endorsement, and what it means for Sen. Edwards environmental legitimacy. From Appalachian Voices:

United Mine Workers union is not in favor of a complete ban on mountaintop removal mining. "Property owners should have the right to do whatever they want with their land," said Phil Smith, UMWA director of communication . People who own property surrounding mountaintop removal mining should be protected from the effects of blasting and trucks going up and down the mountains. If homes are damaged as a result of blasting, fair market compensation should be given for that. The land should be returned to its original contours, and the original topsoil replaced to begin to return some type of flora that was there originally."

It seems that once Edwards gets the support of a massive constituency that's not in support of a ban on MTR, it's pretty unlikely he'll support it. We'll see, but I'm not optimistic.