Groups unite to move nation toward clean energy

Tomorrow in the Little Village of Chicago, 50 high school students will hurdle over coal piles and race past power plants for the 2009 Coal-Olympics competition.  These respirator-clad youth weren’t just running for fun. They know that two coal plants in their backyards are making their families sick and causing global warming, and they want the Obama administration to do something about it. 

The Coal-Olympics was just one of the many local and national actions that have been part of the Power Past Coal project’s 100 Days of Action, launched on the morning after President Obama’s inauguration by 40 local, state and national groups to highlight the efforts and strength of the grassroots movement to move the country to clean and just sources of energy.  Every day since, participants have taken action by lobbying Congress to halt mountaintop removal, marching to stop new coal plants, and educating and mobilizing citizens for clean energy.

This week Power Past Coal celebrated its 50th day, already having united 101 actions from every corner of the country.

"Before, I hadn’t realized how many people were fighting my same fight, hundreds of miles away,â€ said Elouise Brown, a Navajo army veteran who has camped for three years on the site of a proposed coal plant near Farmington, New Mexico. Watch a video about Elouise here.

The nationwide effort began at November 2008 with a meeting hosted by the Alliance for Appalachia. Twenty-four different organizations from nineteen states were represented. 

With Obama’s recent efforts to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants and coal ash from coal-burning plants, it seems like the president is beginning to listen.

On Monday, citizens from Wise County, Virginia packed the Andover Methodist Church to protest a 1,300-acre mountaintop removal permit that threatens six adjacent communities and hundreds of people who live there.  Tonight, New Hampshirites will convene at the Concord Statehouse to demand a cleaner alternative to an out-of-date coal plant.

In Kentucky, actions that are part of the 100 have included I Love Mountains Day, the Walk for the Mountains, film festivals, music events, mountaintop removal tours, and more.