Cranky Cindy wrote about mountaintop coal mining, and the environmental disaster is causes.
Universalist fun fact: the much-reported town deluged by coal ash, Harriman, Tennessee, was the site of the church extension project of the Young People’s Christian Union, a predecessor to Unitarian Universalist young adult ministries.
Not-so-fun fact: coal is not clean. It pollutes the air, and in mining districts it pollutes the water and soil.
And if you use grid electricity in the United States, you’re probably a part of the system that allows this to happen. That includes the power that runs my computer. So I try to use less, and learn more about mountaintop mining. Next comes the advocacy.
Last week, I attended the Nonprofit Technology Conference in San Francisco for work. One of the sessions I attended was about online mapping tools. One of the presenters was from iLoveMountains.org, which uses maps and video to make the connections between mountaintop mining and your electricity.
Learn those connections. Use less electricity. Advocate for cleaner technologies and mining communities.
http://www.ILovemountains.org were the folks that I briefly mentioned (sans name of organization) in my post http://uu-ing.blogspot.com/2009/04/rural-heritage.html
They seem to do a pretty effective presentation and yes, they target the information from the mountain to the power plant.
Scott wrote:
-snip-
“Universalist fun fact: the much-reported town deluged by coal ash, Harriman, Tennessee, was the site of the church extension project of the Young People’s Christian Union, a predecessor to Unitarian Universalist young adult ministries.”
The YPCU was also the ancestor of LRY (Liberal Religious Youth), the youth and young adult organization for Unitarian Universalist youth and young adults that predated the UUA merger.
The YPCU became the Universalist Youth Fellowship (UYF) in 1941. The UYF merged with American Unitarian Youth (AYU) in 1953 to form LRY. In the early 1980s, YRUU arose out of the ashes of LRY.
A timeline of this history can be found online here:
http://www.lryer.org/uuyouthhistory/UU_Youth_History_Essay/docs/timeline.gif
A collection of other UU youth history resources can be found online at the following links:
http://www.uua.org/aboutus/governance/boardtrustees/youthministry/14738.shtml
http://www.lryer.org/uuyouthhistory/UU_Youth_History_Essay/!cindx.html