are you connected to mountaintop removal?

[lyrainverse]

ILoveMountains.org has this cool tool that lets you see how your electricity use is related to mountaintop removal. Enter in your zip code to find out if your utility company gets its power from MTR coal, and even see which mines it comes from. Being in Kentucky, of course my coal from MTR. All the more reason to have my electronics plugged into

Comments

[gfrancie]

YAY, my zip doesn't do that. Though most of Washington is all about hydropower (which has its good and bad sides) and has been for over a century.

[lyrainverse]

Hooray! If you're interested in seeing what it's like with a zip that does get coal from MTR, try 41011, my old home zip. There are a number of mines there.

[gfrancie]

that must be so hard to deal with.
Bad for the land and bad for the people.

[vwlphb]

Both power suppliers to my zipcode do, unfortunately. Is there anything I can do, other than using less electricity?

[lyrainverse]

There are a few bills in Congress that aim to protect the mountains. One is the Clean Water Protection Act, which reverses a Bush Administration rule change that says that mining waste is "fill material" and not waste and therefore can be dumped into streams. You can learn more here. There will soon be an action around the Bush Admin's reversal of the Stream Buffer Zone ruling, which says mining waste can't be dumped within 100 ft of streams.

There are also a number of more local projects, like Coal River Wind which aims to put a wind farm on a mountaintop instead of a strip mine.

The network I work for, www.theCLEAN.org, promotes a lot of these actions. If you want to stay on top of them, you can sign up at the website. (You won't be inundated with emails, I promise. We send out maybe once a month right now.)

Thanks for your interest! I could go on all day about this issue, really, so I'll stop now.

[particle_person]

All the more reason to have my electronics plugged into power strips

Wait, what does that have to do with saving power?

[lyrainverse]

Certain electronics eat up power even when they're off (like TVs and DVD players). If you ever lived in a dorm, it's why they told you to unplug everything when you left for holidays (well at least they did at my school). Plugging them into a power strip lets you cut off their power when you turn off the power strip. It's a little thing, but it's something, especially since I'm just a renter.

[particle_person]

Ah, I see. I knew most electronics use power when they're nominally off, but I hadn't thought of using power strips like that. Interesting idea.

[evilbearhunter]

Also highly recommended -- keep your powerstrip on your desk instead of on the floor. I never turned anything off, even though I knew I SHOULD, when I kept it on the floor. It's so much easier now that I moved it.

[evilbearhunter]

Can I express my deep love for ilovemountains.org? And you, for being a total badass.

[lyrainverse]

Awww thanks, but the real people who rock are the team at Appalachian Voices who administer the site. I'm just spreading the word!

[evilbearhunter]

Don't sell yourself short -- spreading the word is huge. I honestly believe that anyone who understands how MTR works won't support "clean coal," not like that is even a thing.

[venice_diaries]

Damn, I get some power from them, and I'm all the way across the country. Sigh.