Coal

Cross-posted from the Coal Export Action

On Saturday, as part of the international Connect the Dots day of action organized by 350.org, activists in Missoula, MT highlighted the connection between dirty money, government, and climate change. At the Missoula Farmers Market, organizers from the Blue Skies Campaign, Occupy Missoula, and other local groups enacted a creative street theater routine to draw attention to the Montana Land Board’s support for Arch Coal at the expense of ordinary people and the climate.

What’s worse than being the #1 financier of the coal industry? Fleecing students and young people 1 trillion dollars in order to fund it. Yesterday, student debt topped an astonishing 1 trillion dollars. It’s not only the largest financial crisis ever, it all rests on our generation. What did we do? We took to the streets for 1T Day to take back our education from the clutches of Big Banks.

Yesterday was also a day when one of the worst banks saw a well-deserved day of action. Bank of America felt the ire of students across the country in the National Day of Student Action on Bank of America, and heard the demands of young people calling for an end to coal financing, home foreclosure, and crushing student debt.

Next Wednesday, earthquakes will rock our world. That's the day student debt surpasses 1 trillion dollars; the same day one of the banks backing it, Bank of America, will find itself besieged by student action across the country. April 25th is a national day of action for students to take back their education and their planet from the clutches of Bank of America. That day, we're moving our money and moving mountains.

No new coal, the long-time rallying cry of the climate movement, is officially a reality. As I wrote earlier, the EPA carbon regulations make new coal plants unfeasible. But that's really just a technicality, because climate and health activists have been enforcing their own moratorium on new coal plants for several years. It's one of the movement's biggest victories, and the political scene very nearly overlooked it.