Big Coal

Author: Jeff Goodell
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0547526628
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 357

Book Description
New York Times–Bestselling Author:“Should be ready by anyone who owns a microwave, or an iPod, or a table lamp, which is to say everyone.” —Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sixth Extinction A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year Coal is still a significant source of power in the United States—and coal mining is still a deadly and environmentally destructive industry. Much of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere each year comes from coal-fired power plants, and in recent decades air pollution from coal plants has killed more than half a million Americans. In this eye-opening call to action, Jeff Goodell explains the costs and consequences of America’s addiction to coal and discusses how we can kick the habit. “[A] compelling indictment . . . powerful.” —The New York Times Book Review “Goodell’s description of the mining-related deaths, the widespread health consequences of burning coal and the impact on our planet’s increasingly fragile ecosystem make for compelling reading, but . . . are not what lift this book out of the ordinary. That distinction belongs to Goodell’s fieldwork, which takes him to Atlanta, West Virginia, Wyoming, China and beyond.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Goodell does a first-rate job of balancing environmental concerns with interviews from the human faces associated with ‘Big Coal’.” —Library Journal

Big Coal

Author: Guy Pearse
Publisher: NewSouth
ISBN: 9781742233031
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Australia's dirtiest habit is its addiction to coal. But is our dependence on it a road to prosperity or a dead end? Are we hooked for life? And who is profiting from our addiction?

Thunder on the Mountain

Author: Peter A. Galuszka
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1250000211
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Book Description
The searing true story of the rise, fall, and resurrection of Massey Energy, and the negligence that led to the death of 29 miners, exposing the coal-black motivations that fuel the ongoing war for the world's energy future.

The Coal Truth

Author: David Ritter
Publisher: University of Western Australia Press
ISBN: 9781742589824
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Book Description
Since 2012, the fight to stop the opening of the vast Galilee coal basin has emerged as an iconic pivot of the Australian climate and environment movement. The Coal Truth provides a timely and colourful contribution to one of the most important struggles in our national history - over the future of the coal industry. Written by an environmental insider with an eye on the world his daughters will inherit, The Coal Truth is told with wit and verve, drawing in other specialist voices to bring to life the contours of a contest that the people of Australia can't afford to lose. Contributors include: Adrian Burragubba, Tara Moss and Berndt Sellheim, Lesley Hughes, John Quiggin, Hilary Bambrick, Ruchira Talukdar and Geoffrey Cousins. This book will be of interest of anyone interested in environmental studies, activism, politics, and Australian studies.

Combating Mountaintop Removal

Author: Bryan T. McNeil
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252093461
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 218

Book Description
Drawing on powerful personal testimonies of the hazards of mountaintop removal in southern West Virginia, Combating Mountaintop Removal critically examines the fierce conflicts over this violent and increasingly prevalent form of strip mining. Bryan T. McNeil documents the changing relationships among the coal industry, communities, environment, and economy from the perspective of local grassroots activist organizations and their broader networks. Focusing on Coal River Mountain Watch (CRMW), an organization composed of individuals who have personal ties to the coal industry in the region, the study reveals a turn away from once-strong traditional labor unions and the emergence of community-based activist organizations. By framing social and moral arguments in terms of the environment, these innovative hybrid movements take advantage of environmentalism's higher profile in contemporary politics. In investigating the local effects of globalization and global economics, McNeil tracks the profound reimagining of social and personal ideas such as identity, history, and landscape and considers their roles in organizing an agenda for progressive community activism.

Moving Mountains

Author: Penny Loeb
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813172527
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Book Description
Deep in the heart of the southern West Virginia coalfields, one of the most important environmental and social empowerment battles in the nation has been waged for the past decade. Fought by a heroic woman struggling to save her tiny community through a landmark lawsuit, this battle, which led all the way to the halls of Congress, has implications for environmentally conscious people across the world. The story begins with Patricia Bragg in the tiny community of Pie. When a deep mine drained her neighbors’ wells, Bragg heeded her grandmother’s admonition to “fight for what you believe in” and led the battle to save their drinking water. Though she and her friends quickly convinced state mining officials to force the coal company to provide new wells, Bragg’s fight had only just begun. Soon large-scale mining began on the mountains behind her beloved hollow. Fearing what the blasting off of mountaintops would do to the humble homes below, she joined a lawsuit being pursued by attorney Joe Lovett, the first case he had ever handled. In the case against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Bragg v. Robertson), federal judge Charles Haden II shocked the coal industry by granting victory to Joe Lovett and Patricia Bragg and temporarily halting the practice of mountaintop removal. While Lovett battled in court, Bragg sought other ways to protect the resources and safety of coalfield communities, all the while recognizing that coal mining was the lifeblood of her community, even of her own family (her husband is a disabled miner). The years of Bragg v. Robertson bitterly divided the coalfields and left many bewildered by the legal wrangling. One of the state’s largest mines shut down because of the case, leaving hardworking miners out of work, at least temporarily. Despite hurtful words from members of her church, Patricia Bragg battled on, making the two-hour trek to the legislature in Charleston, over and over, to ask for better controls on mine blasting. There Bragg and her friends won support from delegate Arley Johnson, himself a survivor of one of the coalfield’s greatest disasters. Award-winning investigative journalist Penny Loeb spent nine years following the twists and turns of this remarkable story, giving voice both to citizens, like Patricia Bragg, and to those in the coal industry. Intertwined with court and statehouse battles is Patricia Bragg’s own quiet triumph of graduating from college summa cum laude in her late thirtie and moving her family out of welfare and into prosperity and freedom from mining interests. Bragg’s remarkable personal triumph and the victories won in Pie and other coalfield communities will surprise and inspire readers.

Soul Full of Coal Dust

Author: Chris Hamby
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316299499
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 444

Book Description
In a devastating and urgent work of investigative journalism, Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hamby uncovers the tragic resurgence of black lung disease in Appalachia, its Big Coal cover-up, and the resilient mining communities who refuse to back down. Decades ago, a grassroots uprising forced Congress to enact long-overdue legislation designed to virtually eradicate black lung disease and provide fair compensation to coal miners stricken with the illness. Today, however, both promises remain unfulfilled. Levels of disease have surged, the old scourge has taken an aggressive new form, and ailing miners and widows have been left behind by a dizzying legal system, denied even modest payments and medical care. In this devastating and urgent work of investigative journalism, Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hamby traces the unforgettable story of how these trends converge in the lives of two men: Gary Fox, a black lung-stricken West Virginia coal miner determined to raise his family from poverty, and John Cline, an idealistic carpenter and rural medical clinic worker who becomes a lawyer in his fifties. Opposing them are the lawyers at the coal industry’s go-to law firm; well-credentialed doctors who often weigh in for the defense, including a group of radiologists at Johns Hopkins; and Gary’s former employer, Massey Energy, the region’s largest coal company, run by a cantankerous CEO often portrayed in the media as a dark lord of the coalfields. On the line in Gary and John’s longshot legal battle are fundamental principles of fairness and justice, with consequences for miners and their loved ones throughout the nation. Taking readers inside courtrooms, hospitals, homes tucked in Appalachian hollows, and dusty mine tunnels, Hamby exposes how coal companies have not only continually flouted a law meant to protect miners from deadly amounts of dust but also enlisted well-credentialed doctors and lawyers to help systematically deny much-needed benefits to miners. The result is a legal and medical thriller that brilliantly illuminates how a band of laborers — aided by a small group of lawyers, doctors and lay advocates, often working out of their homes or in rural clinics and tiny offices – challenged one of the world's most powerful forces, Big Coal, and won. A deeply troubling yet ultimately triumphant work, Soul Full of Coal Dust is a necessary and timely book about injustice and resistance.

Coal Wars

Author: Richard Martin
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1466879246
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 284

Book Description
Since the late 18th century, when it emerged as a source of heating and, later, steam power, coal has brought untold benefits to mankind. Even today, coal generates almost 45 percent of the world's power. Our modern technological society would be inconceivable without coal and the energy it provides. Unfortunately, that society will not survive unless we wean ourselves off coal. The largest single source of greenhouse gases, coal is responsible for 43 percent of the world's carbon emissions. Richard Martin, author of SuperFuel, argues that to limit catastrophic climate change, we must find a way to power our world with less polluting energy sources, and we must do it in the next couple of decades—or else it is "game over." It won't be easy: as coal plants shut down across the United States, and much of Europe turns to natural gas, coal use is growing in the booming economies of Asia— particularly China and India. Even in Germany, where nuclear power stations are being phased out in the wake of the Fukushima accident, coal use is growing. Led by the Sierra Club and its ambitious "Beyond Coal" campaign, environmentalists hope to drastically reduce our dependence on coal in the next decade. But doing so will require an unprecedented contraction of an established, lucrative, and politically influential worldwide industry. Big Coal will not go gently. And its decline will dramatically change lives everywhere—from Appalachian coal miners and coal company executives to activists in China's nascent environmental movement. Based on a series of journeys into the heart of coal land, from Wyoming to West Virginia to China's remote Shanxi Province, hundreds of interviews with people involved in, or affected by, the effort to shrink the industry, and deep research into the science, technology, and economics of the coal industry, Coal Wars chronicles the dramatic stories behind coal's big shutdown—and the industry's desperate attempts to remain a global behemoth. A tour de force of literary journalism, Coal Wars will be a milestone in the climate change battle.

Coal

Author: Mark C. Thurber
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 150951404X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 117

Book Description
By making available the almost unlimited energy stored in prehistoric plant matter, coal enabled the industrial age – and it still does. Coal today generates more electricity worldwide than any other energy source, helping to drive economic growth in major emerging markets. And yet, continued reliance on this ancient rock carries a high price in smog and greenhouse gases. We use coal because it is cheap: cheap to scrape from the ground, cheap to move, cheap to burn in power plants with inadequate environmental controls. In this book, Mark Thurber explains how coal producers, users, financiers, and technology exporters drive this supply chain, while fragmented environmental movements battle for full incorporation of environmental costs into the global calculus of coal. Delving into the politics of energy versus the environment at local, national, and international levels, Thurber paints a vivid picture of the multi-faceted challenges associated with continued coal production and use in the twenty-first century.

Big Brutus, the Kansas Coal Shovel

Author: Brenda Eck
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781939054333
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 24

Book Description
Big Brutus put the oooohs and aaahs in the backyard of the Heartlands! Miles before you reach this retired giant, you can see it on the horizon south of West Mineral, Kansas. BIG BRUTUS FACTS - Designed and built by Bucyrus-Erie for the Pittsburg & Midway (P&M) Coal Mining Company - 150 railroad cars were needed to bring all the parts - Bucyrus Erie Model 1850B is the only one of its kind ever built - Largest electric shovel in the world - 16 stories tall (160 feet) - Weighs 11 million pounds - Boom is 150 feet long - Dipper capacity 90 cu. yds (by heaping, 150 tons enough to fill three railroad cars) - Maximum speed .22 MPH - Cost $6.5 million (in 1962) On July 13, 1985, Big Brutus was dedicated as a Museum and Memorial Dedicated to the Rich Coal Mining History in Southeast Kansas. In September 1987, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) designated Big Brutus a Regional Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark, the 10th since 1971 to be so designated. Big Brutus is a museum open year round. Hours vary with the season. Visit www.bigbrutus.org for more information.