Oprah: Mountaintop Removal's Worst Nightmare

Issues like mountaintop removal coal mining -- a type of mining that is both environmentally and visually horrific -- were made for television. But we've only scratched the surface with it. Diane Sawyer's piece on Appalachia (see her discuss the piece on "The View") about a month ago gave America a preview, but green bloggers raised a few issues with it here and elsewhere.

Ecorazzi wrote that Kentuckian Ashley Judd hinted at some -- pardon the energy pun -- megawatt star power that could raise awareness of mountaintop removal coal mining: Oprah.

On this afternoon's live Q & A over on the DailyKos, the actress let slip that Oprah has potentially expressed some interest in a piece on the topic. In addition, Judd is also trying to get ABC's Diane Sawyer to do a special with her. "You can absolutely help raise visibility of this issue," she said in the Q & A. "Diane Sawyer's piece on the children in hollows aired to much national conversation recently. I phoned her producer about a MTRCM piece. Contact ABC and let them know you want to see her do segment with me about it! Also, there is a possibility Oprah is interested in a piece. I have also spoken with Anderson Cooper about it; if they public wants stories on it, they are more incentivized to do them."

I love seeing Judd rallying these great media personalities to become involved in the issue. Anderson Cooper and Diane Sawyer would be great -- but my hope lies with Oprah. I think a show dedicated to the topic would do wonders for organizations like Sierra Club, ilovemountains, or Kentuckians For The Commonwealth.

The salient bit of the Judd Q&A is here:

You can absolutely help raise visibility of this issue. Diane Sawyer's piece on the children in hollows aired to much national conversation recently. I phoned her producer about a MTRCM piece. Contact ABC and let them know you want to see her do segment with me about it! Also, there is a possibility Oprah is interested in a piece. I have also spoken with Anderson Cooper about it; if they public wants stories on it, they are more incentivized to do them.

If you've never seen mountaintop removal in action, here's a quick preview from our friends at Assignment Earth:

And here's Ashley Judd, working with the Sierra Club, speaking out:

RELATED:

::Listen to an NPR piece on the Bush administration's role in spreading Appalachian mountaintop removal

Comments

[fmtr]

WELL I HAVE A QUESTION AND I HOPE SOMEONE CAN HELP ME ANSWER IT: THESE BIG CITIES HAVE THEY ALWAYS HAD BIG BUILDINGS AND NO WILDLIFE NO WHERE EXCEPT AT A ZOO I DON'T THINK THEY HAVE ALWAYS HAVE HAD BIG BUILDINGS I BELIEVE THERE WAS WILDLIFE THAT LIVED THERE BEFORE PPL CAME AND PUT BIG BUILDINGS UP BUT MAYBE I WRONG MAYBE SOMEONE CAN TELL ME THAT ANSWER SO BEFORE I GO I HAVE ONE MORE THING TO SAY WE PAY PROPERTY TAXES WE OWN A MTN I HAVE THE CHOICE OF WHAT I DO ON MY LAND AND NO ONE ELSE DOES IF I WANT IT REMOVED I WILL HAVE IT REMOVED IF I DON'T THEN I WILL NOT IF U THINK U OWN MY PROPERTY THEN HOW WOULD U FEEL IF I WOULD SAY I OWN YOUR PROPERTY AND BRING ME A LOUNGE CHAIR AND SIT IN YOUR FRONT YARD AND TELL YOU WHAT U CAN AND CAN NOT DO I AM SURE THOSE HATERS WOULD LIKE THAT

[fmtr]

I LIVE IN THE MOUNTAINS I DON'T SEE THE HARM IN REMOVING A PART OF THE MTN AND RESTORING IT WHEN THEY REMOVE THE MTN "NOT THE WHOLE MTN JUST THE TOP" (FOR U WHO DON'T KNOW) THEY PROVIDE PLACES FOR PPL TO BUILD HOUSES, RIDE HORSES, AND JUST ENJOY THE ENVIRONMENT WHICH OTHERWISE WE COULD NOT ENJOY BECAUSE WE WOULD NOT HAVE ROADS TO GET THERE I PERSONALLY BELIEVE IT LOOKS PRETTY I THINK THEY DO A GOOD JOB IN RESTORING THE LAND BACK ALSO THEY SAY THAT IT IS KILLING OUR WILDLIFE WELL HERE IN EASTERN KENTUCKY WE RELEASED ELK ON THE STRIP JOBS AND THEY ARE THRIEVING AND I THINK IT IS A SHAME THAT PPL USE THE MTN TOP REMOVAL COAL SEVERENCE MONEY TO PROTEST AGAINST IT IF THEY ARE SO AGAINST IT THEN WHY DO THEY TAKE THAT MONEY AND USE IT SORRY BUT IN MY EYES THAT MAKES THEM THE BAD PERSON BECAUSE THAT MONEY SHOULD BE GOING TOWARD OUR PPL NOT TOWARD THERE PERSONAL ISSUES OH YEAH AND BY THE WAY THIS MTN TOP REMOVAL PROVIDES MANY JOBS TO HELP PPL SURVIVE AND TO KEEP OUR LIGHTS ON AT NIGHT AND THERES ASK THE PPL AGAINST MTN TOP REMOVAL DO THEY HAVE ELECTRICITY I BET THEY WILL TELL YOU YES THEN ASK THEM NEXT TIME WHERE DOES ELECTRICITY COME FROM LOL

[SeanGardner]

Oprah has real credibility as a journalist. Her involvement is going to have a big impact.

[rikkirighteous]

Oprah has no credibility as a journalist.

[marijam]

Maybe Oprah could also talk about coal ash spills? Or did she?

[QueenCeleste]

The headline "Mountain Removal's Worst Nightmare" makes it appear that the removal of a mountain is having a nightmare. Weirdly phrased! Also, there should not be an apostrophe in "Removal's." Please HuffPost, questionable punctuation and oddly worded headlines are becoming all too common.

That said, brava to Ashley Judd (and also for her involvement with the wolf slaughter in Alaska) and all others involved in this issue. The rape of Mother Earth is absolutely sickening.

[karinova]

Name names:
Which companies are still doing this MTR coal mining? And who are their clients? That is, which power companies' electricity is generated from MTR coal? I bet they serve an area a lot larger than the area being damaged. That's a lot of potential letter-writers, demonstrators, and most importantly, boycotters.

[JXJASON]

50% of our electricity in the US is generated from coal that is produced in the US.

Coal mined in the US provides JOBS and these JOBS cannot be sent overseas.

There is no economical way for the US to produce electricity from solar or wind power right now without taxpayers subsidizing the solar and wind generating industries. If you do some research you will find that hardly anyone produces solar panels in the US.

I disagree with everyone who wants to stop coal mining. In Northeast PA., as the underground coal mines started to shut down (beginning in the 1950's), the area became economically depressed...and IS STILL ECONOMICALLY DEPRESSED.

I would like Oprah, Dianne Sawyer, Anderson Cooper, and others to visit communities like Coaldale, Tamaqua, Lansford, Hazleton, Macadoo, etc, etc...in Northeast Pennsylvania to see what I am talking about.

Finally, a lot of coal is produced in strip mines in Wyoming. Wyoming also has ample supplies of natural gas and oil. I was in Wyoming in January of 2009 and paid the lowest price for regular gasoline, $1.369, that I have paid in years. In PA, in January 2009, the price was $1.899. It is now $1.959.

I am an environmentalist too. But I am also not going to do without heat or electricity because of those of you who want to stop coal mining.

[bluegreen]

http://www.bobedwardsradio.com/exploding-heritage/

Listen and weep...the award-winning radio documentary from 2006.

[Mykel]

I know that the hearts of media personalities are in the right place when they criticize environmental threats like mountaintop removal mining, but I can't help but feel that their efforts inevitably result in some Third World nation then suffering environmentally because American companies move in to avoid the criticism back home.

Let's not mince words: our often needless and wasteful energy consumption is the root of the problem, whereas the method of harnessing the energy is secondary. All this talk of electric cars, for example, ignores the fact that coal-powered energy plants will have to be built in far-larger numbers than ever before to power them all.

Let's decrease our reliance on cars, period, as well as low rise urban sprawl and other wasteful forms of energy consumption before we inadvertantly send the problem elsewhere.

[marijam]

Nuclear power plants would be preferable to mountain top removal, but why not build bio-diesel power plants and get the bio-diesel from all the trash that we just put in landfills now? While we're at it, mine all the old landfills and trash dumps and get rid of all that garbage and turn it into bio-diesel and run the plants off of that.

[mudshark12]

Mountain Top Removal Coal Mining IS a ecological abomination which MUST be stopped before it's too late. I'm happy that it has been receiving high-profile exposure and I hope that more of our famous TV and Hollywood personalities give it the drubbing it deserves. The coal industry must be forced into paying restitution to the people whose properties (not to mention health) they have destroyed, also Big Coal must be forced to return the land back to the condition they found it in, or as close as is possible. I mean after all it's very hard to restore a mountain whose top has been permanently removed, but the effort must be made along with unblocking all of those streams and rivers. And let's not forget the "fly ash ponds" which are a bio-hazard.

[OYea]

What's Ashley's and Oprah's opinion on skiing on snow made out of recycled sewer water? How about a health disaster?

http://www.savethepeaks.org/Cert%20Petition%20final.pdf

[NYCSocialWork]

Why not look at fixing the economy through an environmental lens?

Everyone always uses old excuses to do the same things...'now' is never the right time for anything it seems.

[ChelseaC]

NYCSocialWork,
Well said.

[poundsixzeros]

Solar power please! Lots of new jobs, less pollution, minor environmental impact (still need to build the panels, so there will be some), it's a "renewable" resource - you can count on the sun rising everyday. It is storable so those cloudy days won't hinder running the air conditioning. Every structure in the US needs solar panels on its roof. We would have so much electricity available it's shocking ;-)

[DrPhil]

It's more than a little ridiculous that Vice Magazine out-scooped the television networks on this story about 3 years ago. Everyone go find Toxic Virginia on youtube.

[conservicide]

money grubbing mining companies