Green Options » strip mining

Adventures in Kitty Litter

Becky Striepe — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 07:00:19 +0000

How could we not want the safest, healthiest litter for this little lady?

Our hunt for an alternative cat litter began when our vet said that clay litter was a respiratory irritant. The more we researched cat litter, the more we learned that clay wasn’t just bad for our sweet kitties, it was bad for the planet. Clay, which makes up about 90% of the cat litters on the market, does not biodegrade. On top of that, much of the clay used in cat litter comes from strip mining. Yikes! Luckily there are all sorts of good options out there!

Federal Ruling Opens Flood Gates for Strip Mining in Appalachia

Becky Striepe — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 01:01:49 +0000

Ashley Judd is speaking out against mountaintop removal mining, and you can too.

Here is Judd’s speech, delivered at a Kentuckians For The Commonwealth rally. The footage of strip mined mountaintops is horrifying:
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According to the Sierra Club, mountaintop removal mining:

…has already buried more than 1,200 miles of streams and threatens to destroy 1.4 million acres of land by 2020. The mining poisons drinking water, lays waste to wildlife habitat, increases the risk of flooding and wipes out entire communities.

A recent federal ruling allows the Army Corps of Engineers to start mountaintop removal mining in several sites in Appalachia. This overturns a 2007 ruling that found the permits to mine the land illegal. There is a backlog of 80-90 permits that could be granted, dramatically increasing the devastating mountaintop removal mining in the area. Local activist groups and the Sierra Club are asking President Obama “to follow up on statements he had made during his campaign that were critical of mountaintop mining by reversing Bush administration policies intended to expand the practice,” according to the New York Times.

Let’s Keep Not-So-Clean Coal From Getting Even Worse

Shirley Siluk Gregory — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 17:11:42 +0000

Removing mountaintops and strip mining for coal has already wreaked environmental havoc in Appalachia, so it might sound incredible that things could get even worse. Sadly, they might.

Last Friday, the Bush administration submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) a proposal to severely weaken the stream buffer zone rule. This rule has, since 1983, prevented coal companies from disturbing areas that are 100 feet or less from Appalachian waterways. The EPA now has 30 days to review the proposed change.

Greening The Golden Years Podcast: “Redefining Old Age” — 85 Year-Old Liz Moore and Syncrude

Max Lindberg — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 13:30:54 +0000

85 year old Liz Moore is nobody’s fool. The minute she laid eyes on Syncrude’s Canadian Oil Sands operation in Alberta, Canada, she knew some terrible things were happening to the ecology of that area. While touring the company’s site, she took pictures of land not reclaimed, a few snapshots in the visitors center, and came home to Colorado bound to tell a story. She set up a website, The Oil (Tar) Sands of Alberta The Canada/U.S. Connection, and published her pictures along with some interesting facts about the operation.

Almost immediately, Syncrude’s legal staff wrote her and demanded she remove the pictures she had taken. Shortly thereafter, the company’s publishing firm did the same, as did the Alberta provincial government concerning pictures of the Oil Sands Discovery Center which they helped fund.

Liz also maintains another website: Energy Smart

Here is her story….