TO THE EDITOR:
Spring breaks are usually reserved for sandy beaches in Cancun, but this holiday, a group of Sierra Student Coalition members took the party to the Appalachian mountains.
There, we met up with student environmental activists from Florida to Minnesota for Mountain Justice Spring Break.
We learned about the Appalachian area, worked on organizing skills and hiked the beautiful hills — what’s left of them, at least.
Mountaintop removal coal mining has literally blown up sections of the mountain range to find the thin seams of coal underneath, pushing the “over-burden” — a coal industry word for the rest of the mountain — into the valleys below.
When we weren’t hiking, we spent time learning about the injustices suffered by community members in towns like Appalachia, Va.
They confront the ugly face of mountaintop removal every day. Yet they cannot escape it, since it is the only industry that provides them with employment.
If this problem seems too distant for North Carolina college students, think again; Chapel Hill is directly connected to mountaintop removal.
Not only does our energy provider, Duke Energy, burn coal from mountaintop removal sites, but our banks, Wells Fargo and Bank of America, loan money to mining companies like Arch Coal Inc. and Massey Energy.
Despite this, UNC’s Board of Trustees refuses to consider pulling its endowment stocks from these dirty energy companies.
After our vacation in Virginia, we are ready to fight harder to discontinue our funding of other people’s misery, and to provide an alternative to dirty coal.
