Mountaintop-removal mines in Appalachia are estimated to produce just 5 to 10 percent of total U.S. coal production, and generate less than 4 percent of our electricity—an amount that could be eliminated from the energy supply with small gains in energy efficiency and conservation. This highly destructive form of surface mining is disfiguring an entire region, the coalfield areas of West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia, because of one reason: profit.
More than 470 mountains in the southern Appalachians, which are among the oldest mountains on Earth, have already been sheared off. Vast areas of wildlife habitat, the most biologically diverse forest in North America, have been obliterated. Roughly 2000 miles of streams have been filled or severly degraded by mining waste, all in pursuit of coal. And coal is a lousy way to power a society.
From mining to burning to disposing the combustion waste, it’s a dirty business. Unfortunately, in our reductionist age, too often people looking at the coal problem don’t consider the whole problem. Only by contemplating the entire life cycle of fossil energy—coal extraction, preparation, transportation, combustion, and waste disposal of by-products—can one fully understand the enormity of coal’s toxic legacy.

Filmmaker Sally Rubin and representatives from co-sponsor NRDC will be in attendance for Q & A and campaign awareness.

Deep Down will be preceded by short film “Plundering Appalachia.”

http://www.facebook.com/deepdownfilm

ABOUT DEEP DOWN

DEEP DOWN is a one-hour documentary film about friends and neighbors in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky who find themselves on opposite sides of the global energy debate when a coal mining company attempts to create a mountaintop removal mine in their backyards.

The film and multimedia outreach campaign explore the complexities of mining and power production in the Appalachian region through an intimate portrait of one tight-knit community battling natural resource extraction and the wealth and environmental destruction it represents. DEEP DOWN cuts across the environment, power, human friendship, and the relationship of people to our planet.

SCREENING EVENT – FEB. 14, 2010 IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

This program will feature a short film and feature film on mountain top removal and the myth of clean coal. Our partner NRDC will join us to highlight action campaigns.

RSVP for film screening:

http://www.facebook.com/NomadsLandNetwork?v=app_2344061033&ref=ts#/event.php?eid=288869759898&index=1

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