Vivian Stockman at the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition reports that a number of West Virginians are headed to Washington, D.C., this weekend for the big protest on Monday over climate change and the coal-fired Capitol Power plant. (See Coal and our Capitol)

Here’s what a few of them had to say, according to an OVEC press release:

Mel Tyree of Putnam County explained his reasons for risking arrest at the protest: “If we do not act decisively within the next five or six years to begin to substantially reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, the world we know now will be no more.”

Carol Ross of Gilmer County said, “Some ask why we’re willing to risk arrest. We love West Virginia and seeing it blown up is causing us great grief. If our being arrested could stop this outrage, we would do it every day.”

Her husband, Roger Besselievre, added, “When we look at the larger scale – the planet – change is past due. No more diddling around. No new coal plants should be built. Existing ones should be phased out on a fast-track timetable. The human and financial resources of technology should focus on developing clean energy. Conservation is essential.”

Robin Wilson, of Spencer said, “Our society faces a choice between creating sustainable energy or facing economic, social, and environmental collapse. People are growing in their awareness of the gravity of global warming, but they are unaware of the amount of suffering caused by nations fighting to control fossil fuel energy. The same money being spent on weapons and training to kill could be used to free us from our addiction to coal and oil.”

Also headed to D.C. for the event is Mike Roselle of Climate Ground Zero, the guy causing such a stir in West Virginia by leading some non-violent protests against mountaintop removal coal mining.

Capitol Climate Action is getting news coverage from around the world, including the Guardian, Creative Loafing, and the Huffington Post.

And a new blog post from the Center for Public Integrity agrees with what I reported earlier — that Sens. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., aren’t going to let coal get phased out at the Capitol Power Plant without a fight.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 28, 2009 at 4:36 pm and is filed under Climate policy, Congress, Politics, Protest actions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.