Word: coal
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Environmental groups, led by Greenpeace and the Rainforest Action Network, had enlisted eco-celebrities such as Robert Kennedy Jr. and Bill McKibben and registered more than 2,000 youth protesters from around the country for a march on the coal-fired Capitol Power Plant, which supplies steam and cooled water to Congress. They planned to shut down the plant by peacefully blocking the entrances, a textbook act of civil disobedience for which many expected - perhaps eagerly - to be arrested. The message was simple: the burning of coal, which accounts for some 40% of U.S. carbon emissions, "is destroying the planet...
...turned out, the action may have been almost too successful. On Feb. 26, just a few days before the protest, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate majority leader Harry Reid called for the 103-year-old plant to switch from coal to cleaner-burning natural gas, a move long pushed for by environmentalists but blocked by representatives from coal-heavy states. Protesters claimed an early victory. "Getting the plant to switch shows the power of popular pressure," said Steven Biel, the director of Greenpeace's global-warming campaign. But there was no doubt that by responding before...
...addressed the increasingly frigid crowd. After nearly three hours, with activists beginning to wonder what it took to get arrested in this town anymore, the protest's leader decided it was time to declare victory and go home. "We won!" Russell told the cheering crowd. "We shut this coal plant down...
...dramatic scenes and heavy symbolism were more subtle and more imaginative. “Crossing”—filmed in China, Korea, and Mongolia—tells the story of Yong-soo (Cha In-pyo), a former soccer player now living in poverty in a North Korean coal mining town with his pregnant wife and their young son. When Yong-soo’s wife—who is mysteriously left nameless—falls ill with tuberculosis, exacerbated by malnutrition, Yong-soo makes the difficult decision to attempt an illegal crossing into China to obtain the medicines...
...greenness: Samso island. Located in the Kattegat Strait, Samso (pop. 4,300) was far from cutting-edge when, in 1997, it won a government competition to become a model for how a community can run on renewable energy. At the time Samso was entirely dependent on oil and coal, both of which it imported from the mainland. A little more than a decade later Samso is effectively carbon negative, producing more than 100% of the electricity it needs from renewable sources, chiefly wind and biomass. The architect of that transformation is Soren Hermansen, a former farmer and environmental studies teacher...