350.org finds a friendly atmosphere even in Southwest Virginia coal country

ABINGDON, Va. – Mayor Ed Morgan, while declaring the need to fight climate change in this town of 8,000 people, also is cautious about how

he frames the issue: Several coal companies, including the state’s largest, have offices here, and many prominent philanthropic donors are

associated with coal.
But Morgan and the crowd of about 100 people rallied at the Abingdon Farmers Market on Saturday to take a stand – even here in a

coal-dependent region – for what they call a critical global issue.
“Don’t let anybody tell you it’s unpatriotic to oppose a sector of the economy that you believe is evil,” said Barbara Kingsolver, a

well-known novelist who lives in Meadowview and was one of the speakers at the rally. “If our economy is dirty, we’ll build for ourselves a

new one … and we’ll make it run cleaner.”
Burning coal is the primary factor blamed for carbon dioxide emissions, which are considered by many to be a primary culprit of global

climate change. Coal burning also is first on the list of things that must be eliminated according to 350.org, the organization that

coordinated thousands of anti-climate change rallies in 181 countries around the world Saturday, including the one in Abingdon.
The organization’s name refers to a measurement of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that many consider the safe upper limit: 350 parts per

million. Right now, scientists and 350.org leaders said, there are 390 ppm of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere.
“It’s so important to show that this call for 350 isn’t just coming from San Francisco and Boston; it’s [also] coming from places that are

historically dependent on coal,” said May Boeve, a spokeswoman for 350.org. “There is this growing sense from some people in those places

that there is another way, and there simply has to be another way to fuel our economy.”
Saturday’s demonstrations were designed to shed light on the need for an international climate change agreement and the 350.org goals: Stop

burning coal by 2030 and push renewable energy and energy conservation as a means to reduce fossil fuel emissions.
Morgan, who in his speech recalled organizing the region’s first Earth Day celebration in 1971, focused Saturday on the town’s efforts to

reduce its carbon footprint, or net output of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Abingdon is studying its energy use, Morgan said, doing curbside recycling, operating a state-of-the-art sewer plant, reducing work days to

save gas, using electric vehicles, encouraging pedestrian traffic and passenger rail, planting trees and supporting the local farmers’

market.
Asked whether an inherent contradiction exists in protesting climate change in a town so dependent on the coal industry, Morgan said there

are some things people can’t control – and others they can.
“What I’m able to have some influence and control over in my part of the world is what goes on in the town of Abingdon,” Morgan said prior

to the rally. “And there are plenty of small things everybody can do, starting from changing the light bulbs in their house.”
Bunny Medeiros, a member of the committee that organized the rally, said it wasn’t designed to point the finger at any particular industrial

concerns.
“We don’t want to alienate anyone,” Medeiros said. “We just want to educate.”
Anthony Flaccavento, executive director of event co-sponsor Appalachian Sustainable Development, doesn’t mince words when discussing what he

believes should be the local impact of the climate change issue.
“Coal is an employer, but coal is also undeniably part of the problem,” Flaccavento said. “So I think we need to get serious not only about

energy alternatives but about economic alternatives for coal miners. Employment in the coal industry in Virginia has been pretty much in a

steady decline for two decades.”
He said the green jobs so highly spoken of in the environmental movement could come in the form of developing renewable energy technology,

using the mechanical and electrical skills that many in the region already possess. He said Southwest Virginia would be a great place to

manufacture solar panels and wind turbines.
Flaccavento likens the creation of a post-coal economy to the creation of a post-tobacco economy after the end of the federal subsidy

program that kept many small tobacco farmers in business.
There was no one thing to replace tobacco, he said; it’s a host of little things that together have slowly filled the void.
“There was a lot of good that went along with tobacco, but tobacco itself clearly had some problems,” Flaccavento said. “It clearly did some

things that most people would agree were not good for us as a community or as a society. I think eventually, if we’ll allow ourselves to,

we’d come to the same conclusion about coal.”
In his speech at the rally, Flaccavento focused on the need for people to downsize their “big” lifestyles by foregoing monstrous houses,

driving less in smaller vehicles, vacationing closer to home and buying products with less environmental impact.
“We can either see this as a catastrophic ruination of our economy, or we can see this as an inevitable change that we’ve got to come to

grips with as consumers and as people directly employed in the coal industry and what is the opportunity here that we can create out of

this,” Flaccavento said. “It would be terrific if the coal companies started investing in these alternatives.”
Kingsolver said events such as Hurricane Katrina, the loss of millions of acres of farmland in arid regions and the melting of a glacier

that feeds China’s great rivers are examples of the effects of exceeding safe atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide.
“350 is the most important number in your life, and that’s why we’re all here today,” she said. “It’s more important than 98.6, it’s more

important than your birthday, your anniversary … it’s more important than 9-11, it’s even more important than 911.”
She said it’s a matter of life and death for humans to bring that number back down.
“We don’t have time for pessimism; it’s way too late for that,” she said. So how can Americans do their part to help save the world?
“During World War II they lived with a gallon of gas a week. They lived without meat or cheese or bed sheets or typewriters. ... That was

us. Where did that country go? … I say it’s a tradition in this country to change our lives for the greater good,” she said.
“Everything counts. Every local meal you consume, every light switch you turn off, every time you recycle or reuse or figure out you don’t

need it at all. The problem is large, but the solution is exactly the size of your life.”

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