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Articles by Jeff Biggers

Jeff Biggers is the American Book Award-winning author of Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland (The Nation/Basic Books). His website is: www.jeffbiggers.com

All Articles

  • Dear Mr. President: Declare Aug. 3 as Armistice Day

    On the upcoming anniversary of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, President Barack Obama has the opportunity to declare an armistice in the polarized Appalachian coalfields, mend a 30-year mining policy of betrayal, and call an end to the most divisive and egregious human rights and environmental violation sanctioned by our federal government. On […]

  • Sierra Club parodies the worst song ever recorded about coal

    Don’t ever accuse the Sierra Club of being bad sports. After the West Virginia Coal Association released a series of the worst cellphone ringtone songs about coal ever recorded–I mean, as in the worst coal songs ever recorded since Thomas Edison pioneered the first coal-fired plant and phonograph in the late 19th century–the Sierra Club’s […]

  • Urgent letter to EPA and Interior Dept. from coalfield residents

    As three million pounds of ammonium nitrate/fuel oil explosives continue to rip through the lush green Appalachian mountains and historic mountain communities every day, coalfield residents from West Virginia issued an extraordinary letter on Wednesday asking EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to assert primacy over the negligent West Virginia […]

  • Climate justice and coal’s funeral procession

    Joshua Kahn Russell, the grassroots actions manager at Rainforest Action Network and a lead organizer of March’s Capitol Climate Action in Washington, DC, has written a great assessment of the climate justice movement and its emerging goals. Looking back at the historic protest at the Capitol Power Plant, which ultimately forced congressional leaders to come […]