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In this case of mountaintop removal for coal in the Appalachian Mountains of the United States, Laura Bozzi explores the delicate insider-outsider tension of keep-it-in-the ground (KIIG) politics. Mountaintop removal activists recognize both the deep sense of place, history, and culture of the peoples of Appalachia and the impacts of mountaintop removal and coal on local and global ecosystems. This chapter shows how the quick violence of destroying mountains, streams, and rivers creates a slow violence of lung cancer and other diseases, along with diminished educational, employment, and retirement opportunities. Appalachian peoples are effectively pursuing a KIIG politics based on the reality of decreasing coal reserves, ever-increasing mechanization, and declining market share on the one hand, and a dire need for a solution that marries well-being and livelihood on the other. Finally, this chapter explores the uneasy transition of fear of a way of life for locals with the lack of transparency of coal companies.

Chapter 1 begins with a description of the historical roots of exploitation in Central Appalachia, revealing how the economic, political, and social structures of the region have long been influenced by its ties with the coal industry. An overview of the declining coal economy and the rise and fall of the union is then discussed, followed by an account of the earliest attempts to end surface mining in the 1960s and 70s. The next section details the myriad environmental injustices that face the coalfield region today, including mountaintop removal mining, flooding, coal waste impoundment breaches, water contamination, coal dust air pollution, and high rates of a number of chronic health conditions, including cancer, heart disease, respiratory conditions, and depression. The final section of this chapter describes the present-day environmental justice movement that is fighting to hold the coal industry accountable for the harms it has brought to the Central Appalachian region. The chapter closes with a reminder of the puzzle that frames this book: given the enormity of the coal industry’s deleterious effects on local communities, why are there such low rates of movement participation at the local level?

This chapter examines the varying strains of environmentalism and/or activism that run throughout the work of southern writers including Janisse Ray, Larry Brown, Dorothy Allison, Mary Hood, Ann Pancake, Silas House, and Denise Giardina. It explores the relationship between environmentalism and poverty as it discusses waste, throw-away culture, recycling and sustainability. It argues for a move from regionalism/nationalism to localism/globalism and questions the false dichotomy between the Global North and Global South. The chapter turns to Appalachia to consider the impact of Mountaintop removal mining (MTR), and it interrogates both the economics that often drive the poor to undertake environmentally destructive jobs and the activism that exists within poor communities.