Desmog: Message From the Editor

Typically sleepy Grant Town, West Virginia, was in the spotlight on Saturday, April 9, as more than 50 activists from the region and around the United States gathered outside its power plant, which happens to be the primary customer for expensive waste coal sold by Sen. Joe Manchin’s company. That day 16 people were arrested after trying to block the entrance to the Grant Town Power Plant. The protesters — some of whom formed a human chain — called attention to the nearly half million dollars a year Sen. Manchin earns from these coal investments, while the conservative Democrat again stymies climate action in D.C. One protester who was in the process of being chiseled by police out of the plastic tube over her and another protester’s joined arms, remarked, “At this point, everybody knows what needs to be done.” Photojournalist Zach Roberts reports from the scene.

This week, DeSmog welcomes award-winning climate journalist and former Reuters reporter Matthew Green to the team as our first Global Investigations Editor. He’s hit the ground running with a review of the new documentary Rebellion, which charts the wild rise of the Extinction Rebellion movement just as a new wave of protests erupts across Britain. Perhaps the most notable of the recent protests came from an art teacher who this week managed to infiltrate Shell’s headquarters while livestreaming his impassioned plea to stop fossil fuel extraction. Read more.

But fossil fuels aren’t the only form of energy posing an environmental threat. Leaked documents show a powerful United States-based biomass industry group is lobbying hard to dilute European Union biodiversity rules that could limit the supply of wood going to UK power plant Drax, which is at the heart of those lobby efforts. Phoebe Cook has the story.





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