Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign Director Mary Anne Hitt rallies against mountaintop removal coal mining with her baby Hazel. Photo courtesy of Appalachia Rising.

Yesterday's massive Appalachia Rising rally and march was a big success - with more than 2,000 activists taking to the streets in DC to call for an end to mountaintop removal coal mining.


For some great recaps, be sure to check the Appalachia Rising website, these two posts from our campus coal organizers, and these two posts from Mother Jones' Kate Sheppard.


If you're unfamiliar with mountaintop removal coal mining, it is a destructive practice where coal companies blow up mountains to get at a seam of coal beneath. They then push all the dirt - much of which now includes toxins - into nearby valleys, which then poisons watersheds.

Take action against this practice right now.


The photos with this post (excluding the first one) were all taken by Jay Mallin and show the march, along with some folks getting arrested in front of the White House (the Sierra Club was not part of the civil disobedience).

Ask yourself, what would John Muir do? He wouldn’t sit on his duff, that’s for sure. Some of those politicians in Washington, D.C., have an insular view of the world. And they don’t necessarily correlate the BP oil disaster with the need to shift to clean energy and move beyond oil in the next two decades.

Help them connect the dots! Visit the Sierra Club’s Beyond Oil action center, where you can send a message to the president, find information on hosting a Gulf action house party, and get involved locally. On July 4th, you can have the Sierra Club plant a flag in your name for freedom from oil. On Independence Day, the Sierra Club will plant flags at the Washington Monument to represent the demand to end our oil dependency. The Club needs at least 50,000 sign-ups to make it happen. Click here and be one of them.

In addition to thinking nationally, consider what you can do in your area. Write letters to the editorial pages of your local newspapers. Watch what city and county planners are up to. Grist has a great list of ten things that cities can do, for instance, such as building dense housing near public transit, phasing out parking lots, and setting up bike corrals and safe pedestrian spaces.

The disaster in the Gulf of Mexico was caused by BP and its reckless negligence. Ultimately, though, the real long-term solution is up to the American people. Until we demand and get a plan from our leaders for getting off of oil, we shall remain at the mercy of those who extract, refine, and sell it.

Read Part IV: Public transit.
Read Part III: Telecommute.
Read Part II: Bike and walk.
Read Part I: Eat smarter.

"The average household spends 18 cents of every dollar on transportation, and 94% of this goes to buying, maintaining, and operating cars, the largest expenditure after housing," according to the American Public Transportation Association.

In addition to bicycling, taking public transit is one of the cheapest and easiest things you can do to lower your oil intake. In the U.S., it saves 37 million metric tons (pdf) in carbon emissions every year. And it save you a lot of money in gas, car maintenance, and insurance.

If you need help and you're wondering where to turn, start with Google Maps, which provides directions that include public-transit information. If buses or trains aren't your cup of carbon-cutting tea, see what's out there in terms of car-sharing services -- like Zipcar or CarSharing.net.

Read Part V of "Quitting Oil."

Wouldn’t it be nice to work in your pajamas from home? Americans spend about 100 hours a year commuting. That's a lot of time, money, and oil. If you have a job that allows you to telecommute one or two days a week, jump on it. If your boss is flying you around the country, look into alternatives such as web seminars and phone conferencing from home.

Spending more time at home for work can have its drawbacks, namely with your energy bill. That’s why it’s a good idea to consider your home's energy usage. Turning to programmable thermostats and putting on layers during the winter months are good starts. Here are tips on minimizing your need for an air conditioner during the summer months. And lastly, look into Google’s PowerMeter, a free energy monitoring tool for your home. Along those same lines, consider a home energy audit here and here.

Read Part IV of "Quitting Oil."

Americans burn 378 million gallons of gasoline a day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency. Oil is the lifeblood of the automobile, and there's no better place to start cutting down your oil usage than that metal box sitting in your driveway.

We're not saying you have to sell your car. But if you can make your trips to the pump less frequent, it'll add up. Start by inflating your tires, clearing your trunk (Carting around an extra 100 pounds can reduce your mileage by 2 percent), driving more slowly (or at least not over the speed limit), and biking or walking short trips.

Just how much better is bicycling compared to driving? Mr. Green had fun with some arithmetic by comparing gas usage of a car to that of a bicyclist who eats cornmeal for his or her fuel. Let's say it takes two gallons of gas to drive 48 miles. A typical cyclist would need about 1.25 pounds of cornmeal for the energy to bike 48 miles. "It takes a gallon or so of fossil fuel to produce 50 pounds of corn, so the amount of fossil-fuel energy needed to grow enough corn for the 48-mile ride is a meager .025 gallons," says Mr. Green. Imagine every American walking or bicycling short trips. Do you think BP (and other oil companies) would take notice?

Do you want to start cycling to work and nearby locations and don't know how to get started? The Crossroads blog has some excellent starting tips by Canyon Kyle here, here, and here. Also, check out Commutebybike.com's Commuting 101.

Have you got other ideas about oil and cars? Share them in the comments.

Read Part III of "Quitting Oil."

One reason the BP oil disaster makes us sick is the flood of heartbreaking images of dead or dying wildlife and despoiled wetlands coupled with an infuriating sense of helplessness. BP's “handling” the crisis, so there's nothing we can do -- right?

Wrong.

Oil has infiltrated our daily lives to an astonishing degree, but that doesn't mean we can't significantly reduce our use of it. Americans burn nearly 20 million barrels of oil every single day, most of it for personal transportation.

Even for the most committed environmentalist, to go completely oil-free overnight would be next to impossible. But taking the first step toward an oil-free future -- by simply reducing our current daily consumption -- is actually incredibly easy. It's also one of the most significant things you can do to wrest control of our energy future back from the Big Oil companies, which have enjoyed cozy political relationships and big government subsidies for far too long.

Each day this week, we'll highlight a different strategy for getting oil out our lives.

1. We Are What We Eat

If the oil disaster makes you angry and you eat a lot of meat, one powerful solution is sitting right on your plate. The U.S. meat industry is a major consumer of petroleum. In fact, raising one cow in a factory farm requires about 35 gallons of oil -- just under a barrel (according to The Omnivore's Dilemma, p. 84). Processed foods and corn syrup also heavily depend on petroleum.

* Cutting meat out of your diet for just one day each week is equivalent to driving 1,000 miles less per year.

* When you do buy meat, consider the source. Grass-fed, sustainably raised livestock are a breath of fresh air compared to the filthy, industrialized feedlots that have taken over the U.S. Click here for a directory of responsibly raised meat.

* Location matters. The label “organic” doesn’t necessarily mean “oil free.” Organic apples from Chile, for instance, use as much oil as non organic domestic apples because of the required transportation. Look for produce that’s grown as close to home as possible first, then consider whether it's organic or not.

* Farmers rule! The easiest way to get healthy and low-oil-use foods is to take you reusable bags to a local farmers' market. Most of the market vendors are local, seasonal, and sustainable.

Have you got other ideas for how we can get the oil out of our diets? Share them in the comments.

Read Part II of "Quitting Oil."