Blog post by Jasmine Zimmer-Stucky, Riverkeeper’s Community Organizer—
April 21, 2014. In a candid (but not surprising) statement, Northwest coal export proponents admitted to being politically outmatched and in desperate need of help from the coal industry to further their proposals to pollute our rivers, clog our traffic, and contribute, even more, to the climate crisis.
Read the full article from the Missoulan here.
Even without this article, I could have told you that coal export companies are sitting on the wrong side of public opinion. I’m confident about this because as a Community Organizer, it’s my lucky job to engage with residents all across the Northwest to protect their communities and their children’s future from dirty coal export.
I know that we politically outmatch them because I’ve witnessed it, over and over again. We turn out 400 people to a rally in the pouring winter rain, we pack public hearing rooms, we write letters to the editor and we phone bank like crazy to spread the word.
And let me clarify, when I say ‘we,’ I mean YOU! YOU’RE the one responsible for comments like this from Millennium’s Wendy Hutchenson: “Lots and lots of ground-level organizing. And I’ll tell you, the opposition is better at it than we are,”
So, thank you. Thank you for making this a fight that leaves Big Coal begging for help. We (remember, that’s you!) need to keep outmatching them until they’re gone. That means more rallies, more public hearings, more phone banking and all the other fun stuff that goes along with keeping Big Coal from getting the upper hand.
