"Burning the Future: Coal in America"

Coal is not a "Brooklyn story" unless, of course, there happens to be a cool new documentary about the coal industry from a Brooklynite. Then, it's very on topic. Chandru Murthi, who does the superb blog I'm Seeing Green, has put up a post about a new film called "Burning the Future: Coal in America," by director and co-writer David Novack. I'm Seeing Green writes, in part:

Turn on your light switch and the lamp turns on. Do you really know where the electricity comes from? A surprising statistic is that over one-half of the electricity generated in the US comes from burning coal, arguably the most environmentally damaging of sources...Brooklyn director and co-writer David Novack's documentary Burning the Future-Coal in America is a powerful-but-not-polemic, damning indictment of the coal industry in Southern West Virginia, a state whose politics, life and environment are heavily in thrall to the coal industry. Almost all of the electrical power generated in W Va. is from coal, and the industry contributes strongly to the political establishment there ..." Burning the Future is the story of a few courageous people whose lives have been overturned by the process of mining coal called Mountaintop Removal. Which is exactly what it implies, the explosive destruction of mature forested mountain tops in order to get to the coal seams underneath.

For those who are into watching environmental nightmares take place, we also highly recommend the excellent five part VBS TV series, Toxic West Virginia, which is a relative of the Toxic Brooklyn series and of the Toxic Alberta series. All are excellent. Also, more about Burning the Future, here.