CoalSwarm

CoalSwarm
CoalSwarm
URL http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Portal:Coal_Issues
Commercial? No
Type of site Information clearinghouse
Registration Optional
(required to edit pages)
Available language(s) English
Owner Earth Island Institute[1]
Launched 2008
Current status Live

CoalSwarm is an American environmentalist online project which focuses on sharing information about the coal industry. It is structured as a set of pages on the SourceWatch wiki. According to the San Francisco Chronicle in 2009, it has been an important player in the anti-coal movement.[2] Its purpose is to "build a shared information resource on coal is an effort to create an informational tool on coal for students, journalists, activists, public officials, and the general public", according to a statement on its website.[3] It was founded in 2008 by environmental activist Ted Nace.[2] Nace claimed in Dissent Magazine in 2009 that CoalSwarm had helped anti-coal activists and other environmentalists to derail 109 proposed coal plants.[4] In March of 2009, there were 1500 articles,[5] and there were 2500 articles later that year,[6] and over 4000 in December 2010.

Origins

Nace noticed that hundreds of grassroots groups were opposing coal, and they were working together "kind of as a swarm", and he figured a way to help was to create an "information clearinghouse".[7] CoalSwarm includes articles on specific coal plants as well as on a variety of subjects pertaining to the anti-coal movement.

CoalSwarm has received attention in left–leaning publications such as Socialist Worker[8][9] as well as the online environmental journal Grist[10] the journal Atlantic Free Press,[11][12] and in the online blog by Joseph J. Romm entitled Climate Progress.[13] Poet and activist Beth Wellington was affiliated with CoalSwarm, according to the British newspaper The Guardian.[14] When CoalSwarm released a list of 126 coal-fired power plants which had 10,000 or more people living within a three-mile radius of each plant, and that a medical group cautioned about possible health effects, this finding was reported in Online Journal in 2009.[15] CoalSwarm, as an organization, is a project of the Earth Island Institute. The CoalSwarm wiki is a joint project between CoalSwarm and the Center for Media and Democracy.

Director Ted Nace writes regularly about anti-coal issues in publications such as the bimonthly Orion Magazine.[16] CoalSwarm received a grant of $34,500 from the Mertz Gilmore Foundation in 2010.[17]

References

  1. ^ Milan (March 16, 2010). "The CoalSwarm wiki". BuryCoal. http://burycoal.com/blog/2010/03/16/the-coalswarm-wiki/. Retrieved 2010-11-28. "CoalSwarm ... They are sponsored by San Francisco’s Earth Island Institute." 
  2. ^ a b Cameron Scott (interview with Ted Nace) (March 13 2009). "The Anti-Coal Movement's SF Nerve Center". San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/green/detail?entry_id=36930. Retrieved 2010-11-28. "Second in an ongoing series of profiles of Bay Area environmentalists is Ted Nace, director of the CoalSwarm website and an important part of the anti-coal movement that has been in the news in recent weeks." 
  3. ^ "CoalSwarm". CoalSwarm website. 2010-11-28. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=CoalSwarm. Retrieved 2010-11-28. "The goal of CoalSwarm is to build a shared information resource on coal is an effort to create an informational tool on coal for students, journalists, activists, public officials, and the general public." 
  4. ^ Mark Engler (October 25, 2010). "Defining "Organizing" in the Internet Age". Dissent Magazine. http://www.dissentmagazine.org/atw.php?id=296. Retrieved 2010-11-28. "Nace states, “By late 2009, following two years of intense mobilization, opponents had derailed at least 109 proposed plants, bringing the coal boom to a sputtering halt.”" 
  5. ^ "CoalSwarm a Nerve Center for the Green Energy Movement". Center for Media and Democracy. March 13, 2009. http://www.prwatch.org/node/8319. Retrieved 2010-11-28. "Nace explains, "Anybody can post information. We've got 1500 articles on the CoalSwarm site, and it's been accessed hundreds of thousands of times." 
  6. ^ Christine Shearer (2010-11-28). "Climate Hope: How a New Rebellion Against Coal Is Fueling the Drive for Clean Energy". AlterNet. http://www.alternet.org/environment/145865/?page=3. Retrieved 2010-11-28. "... That means anyone can contribute information, and there are now over 2500 articles on the website." 
  7. ^ "The Anti-Coal Movement's SF Nerve Center". Democratic Underground.com. March 13, 2009. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x189989. Retrieved 2010-11-28. "About two years ago I was writing an article about the anti-coal movement, and I noticed that the nature of the movement was hundreds of grassroots groups, working kind of as a swarm, and very effectively. And I felt like something I could contribute was to create an information clearinghouse that all the groups could share. So I put together the CoalSwarm website, which is just a way to bring information together." 
  8. ^ Ted Nace (May 8, 2009). "Calling for a coal moratorium". Socialistworker.org. http://socialistworker.org/2009/05/08/for-a-coal-moratorium. Retrieved 2010-11-28. "More recently, Nace turned his energies toward the anti-coal movement and co-founded CoalSwarm, created in collaboration with the Center for Media and Democracy, which provides an ever-expanding body of online information for anyone to access and contribute to. CoalSwarm is a project of the Earth Island Institute, which was founded by environmental pioneer David Brower." 
  9. ^ Joshua Frank, Jeffrey St. Clair (December 2, 2009). "The victims of killer coal". Socialistworker.org. http://socialistworker.org/2009/12/02/victims-of-killer-coal. Retrieved 2010-11-28. "SO YOU thought smoking cigarettes was bad for your health? Try living next to a coal-fired power plant. That's the diagnosis that Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) relayed to the public in a comprehensive medical study released on November 18 called "Coal's Assault of Human Health."" 
  10. ^ Judith Siers-Poisson (March 21, 2008). "Introducing the coalSwarm". PR Watch.org. http://www.prwatch.org/node/7127. Retrieved 2010-11-28. "David Roberts, the widely read columnist at online environmental journal Grist, commented that "coal is on the ropes" and referred readers to coalSwarm's cancellation report." 
  11. ^ Joshua Frank (interviews Ted Nace) (2009-04-26). "Calling for a Coal Moratorium: An Interview with Ted Nace". Atlantic Free Press. http://atlanticfreepress.com/news/1/9359-calling-for-a-coal-moratorium-an-interview-with-ted-nace.html. Retrieved 2010-11-28. "Ted Nace is the author of Gangs of America: The Rise of Corporate America and the Disabling of Democracy. In 1985 he founded Peachpit Press and has worked as a freelance writer and served as staff director of the Dakota Resource Council, ..." 
  12. ^ Ted Nace (24 Dec 2008). "Climate youth activists target the Capitol Power Plant". grist. http://www.grist.org/article/Mean-old-and-dirty. Retrieved 2010-11-28. "The U.S. coal-fired power plant fleet is filled with geezers. Out of 1,522 existing generating units, 600 were running during the Nixon-Kennedy debates. Nearly 10 percent were built in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. ... Around the world, direct action protests against coal have risen dramatically in the past year. A partial list compiled on the CoalSwarm wiki shows 11 such actions from 2004-2006, 17 in 2007, and 42 so far in 2008." 
  13. ^ "Coal is (not) clean". Climate Progress. June 9, 2008. http://climateprogress.org/2008/06/09/coal-is-not-clean/. Retrieved 2010-11-28. "coalSwarm has two sets of pages worth noting..." 
  14. ^ "Beth Wellington". The Guardian (U.K.). 2010-11-28. http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/beth-wellington. Retrieved 2010-11-28. "Beth Wellington is a poet, journalist and activist living in Virginia. The Writing Corner, her blog on politics and culture, gets great notices at Newstrust.net. Beth serves as an adviser to the online project CoalSwarm" 
  15. ^ Joshua Frank (Nov 27, 2009). "Medical group denounces coal in critical report". Online Journal. http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/printer_5315.shtml. Retrieved 2010-11-28. "Recently CoalSwarm*, an environmental group that monitors coal issues, released a list of 126 coal-fired power plants that are surrounded by 10,000 people or more living within a three-mile radius. Most of these hundreds of thousands of Americans are being exposed to deadly coal particulates without even knowing it." 
  16. ^ Ted Nace (February 2008). "Loosely affiliated activists draw a hard line -- and hold it". Orion Magazine. http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/506/. Retrieved 2010-11-28. "Next to her chair she had carefully placed her NO NEW COAL PLANTS sign so that it faced the wall, after a request to do so from a hotel manager." 
  17. ^ Rachael Young (2010). "Climate Change Solutions". Mertz Gilmore Foundation. http://www.mertzgilmore.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20&Itemid=42. Retrieved 2010-11-28. "Earth Island Institute (CoalSwarm) $34,500 for one year to expand CoalSwarm’s reporter network and provide research support for campaigns challenging the need for coal plants." 

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