New Book: Roselle’s Tree Spiker out in Sept.


Tree Spiker - Images by antrim caskey

From Publishers Weekly

Tree Spiker—From Earth First to Lowbagging: My Struggles in Radical Environmental Action Mike Roselle with Josh Mahan. St. Martin’s, $24.99 (272p) ISBN 978-0-312-55619-8

Roselle—cofounder of the Rainforest Action Network and Earth First!—offers a memoir of his career in radical activism—from teenage Yippie to career environmentalist, who admits he shares his “generation’s complicity in creating the mess we are in today” and is now fighting against mountaintop-removal coal mining in Appalachia. His rollicking adventures make for entertaining reading: he is jailed after hanging an anti–acid rain sign over Mt. Rushmore, helps Woody Harrelson climb the Golden Gate Bridge to protest the redwood logging and spikes trees (a form of protest in which metal spikes are hammered into a tree trunk to make the tree harder to cut down). Did he really throw Abbie Hoffman in a pool in Miami? Did he really discuss the future of Costa Rican rainforests with future president José María Figueres over a bloody steak and a bottle of whiskey? Roselle is more interested in spinning a good yarn than supporting some of his wilder stories. He embraces every stereotype he embodies and celebrates the impact he and his collaborators have had on the past 30 years of environmental policy. (Sept.)

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Photo Essay: Kayford Mountain Lock Down

8 Activists Arrested at Kayford Mountain Lock Down
Antrim Caskey

Kayford, WV — Eight activists with a coalition of groups including Mountain Justice and Climate Ground Zero walked on to the Patriot Coal mountaintop removal coal operation on Larry Gibson’s Kayford mountain in the early morning hours of March 23, 2009. Six of the protestors locked themselves, in groups of three, to a piece of massive earth moving equipment–referred to as a Yuke–with tires 24′ tall and hung a banner reading “Never Again” on the machine. The activists locked down for five hours. Ten officers from three different state and county authorities responded to the protest on Kayford, the largest number of people to be arrested during this sustained campaign of non violent civil disobedience that began in February, 2009.

The eight activists arrested include Kim Kirkbride, Ash-Lee Henderson, Tanya Turner, Jared Story, Willie Dodson, Will Wickham, Mathew Louis-Rosenberg, and Glenn Collins.

The activists were arrested and taken to Boone County seat at Madison, were processed and released on their own recognizances.




Kayford Mountain Action, May 23, 2009 - Images by antrim caskey

8 activists arrested on Kayford Mountain


Will Wickham, Glenn Collins, Jared Story, Willie Dodson and other activists with Mountain Justice and Climate Ground Zero are taken into custody after a 5 hour lock down to machinery on Patriot Coal's operation on Kayford Mountain. Three state authorities arrived on the scene: 6 Kanawha Sheriffs, 2 Boone County sheriffs and 2 WV state troopers.  The protestors were taken to the Boone County seat at Madison and released on their own recognizances.  photograph (c) Antrim Caskey, 2009
Will Wickham, Glenn Collins, Jared Story, Willie Dodson, Mathew Louis-Rosenberg, Kim Kirkbride, Ash-Lee Henderson and Tanya Turner, activists with Mountain Justice and Climate Ground Zero, are taken into custody after a 5 hour lock down to machinery on Patriot Coal's operation on Kayford Mountain. Three state authorities arrived on the scene: 6 Kanawha Sheriffs, 2 Boone County sheriffs and 2 WV state troopers. The protestors were taken to the Boone County seat at Madison and released on their own recognizances. photograph (c) Antrim Caskey, 2009