Mountain Top Removal

Occupy Mountains is inspired by the Occupy Movement begun in September 2011.

Mountaintop coal removal is one of the greatest environmental and human rights catastrophes in American history.

Industry’s claim that mountaintop removal brings prosperity to the region is a demonstrable lie. To the contrary, the out-of-state companies and Wall Street banks that control Appalachian coal are liquidating the resources of the region while impoverishing its residents. West Virginia, ground zero for the plundering of Appalachia, is blessed with some of the country’s richest resources yet is America’s 49th poorest state. In fact, coalfield counties throughout the region have some of the highest poverty levels in the nation.

Local, state, and regional organizations across Appalachia are working together to create a national network to end mountaintop removal and create a prosperous future for the region.

Learn more and find out how you can help:
http://thehill.com/opinion/op-ed/86093-poverty-and-tyranny-central-to-immoral-practice-of-mountain-destruction-water-and-air-poisoning-

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"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn."
— John Muir

"We have forgotten how to be good guests, how to walk lightly on the earth as its other creatures do."
~~Barbara Ward, Only One Earth, 1972

How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!
John Muir

"The mountains are calling and I must go."
— John Muir

"Keep close to Nature's heart...and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean. "
— John Muir

"Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity..."
— John Muir

"Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life."
— John Muir (A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf)

"Going to the mountains is going home."
— John Muir

"One day's exposure to mountains is better than a cartload of books."
— John Muir

"Who wouldn't be a mountaineer! Up here all the world's prizes seem nothing"
— John Muir

"When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”
~~John Muir

“I have climbed several higher mountains without guide or path, and have found, as might be expected, that it takes only more time and patience commonly than to travel the smoothest highway”
Henry David Thoreau

“Great things are done when men and mountains meet”
William Blake

“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.”
Edward Abbey

“Beyond the mountains there are mountains again.”
Haitian Proverb

“The experienced mountain climber is not intimidated by a mountain -- he is inspired by it. The persistent winner is not discouraged by a problem -- he is challenged by it. Mountains are created to be conquered; adversities are designed to be defeated; problems are sent to be solved. It is better to master one mountain than a thousand foothills.”
William Arthur Ward

"Big Coal is a Criminal Enterprise".
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. , "The Last Mountain"

“Mountains cannot be surmounted except by winding paths.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe