Episode 15
Hollar: A Graphic Memoir of Rural Resistance with Denali Sai Nalamalapu
The Mountain Valley Pipeline and Stories of Resistance in Appalachia
Amidst the Appalachian dawn, our exploration of community resilience and environmental justice unfolds through the lens of Denali Sai Nalamalapu, author of ‘Holler: A Graphic Memoir of Rural Resistance.’ The Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) stands as a stark reminder of the battles waged by local communities against encroaching corporate interests. Denali expertly articulates the complexities of this decade-long struggle, revealing how the MVP’s construction, initially presented as a critical energy project, has instead become a symbol of corporate overreach and environmental degradation.
The MVP was met with fierce and determined opposition from a diverse community of residents who understood the potential dangers it posed to their land, water supply, and way of life. We discuss the labyrinthine, back-slapping political maneuvering that allowed the MVP to be approved. A Faustian bargain at the highest levels, where environmental concerns and legitimate legal challenges were sidelined in favor of fossil fuel development–thanks to the intransigence of Senator Joe Manchin.
Denali shares her experience and the stories of others who have dedicated a decade or more of their lives to the fight, demonstrating that the struggle against the MVP was not just about preserving land or one pipeline, but also about asserting the rights of communities to defend their homes. The episode highlights how grassroots activism can mobilize resistance across diverse voices as a powerful force against exploitation.
The ongoing resistance against the expansion of the MVP into North Carolina serves as a testament to the indomitable spirit of those who refuse to back down in the face of corporate giants.
Denali’s insights remind us that while the battle may be tough, the path toward justice, environmental stewardship, and energy sanity is one worth pursuing. We can confront the Goliaths of our time, armed with resilience, community, and an unwavering commitment to justice.
Takeaways:
- The Mountain Valley Pipeline controversy underscores the conflict between local communities and corporate interests that prioritize profit over environmental well-being.
- Grassroots activism is not just a youthful endeavor; it encompasses voices from all ages, demonstrating the power of intergenerational solidarity in the pursuit of environmental justice.
- Despite the Mountain Valley Pipeline's construction, the ongoing resistance reflects a resilient community spirit that continues to challenge corporate exploitation of natural resources.
- Storytelling through graphic novels, as seen in Denali Sai Nalamalapu's work, is a compelling medium for conveying complex environmental issues to broader audiences.
- The fight against the Mountain Valley Pipeline underscores the importance of local knowledge and community connections in combating environmental injustices.
- Even in the face of setbacks, such as the pipeline's approval, the unity and determination of the Appalachian community serve as a beacon of hope for future climate action.
References:
- Denali Sai Nalamalapu
- Hollar: A Graphic Memoir of Rural Resistance
- Mountain Valley Pipeline
- MVP “Misleading and Disengenuous”
- Veterans fighting MVP
- GlobalWarmingIsReal
Transcript
It's morning in Appalachia.
Speaker A:You rise to greet the day.
Speaker A:Life out here is once spent next to the land, away from the noise and chaos of the busy world of striving and acquisition.
Speaker A:Out beyond the fields, farms and meadows, the Appalachian Mountains reach up to greet the morning sun.
Speaker A:Time for coffee.
Speaker A:Water streams from the tap, the cull of a weak tea.
Speaker A:Disturbing as that is, it's no surprise.
Speaker A:It's just another day in a land once relatively undisturbed until an energy hungry, profit seeking, frenetic world pressed in, taking, toppling, excavating, extracting.
Speaker A:When in doubt, take the easy way.
Speaker B:Out and build a pipeline.
Speaker A:You're reminded of the story of David and Goliath.
Speaker A:You didn't want to be David, just to be left alone to live on the land that you love.
Speaker A:But they're polluting the water, raising the landscape and claiming your neighbor's land.
Speaker A:Farms that families have worked for generations in this episode of Global Warming is real.
Speaker A:I talk with Denali Sai Nalamallapu, author of A Graphic memoir of Rural resistance about the 10 year struggle to stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline that involved Appalachians across age, race and background.
Speaker A:Contrary to the stereotypes of activism as solely a woke, whatever that means young persons endeavor.
Speaker A: Initially proposed in: Speaker A:It wasn't.
Speaker A:It isn't.
Speaker A:It was one of the many disingenuous claims, AKA lies proffered by proponents of the boondoggle project.
Speaker A:The MVP soon met fierce resistance not just from environmentalists, but from multi generational, multiracial communities whose stories were rarely heard outside the region.
Speaker A:Suddenly, these close knit, diverse and self reliant communities became the focal point of view the national reckoning over climate justice, political power and the future of America's energy landscape.
Speaker A:For nearly a decade, pipeline adversaries faced an uphill battle, navigating obscure corporate alliances, a regulatory system often tilted against them, and ultimately a political compromise, a Faustian bargain in Washington that prioritized unnecessary fossil fuel development over local health, water and sovereignty.
Speaker A:Senator Joe Manchin's unholy alliance with the Biden administration tipped the scales, shutting down opposition.
Speaker A:The pipeline's approval slipped into a must pass budget deal, short circuited ongoing legal challenges and left many grassroots organizers feeling betrayed.
Speaker A:Yet as Denali shows in Haller and throughout our conversation, the real legacy of the MVP goes beyond the scar it leaves on the land and highlights the indelible imprint of resistance.
Speaker A:Neighbors learning from neighbors, communities forging mutual aid networks and voices long ignored, claiming their part in the bigger narrative of American climate action communities that, as Denali says, became the heartbeat of resistance in Appalachia.
Speaker A:If there is one thing that is clear in our current moment, it is that resistance, resilience and community are the best weapons against the forces that willfully embrace injustice, exploitation and climate destruction in the name of power domination and short sighted profiteering.
Speaker A:Haller describes one instance where the initial skirmish was lost.
Speaker A:The Mountain Valley Pipeline was built.
Speaker A:Unnecessary, poorly planned and dreadfully executed.
Speaker A:But it was built.
Speaker A:And methane gas now surges through a pipeline snaking up and down the slopes of Appalachia, across fields and what were once farms.
Speaker A:But the fight is not over.
Speaker A:Winds may be few and far between, but the struggle continues.
Speaker A:The bands of resistance remain strong in the face of the proposed expansion of MVP into North Carolina.
Speaker A:No, you didn't want to be David as you sit in the shadow of the Appalachian Mountains sipping your slightly funny tasting coffee.
Speaker A:But unlike the ancient story of David and Goliath, you are not alone.
Speaker A:There are many others everywhere ready to face Goliath.
Speaker A:Denali Sai Nalamalapu, author of A Graphic Memoir of Rural Resistance, is one such person.
Speaker A:I'll let them take it from here.
Speaker B:Thanks for your time today and thanks for having me.
Speaker B:Yeah, and for riding Holler.
Speaker B:I think it was a great way to present what happened with the Mountain Valley Pipeline first off, and also the stories of the six individuals and the community and the activism and the despite what happened with mvp, the sense of hope that you conveyed.
Speaker C:Oh, I'm glad.
Speaker B:So tell me about your background.
Speaker B:How did you come to this?
Speaker B:How did you come to write?
Speaker B:Haller, what are your thoughts about combining art and storytelling?
Speaker B:And are you primarily an artist or.
Speaker A:A writer or both?
Speaker B:How did you get into graphic novels?
Speaker C:So I grew up in southern Maine and my family's from southern India.
Speaker C:So I grew up with a close connection to two very different environments and also noticing the changes to do with climate change and environmental destruction and the environment.
Speaker C:And at the same time I from a very young age was very into drawing and writing and I started out drawing cartoons.
Speaker C:My mom gave me a secondhand cartooning book, how to Draw Cartoon Faces, and I spent a lot of time with that as a kid.
Speaker C:And then as I got older I got into writing as part of school and also it's something I do enjoy and at the same time I was always very connected to the environment and was learning more about climate change, especially when after college I moved to Borneo, an island off the coast of Malaysia and Indonesia.
Speaker C:I was in Malaysian territory and I saw what the palm oil industry had done both to the community and to the forest, and decided to go into climate change organizing and carried my skills of writing and art with me as well.
Speaker C:And then in terms of how this all came together to create Holler, I was seeking a different way to convey the stories involved in the pipeline fight that we hadn't done before that could reach younger audiences and audiences that were too busy to consume.
Speaker C:A 300 to 500 page manifesto on climate change and graphic novels came to mind.
Speaker C:And I think because I'm equally a writer and an artist, the medium suits me very well.
Speaker C:Because I don't necessarily have one medium that I'm more invested in or called to, which maybe would lead to something like a book with some illustrations or a painting with some words or something like that.
Speaker C:But rather I'm very into both of them.
Speaker B:I found since I this was my first graphic novel and I'm used to reading those 3 to 500 word manifestos about issues like this was how well it conveyed the stories of the people you highlighted as well as the story of the Mountain Valley pipeline.
Speaker B:It was from my perspective as somebody that is not that familiar with graphic novels, that's how well it conveyed a very complex story.
Speaker B:And I was pleased.
Speaker B:I came away from it going well.
Speaker B:That was easy to digest, but I got the information I needed to get and I come away with a much deeper understanding of the story and especially highlighting the people that are impacted by it and their fight against it.
Speaker B:I was impressed with that.
Speaker B:I'm still grappling with how you communicate climate change and I think this is a great way to do it, especially as you mentioned, reaching younger audiences, which is very important.
Speaker B:You know, I'm an older guy, I'm a boomer, and I feel a responsibility to somehow communicate what we are leaving to the younger generation.
Speaker B:And I think this is an important medium and I think you do it very well, actually.
Speaker C:I appreciate that.
Speaker C:I definitely feel like it's important to have many different ways of communicating the climate crisis.
Speaker C:And comics and graphic novels have a role to play there.
Speaker C:And when I started writing this book three years ago, there weren't many climate justice or climate change graphic novels out there.
Speaker C:There's a famous graphic novel by Kate Beaton called Ducks that's more about climate change in the fossil fuel industry and what it's like to be a worker in the industry.
Speaker C:And then there's an environmental justice graphic novel called Crude that that tells the story of Indigenous communities who are advocating for fossil fuel cleanup that from the mess Chevron left behind in Ecuador.
Speaker C:But I didn't know of many climate justice stories that took place in the US and that were in graphic novel form, especially in Appalachia, which is a region that's been consumed by fossil fuel extraction for more than the past century.
Speaker C:So it felt like an exciting new way to tell the story and something that I could offer to the discourse around climate change that wasn't already there.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I think telling the story of Appalachia is, as you say, has been more or less ground zero for mountaintop removal.
Speaker B:This pipeline that just, you know, the pipeline, it's a disaster, but it's out of sight, out of mind.
Speaker B:People don't realize what's happening, the impact that has had on people in the region.
Speaker B:How did you find the six people that you highlighted?
Speaker B:How did you find them?
Speaker B:And what.
Speaker B:What was your process in deciding which.
Speaker A:Stories to highlight in the novel?
Speaker C:I was already working in the fight to stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline.
Speaker C:Before conceiving of this project, I was working in communications at a grassroots nonprofit to convey to national, local, and regional audiences what the fight was about.
Speaker C:And so this project came from that work.
Speaker C:So I was already in community with the grassroots movement to stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline.
Speaker C:And then when I started thinking about whose features, whose stories would I want to be part of this project, I thought of three different aspects of what I hoped the project would be.
Speaker C:One is the Mountain Valley Pipeline goes through both West Virginia and Southwest Virginia.
Speaker C:Two different states with different political landscapes, different histories of extraction, generally.
Speaker C:And a lot of the media coverage of the MVP focused on the Virginia fight, which actually was a smaller portion of the pipeline than the West Virginia side.
Speaker C:But in West Virginia, there's a lot more repression by the state of people's voices and of resistance to fossil fuels.
Speaker C:And in part because of that, there's more reticence to talk about it.
Speaker C:There's less coverage of these stories.
Speaker C:And it felt really important to me to have both West Virginia pipeline fighters and Virginia pipeline fighters.
Speaker C:So that's one place I started with.
Speaker C:I also wanted to convey the intergenerational nature of the movement because I think a lot of times when people think about activism, they think it's a young person's game.
Speaker C:They imagine, like, young hippies running around the woods or something like that.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:But actually, my experience with MVP fight was that it was very intergenerational.
Speaker C:There was everyone from people in their 80s who were advocating for the stop of the pipeline.
Speaker C:Maybe they weren't going to every protest and climbing up every mountain, but they were doing what they could within their abilities to advocate for the end of the pipeline.
Speaker C:And there was really, there were really young kids.
Speaker C:There were kids who grew up in the resistance, who were infants and children at the beginning, and then who grew up in the 10 years that it took to reach the culmination of this fight.
Speaker C:And then there were also busy working people, busy single parents, busy parents in the midst of it.
Speaker C:And I wanted to convey that intergenerational component.
Speaker C:And then lastly, I wanted to shine a light on what my experience is in terms of the diversity of the region.
Speaker C:It's definitely true that Appalachia is a majority rural, white and elderly region in terms of the scope of the United States.
Speaker C:But as a person of color living in Appalachia, I also know that there are still there are indigenous people living on the land.
Speaker C:So the last chapter of this book features the story of Desiree Shelley, who's a member of the Monacan tribe, whose land is the land I wrote this book on.
Speaker C:There are black communities.
Speaker C:Crystal Mello, who is Featured in Chapter 3 of this project, has a mixed race family.
Speaker C:And that really shaped the way she thought about activism as a white woman.
Speaker C:And there are immigrant communities.
Speaker C:My parents are immigrants, they didn't immigrate to Appalachia.
Speaker C:But I'm a first generation immigrant and I live in Appalachia.
Speaker C:And so I wanted to add nuance to the oftentimes oversimplified narratives around the region.
Speaker C:So those were the three sort of buckets that I started with.
Speaker C:And then from there I thought of different people that I knew and that my community knew along the route and reached out to them and asked if they would be willing to talk to me.
Speaker C:And then the selection kind of narrowed from there.
Speaker B:In speaking with these more marginalized communities, what does that informed you?
Speaker B:How does, what has that taught you?
Speaker B:What have you learned from these communities in terms of resilience and resistance?
Speaker B:What are some lessons that you've learned from how these people that just in their daily lives are up against some form of oppression?
Speaker B:How does that inform your ideas of resilience and resistance?
Speaker C:One thing I learned from Appalachians broadly and from people who fought the Mountain Valley Pipeline is that there wasn't any particular party or particular politician that folks could trust or can trust to take care of their lives and well being.
Speaker C:The Mountain Valley Pipeline went through many different stages of going forward and going back.
Speaker C:And it didn't really matter whether there was A concern, conservative or liberal in power.
Speaker C:There were many people across both parties who were big proponents of the pipeline project and who were infamous for not listening to community and scientists concerns.
Speaker C:So I've definitely learned about the reality of working class people in terms of how politicians treat them and their well being, their future, their demands, everything like that.
Speaker C:I've also learned about how important it is to get to know your neighbors because fossil fuel pipelines don't want you to know about the insidious nature of their work.
Speaker C:They don't want you to know that you might lose your drinking water source.
Speaker C:They don't want you to know that the pipeline might explode on a mountainside near you and extinguish your home and your family.
Speaker C:There are many realities of having a pipeline, a massive pipeline project like this next to your home that the pipeline company doesn't want you to know.
Speaker C:And what I learned through talking to people was that they learned about the realities of this pipeline project by meeting their neighbors and then meeting their neighbors, friends who were scientists or meeting neighbors who knew more information than them and piecing together the puzzle like that, which isn't ideal.
Speaker C:It would be ideal if corporations were held to a higher standard in terms of transparency.
Speaker C:But I did learn a lot about how important it is to get to know your neighbors so that you know what's coming through your community, what's impacting your children's future and so that you can pull your knowledge and fight the bad and fight for the good together.
Speaker B:I think that message in climate and, and we're both in the United States so we both know what's going on here.
Speaker B:The sense of community is always critical, but it just seems to be starkly important right now.
Speaker B:There's the Mountain Valley pipeline, but now we're witnessing so much more.
Speaker B:Let's just keep it with environment and climate.
Speaker B:The anti science and the corporate takeover of the environment is at a inflection point right now, I think so I think it's very important.
Speaker B:The community is aspect of this is critical.
Speaker B:The book highlights how the community came together.
Speaker B:Unfortunately they didn't prevail because of the machinations in Washington I guess, but still it did slow it down.
Speaker B:Local community action is where the resistance happens.
Speaker B:And I think that you portrayed that in your novel.
Speaker C:Yeah, I definitely feel that way.
Speaker C:And I think they're really tangible ways for people to connect to the community around them that are part of Holler.
Speaker C:Part of the stories in Holler, like just getting to know the people who live right next door to you.
Speaker C:Joining up in local groups so that you can organize together.
Speaker C:There are very specific ways advocating for certain city council candidates who will hold utilities accountable and advocate for climate progress no matter what happens on the federal level.
Speaker C:There are very tangible ways, I think, to connect to your local community and build power together.
Speaker C:Even though it can sound like a broad generalization, I feel like people are always saying, build community.
Speaker C:Community is power.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker C:Sometimes I imagine for some people, and for me too, it can be like, okay, that sounds nice, but what do I do?
Speaker C:And to me it's about finding the mutual org or organization, mutual aid organizations near you, meeting your neighbors, finding out who the local political candidates are, who you can ensure hold your, the environmental well being in your community well being as a priority.
Speaker C:All these things are like very specific endeavors that someone who lives anywhere can do.
Speaker C:Whether you live in New York City, where we often see big on the streets protests, or you live in Southwest Virginia where you rarely see massive on the streets protests.
Speaker B:You alluded to this before.
Speaker B:You think of activism as a young person's game, but with the pipeline, there were people in their 80s and everybody found their own way to participate, depending on where they're at in life or in the world.
Speaker B:If you don't want to go out and march on the streets, there's other things that you can do.
Speaker B:Be involved in your local communities.
Speaker B:I remember in the first Trump administration, I spoke with the mayor of Carmel, Indiana, I believe it was, and he was a Republican, but he was also pro climate action.
Speaker B:He was doing what he could in his, as a mayor, in his own community, to simple things like doing roundabouts, just the little things that seem it's not going to make much of a difference, but everybody contributing one aspect of what they can do creates a larger movement toward change.
Speaker B:Are you in contact at all still with the folks that you spoke with for the book?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Last night I did a book talk with Michael James Daramo, who is in the fifth chapter of the book.
Speaker C:MJD grew up in Blacksburg, Virginia, near Brush Mountain and saw the pipeline come through the forests and the backwoods that they played in as a child and then they were a college student when they found out.
Speaker C:So their resistance was a lot more of what one might imagine as activism like civil disobedience and mutual aid and getting out the vote, that type of thing.
Speaker C:And then on my book launch, I had a conversation with Desiree Shelley Flores, who is the indigenous seed keeper in the sixth chapter of the book.
Speaker C:And we got to talk about the work she's doing now and how she's reflecting on the pipeline fight.
Speaker C:And the coolest thing about being in contact with the six people who are part of this book is reflecting together on the pipeline fight.
Speaker C:Because as you said, it ended in a backroom deal between Senator Joe Manchin, President Biden and other Democratic leaders to greenlight the pipeline through all of the lawsuits and permits that it had lost.
Speaker C:And now the pipeline's now in service.
Speaker C:And so now the conversations I'm having with the folks who are part of this book is about how they're reflecting on that ten year long fight.
Speaker C:And for some, it's more of a reflection on how powerful the community resistance was and how much we learned together about how to build power and how hard this multimillion dollar company had to fight in order to build this pipeline.
Speaker C:And for others, it's a lot more somber and full of grief, especially for people who for whom the pipeline goes right through their farm.
Speaker C:It's more reflections on everything they lost and how unjust the system is.
Speaker B:Yeah, that must be just heartbreaking.
Speaker B:How do you feel personally?
Speaker B:How have you dealt with the results of mvp and how do you deal with, you know, when the hopelessness creeps in, which I imagine it must, how do you personally first off feel about the results?
Speaker B:How did you react?
Speaker B:How were your feelings around mvp and just generally with the climate fight, with the activism, how do you maintain your energy and your hope?
Speaker C:I remember when I heard that President Manchin had been successful in green lighting the pipeline.
Speaker C:It was a little surreal because he'd been trying to push the pipeline through must pass debt, like debt related legislation for going on a year.
Speaker C:At that point there had been multiple attempts and we had been advocating very strongly to President Biden to stop this unnecessary methane gas pipeline project.
Speaker C:And so it felt a bit surreal because the Mountain Valley pipeline took 10 years to build, not only because of the powerful community resistance, but because as you said earlier in the program, it was a really poorly done project.
Speaker C:It was a mess of a pipeline project that was planned for the flatlands of the Midwest and then got rerouted into the steep slopes of Appalachia.
Speaker C:Very few people ever stepped foot on the land they were going to build this pipeline on.
Speaker C:So there was a lack of understanding of how steep the slopes were, how land side prone they were.
Speaker C:The reality that it's karst terrain, the reality of seismic zones, all of these things.
Speaker C:And so the pipeline took 10 years in part because they couldn't get the permits they needed to build the pipeline.
Speaker C:And they Kept getting caught up in legal challenges to do with violating environmental regulations.
Speaker C:And so hearing that President Biden and the Democrats allowed a pipeline project that was so dangerous and unnecessary to go through in a debt ceiling bill was quite surreal.
Speaker C:I remember Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia saying that this is unprecedented that a corporation would have this much power to weasel into a must pass bill in Congress and get greenlit.
Speaker C:I also remember there was a lot going on.
Speaker C:We still didn't know if all the legal challenges would just disappear.
Speaker C:We didn't know if all the regulatory agencies would just give them the permits.
Speaker C:This had never been done before.
Speaker C:So it was a long period of a lot of like surprise, confusion, grief, anger.
Speaker C:There were all the emotions.
Speaker C:But I do think in part because the pipeline didn't go through my backyard or my family land, I have the privilege of being part of the climate movement and being part of the pipeline fight for the resistance, for the day to day.
Speaker C:I was, I didn't ever join the pipeline fight because I thought there was 100% definite reality that we would win.
Speaker C:Nothing ever felt 100% possible because of the enormous powers we were fighting against.
Speaker C:But rather because I think what I want to do with this one life that I have on this earth is to be in community with others, to fight for environmental protections that are instrumental to our survival.
Speaker C:And this was part of it.
Speaker C:So part of how I stay in this work is that I don't depend on hope to continue onto the next day.
Speaker C:Sometimes I feel hopeful, sometimes I feel hopeless.
Speaker C:But I always feel certain that there is a possibility that we could create a better world that doesn't have these enormous destructive pipelines because it's not written in stone.
Speaker C:And so for me, fighting projects like this every day and fighting for climate action feels like part of that commitment to the possibility that things aren't this way in the future.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think that's important to continue to fight the good fight despite the powers arrayed against you.
Speaker B:Just the pipeline itself.
Speaker B:But what is the purpose of this pipeline?
Speaker C:It's a boondoggle of a project.
Speaker C: The pipeline was proposed in: Speaker C:Companies were just like throwing spaghetti at the wall.
Speaker C:They were like, how many projects can we get done?
Speaker C:They proposed the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which was a 600 mile pipeline that went through West Virginia, Virginia and into North Carolina and, or no, in West Virginia and Virginia.
Speaker C:And then they proposed the 300 mile mountain valley Pipeline which went through West Virginia, Virginia and is now trying to expand into North Carolina, and they tried to get as much pushed through as they could, but the reality was that they ended up having to stop the Atlantic coast pipeline and they were able to buy a fluke push through the Mountain Valley pipeline.
Speaker C:Their argument was something along the lines of like, the southeast of the U.S. needs this gas, which it was proven by organizations like the nrdc, the Natural Resource Defense Commission, that this gas was not needed in the southeast of the United States.
Speaker C:Because we know that the United States is one of the most pipeline heavy countries in the world.
Speaker C:We're the biggest fossil fuel villains, in my opinion, in the world, and we produce an insane amount of emissions.
Speaker C:And we simply did not need another massive pipeline going through the Mountain Valley.
Speaker C:Mountain Valley pipeline route.
Speaker C:But this company wanted to make money.
Speaker C:And so their weak sauce argument was that we needed the energy, which wasn't something they were ever able to prove.
Speaker C:We also saw that it didn't bring jobs into the region.
Speaker C:Instead of bringing jobs into the region, they hired people from Nebraska and other parts of out west to come in.
Speaker C:They shipped workers, temporary workers in who weren't unionized largely to build the pipeline.
Speaker C:And then they all left once they were done building the pipeline.
Speaker C:And also, this is the type of project that costs us money, not only in the near term, but costs people, regular people that aren't the fossil fuel industry money in the long term.
Speaker C:Because climate change is an incredibly expensive crisis to have worsened by projects like this.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Am I correct?
Speaker B:It's bringing tar sands oil from Canada.
Speaker C:So this project is actually methane gas, which is quite a different fight.
Speaker C:Because tar sands oil is so visual for people.
Speaker C:You can see the black liquid seeping into the water, whereas methane gas is invisible.
Speaker C:And so it is a harder substance for people to conceive of as bad.
Speaker C:Even though we know that methane is an incredibly potent greenhouse gas emission that escalates the climate crisis.
Speaker C:So this pipeline happened to be gas, whereas the Dakota Access pipeline and the Keystone XL pipeline were tar sands.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:And line three was also an oil pipeline.
Speaker B:And wasn't there about a year ago, some explosion or something?
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:So when the pipeline was greenlit, meaning all of the permits that they didn't have were given to them, all of the lawsuits had to be dropped.
Speaker C:They continued to escalate construction at a really alarming speed.
Speaker C:And there was an explosion when they were testing the pipeline.
Speaker C:They were putting water at a high pressure through the pipeline right by the Blue Ridge Parkway, which is a very beloved parkway that goes through the Blue Ridge Mountains that many tourists come to and many locals love.
Speaker C:There was an explosion of the pipe right there by the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Speaker C:In this instance, it wasn't gas that was exploding out of the pipeline, it was water.
Speaker C:But it was right next to communities that had fought the pipeline for 10 years and was an instance of how alarming and how terrifying it is to live right next to the pipeline when you know that it exploded during testing and now it's in service.
Speaker B:Yeah, sounds like just a clown car of a construction.
Speaker B:What is the company behind this?
Speaker B:Who is, who's behind?
Speaker C:So this was an interesting aspect of the fight because the Atlantic coast pipeline had big climate villains behind it.
Speaker C:Dominion and Duke are household names in the region.
Speaker C:And even outside of the region, people in the US Generally know about the climate villains that are Dominion and Duke.
Speaker C:These are companies that kill people with their power shut offs and that make nonsense, awful decisions to deal with the climate crisis.
Speaker C:Whereas the Mountain Valley Pipeline was owned by five different stakeholders who didn't have household names.
Speaker C:So for example, the one of the biggest companies behind the Mountain Valley Pipeline was Equitrans Midstream.
Speaker C:No one, not even I, knew about Equitrans Midstream.
Speaker C:And I've been in the climate movement since I graduated college for the better half of the last decade.
Speaker C:And so it did pose a harder challenge communications wise to get people to know about the villains behind this pipeline.
Speaker C:But Equitrans Midstream is a much smaller climate villain that's located in the middle of Pennsylvania.
Speaker C:Its headquarters are in the middle of Pennsylvania.
Speaker C: ggest US climate disasters of: Speaker C:And this crisis was so bad that people started in the nearby towns to smell the leak, which isn't normal.
Speaker C:Methane gas is actually quite a silent killer.
Speaker C:And then they are also responsible for a house explosion in Pennsylvania that injured an entire family, including a four year old kid.
Speaker C:So when you dig into the company behind this project, you find a very destructive, poorly planned corporation, similar to the climate villains behind other projects, but much less well known.
Speaker B:Sounds like just hiding behind a huge corporate veil.
Speaker C:And a lot of these companies have the same funders and some of them are even tied to each other, but they like to break apart to confuse us and make us fight a bunch of different people rather than just the handful of companies that are at the middle of all of this.
Speaker B:Yeah, I remember when the Compromise was made between Biden and Manchin about this pipeline and they were pushing through, what is it?
Speaker B:Inflation Reduction act is big climate.
Speaker C:It was a bargain.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:His.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:It's dispiriting to, you know, to pass my climate legislation.
Speaker B:I'm going to do this evil.
Speaker B:One step forward, two steps back.
Speaker B:Sometimes it feels like, yeah.
Speaker B:What are you doing now?
Speaker B:What is on your radar as far as activism and resistance?
Speaker C:I'm continuing to live in southwest Virginia and continuing to be in community with the people that fought the Mountain Valley Pipeline.
Speaker C:And I'm also really interested in the power of mutual aid organizations and hyperlocal climate candidates, political candidates at this moment of federal rollbacks against of climate progress.
Speaker C:So I'm very focused on the power of supporting hyper local races like city council, delegate races in Virginia, rural electric cooperatives or utilities.
Speaker C:I think all of these races matter a lot in terms of climate action on the local and state level.
Speaker C:And we've seen that even though Trump has attacked that local climate progress and said that he'll make it impossible, many local candidates, many local politicians are standing up to that.
Speaker C:And I think that's important.
Speaker C:I also think the mutual aid elements of the Mountain Valley pipeline fight were very important.
Speaker C:Like, for example, when the tree sits were up in the forest stopping construction from happening.
Speaker C:There were whole networks of people who were feeding the activists, who were making sure that they were supported, who are creating little libraries so that the people in the action camp could read all of these things.
Speaker C:I think the ways we keep each other alive are very important.
Speaker C:And then I'm also, in terms of writing and creating, thinking about, what do you people need right now to support their fights?
Speaker C:Like, what can be created in the realm of writing and art to support people in this moment?
Speaker C:That's not just false hope.
Speaker C:That's not just like, it's all going to be okay, just wait for the next administration.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker C:The Mountain Valley Pipeline went through many administrations and there was no one we could wait for on the hyper, like federal, like, bigger level that ultimately would stop it.
Speaker C:But what is the kind of support people are craving when it comes to grounded in reality, climate possibility, stories and pieces of media?
Speaker B:Are you working on a book called Not Too Late?
Speaker C: that came out, I believe, in: Speaker C:And that was a book edited by Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Lutin Latamboa.
Speaker C:And that book was a collection of essays and stories about how it's not too late to combat the climate crisis.
Speaker C: at book that Fast forwards to: Speaker B:I appreciate the work you're doing.
Speaker B:And for my listeners, what would you suggest?
Speaker B:What are some steps they could take to support the frontline movements or tell their own community stories?
Speaker B:What advice would you give to people that want to do something, might feel overwhelmed, but are motivated right now to do whatever they can to fight all these things that are arrayed against, like you say, a livable, equitable future?
Speaker C:The first thing that I think people should do is meet their neighbors, go to their local city council meetings, talk to local environmental organizations near them, and get to know what are the fights that their community is fighting.
Speaker C:For example, yesterday I did an event in Richmond and we were talking about the multiple Richmond water crises.
Speaker C:And I think when we get involved in local action, we are able to find ways to expand that beyond our community.
Speaker C:And so finding ways to be involved in the local struggles that are already happening in your community, whether it's like against something or for a better system, I feel is very important.
Speaker C:And then also I do think, like telling our own stories of resistance is quite important.
Speaker C:We often feel less let down by mainstream media in terms of what stories they're willing to tell and what perspectives they're willing to uplift.
Speaker C:They often uplift the more like squabbling whatever federal, big federal fights that are happening on the congressional floor more than they'll uplift our stories on the ground.
Speaker C:And I am very interested in ways that we can share skills within our own community, host skill shares, Write print media to tell the stories, host podcasts, like this podcast we're currently talking on.
Speaker C:Just create our own ways of sharing information, I think can also be part of that if there are listeners that are interested in storytelling in particular.
Speaker C:And I also think for listeners who are wanting to make change within their own home, you mentioned electric cars.
Speaker C:There are many ways that if you have the ability or are phasing out gas infrastructure in your home, there are many ways that we as individuals can lead by example.
Speaker C:For example, this summer, my big project at my house in southwest Virginia is to install solar.
Speaker C:And my hope is that then my neighbors and my friends will come to my house and they'll see solar and we can have a conversation about it while standing in the yard next to the electric car I already own.
Speaker C:So there's a lot we can do by building relationships with people near us and leading by example.
Speaker B:I think those are all good points, excellent points, and I think that's a great way to wrap up our conversation.
Speaker B:I appreciate your time and your work and keep doing what you're doing.
Speaker B:This is what we need.
Speaker C:Thanks so much.
Speaker C:It's been great to talk to you, Thomas.
Speaker B:Same here.
Speaker B:Thank you, Denali.
Speaker C:Thanks a lot.
Speaker B:Keep up the good work.
Speaker C:Thank you, too.
Speaker C:Okay, Bye.
Speaker B:Bye.
Speaker A:In these difficult times of oppression, division and exploitation, I hope this episode inspires you, dear listener, of the power of our collective voices to fight the good fight.
Speaker A:Remember, remember that David, in the end, prevailed over the lumbering, impudent Goliath.
Speaker A:Check the show notes for more information about Haller, a graphic memoir of rural resistance and Denali Sai Nalamalapu's work.
Speaker A:You'll also find more information about the Mountain Valley Pipeline and stories of community, resistance and resilience.
Speaker A:If you like what we're doing, please like and subscribe to the podcast.
Speaker A:And and you can also donate a dollar or two to help keep us going.
Speaker A:Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time on Global Warming is Real.
Speaker A:There's always more we can do to stop climate change.
Speaker A:No amount of engagement is too little.
Speaker A:And now more than ever, your involvement matters.
Speaker A:To learn more and do more, visit globalwarmingisreal.com thanks for listening.
Speaker A:I'm your host, Tom Schueneman.
Speaker A:We'll see you next time on Global Warming Is Real.
