About Us

Climate Ground Zero is a project of the American Forest Alliance, a 501(c)3 based in North Carolina. Climate Ground Zero is not an environmental organization. It is an ongoing campaign of non-violent civil disobedience in southern West Virginia to end mountaintop removal with the goal of awakening the country to the devastation that mountaintop removal inflicts on one of the most biodiverse regions in the world, Appalachia, and its people.

Climate Ground Zero gained international notoriety when earlier this year they served Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy, a citizen’s arrest warrant. Massey Energy owns the mine that recently collapsed, killing 25 mine workers. The company has been served with thousands of regulatory violations, and is considered the worst “dirty coal” mining operation in the U.S.

Mountains Rule! is a campaign to raise public awareness about MTR mountaintop removal mining by encouraging U.S. citizens to “divest” from its principal financier – JP Morgan Chase. Individuals who close their CHASE accounts are rewarded with a limited edition Mountain Badge designed by ANT-20, a Los Angeles based art collective. The badges are also available for purchase for those who want to support the work of Climate Ground Zero.

Quick facts on Mountaintop Removal (MTR) and CHASE bank:

  • Appalachian forests are the oldest and most biodiverse in North America.
  • Between 1992 and 2012, MTR will have leveled 7 % of Appalachian forests.
  • Between 1993 and 2010, CHASE has backed $8.5 trillion in financing for MTR.
  • MTR requires complete deforestation prior to the extraction process.
  • Deforestation is considered to be a leading cause (22%) of climate change.
  • Massey CEO agrees that MTR mining violates the U.S. Clean Water Act.
  • To date, over 1,200 miles of streams and rivers have been destroyed by MTR.
  • To date, over 500 square miles of pristine forest has been permanently destroyed.
  • MTR creates poverty… 29% job loss despite a 32% increase in coal production.
  • Every 2 weeks MTR requires 15,000 tons of ammonium nitrate explosives.
  • 15,000 tons of detonated ammonium nitrate is equivalent to 1 Hiroshima bomb.

Climate Ground Zero campaign director Mike Roselle explains the impact of MTR:

In West Virginia, an overwhelming majority of residents are opposed to mountaintop removal mining. However, political interests are highly invested in the coal industry and the EPA and the West Virginia DEP refuse to take real action to protect the environment and the people of West Virginia. In order to stop mountaintop removal, we need to awaken the country to the devastation that mountaintop removal inflicts on one of the most biodiverse regions in the world, Appalachia, and its people.


Close your CHASE bank account and stop MTR mining!

Why target Chase Manhattan Bank?

JP Morgan Chase is one of the few public financial institutions in the world that still funds the practice of Mountaintop Removal (MTR). If you have a Chase bank account you are in fact funding “...the “worst environmental tragedy in American history.”

For coal companies, MTR is a cheap alternative to traditional mining... actual miners are not needed. Instead, explosives are used to literally blow off the tops of the mountains (with the equivalent force of one Hiroshima bomb every other week). Toxic sludge is held in unreinforced ponds and to date nearly 1,500 miles of pristine rivers and streams have been permanently buried by the rubble.

In Appalachia MTR coal companies like Arch and Massey are responsible for massive unemployment, polluted water supplies and irreparable damage to the most biodiverse temperate forest on earth.

It’s time to end MTR. And there is one, and only one, way to do so... cut off the supply of dirty coal funding.

Get Decorated! Join the campaign!

We are enlisting brave men and women from around the country to send a message to the biggest funder of MTR -- Chase Bank - that it’s time to finally end the destruction of Appalachia. Are you in?

Add your name to the growing number of concerned citizens who want to end mountaintop mining now: