KSEC wants you for its Just Transition Working Group

Editor’s Note: The following is a guest blog post from a guest blogger. The views and opinions expressed in this guest blog do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Renew Appalachia or of the Mountain Association for Community Economic Development (MACED). Over the past year, I’ve had the privilege of working with the Kentucky Student Environmental Coalition’s Just Transition Working Group. The working group is made up of students and non-student youth from across the state who wish to promote a transition to local-based economies in which workers, citizens and the environment are protected. This fall semester, we laid the groundwork to launch a fair coal severance campaign. Through this campaign, we’ll be working to assure that taxes collected from coal companies for mining coal are used in coal producing and coal impacted counties in a way that enhances sustainable economic development. Growing up in a former coal town in Eastern Kentucky, I had little hope for the region. The coal industry that once thrived in my town left the land, water and economy in ruin. For several years, I vowed to leave Kentucky as soon as I possibly could, and saw escaping the area as the only course to success. Finding a community of environmentalists and other progressive-minded people, however, made me feel differently. The skills I learned from KSEC led me to discover my power as an activist and feel that I have the power to change the broken systems that allow Appalachia’s problems to persist. This drive to create a...

Mountain Music Exchange owners hope new model of trade-ins, online sales will usher in new era of doing business in EKY...

Walking into Mountain Music Exchange in Pikeville, Ky., is a bit jarring. From the outside, the shop on Highway 23 looks nondescript enough. There’s an old radio-record player combo on one side of the lobby, next to a plush leather couch where parents wait on their children receiving music lessons in rooms down the window-lined hallway on the opposite side of the hall. Keep walking down the hall toward the shop, though, and you’ll step into somewhat of a fantasy music world of the three business-owners’ own design and making. Guitars of all shapes, sizes, colors and acoustics line the walls; drum sets and keyboards are set up in the middle of the large floor space; a wooden stage is positioned on the left side of the room, and atop it sits banjos and mandolins. There’s also a repair shop in the back of the store, along with the online Mountain Music Exchange headquarters, where items for sale are photographed for the online marketplace. The whole shop is the realization of a vision shared by three men, who also happen to be friends and family: Tony Mullins, Kevin Harmon and Jared Arnett (who is also the director of the Shaping Our Appalachian Region initiative). Mullins used to operate a recording studio in Pike County, and had partnered with Harmon to convert the back of the studio into retail space in which to buy, sell and trade guitars. Eventually, it became apparent that more space was needed as the trio’s...

Climate justice funder shares why his foundation supports, funds just transition...

The role of philanthropy in any just transition is critical. Getting funding for a program can mean whether or not that program continues to exist, or is axed. Trouble is, organizations who are working on systems change in order to bring about a just transition often aren’t funded long-term. This often means they are beholden to yearly re-application and arduous restrictions on what can and cannot be done with the grant they’ve received. (Chorus photo: Vivian Huang, Campaign and Organizing Director at Asian Pacific Environmental Network) That’s what makes the Chorus Foundation so unique. Chorus is more interested in long-term, place-based funding for organizations in communities on the frontlines of climate justice. And after ten years of work, Chours founder Farhad Ebrahimi has some reflections to share about what’s worked for them, why they believe in funding just transition strategies, and what other funders can learn from their experience. I should say, in full disclosure, that the Chorus Foundation is a long-term committed funder of the Mountain Association for Economic Development, of which this blog is a product. However, that connection has nothing to do with why we believe the foundation’s approach is so important. Take Ebrahimi’s explanation about why it’s so important to help build a just transition with philanthropy (bolding is my emphasis): Here’s something that everybody knows: things have got to change. Our extractive system simply cannot be allowed to continue unchallenged. In fact, we can see that things are already changing; it’s inevitable. But justice is not inevitable, and any...