Daryl Hannah is set to join thousands on Monday in Washington, D.C. for what’s being billed as the largest mass civil disobedience rally for the climate in U.S. history. The protest will take place at the Capitol Power Plan — the only coal-burning plant in the District, and a major source of sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and soot.

“We need to send a message to Congress and the president that we want them to take the actions that are needed to preserve climate for young people and future generations and all life on the planet,” said Dr. James Hansen, NASA’s chief climate scientist in a video posted on capitolclimateaction.org. ”What has become clear from the science is that we cannot burn all of the fossil fuels without creating a very different planet. The only practical way to solve the problem is to phase out the biggest source of carbon — and that’s coal.”

According to the website, the rally is intended to peacefully disrupt access to the plant by surrounding it. Obviously, the 2,500 people expected to attend all face the risk of arrest — but that hasn’t stopped people like Daryl Hannah from standing up for what they believe in before. In 2006, the Splash star was arrested after she refused to come down from a tree while protesting the destruction of an inner-city LA garden. Joining her in D.C. on Monday will be Hansen, former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, singer Kathy Mattea and James Gustave Speth, dean of Yale University’s School of Forestry. Susan Sarandon, who recently recorded a PSA for the event calling on people to join the rally, will be unable to attend due to a scheduled performance.

To find out more on the event, jump to the Capitol Climate Action website here.

A recent interview on NPR’s Living on the Earth, brought singer Kathy Mattea to the airwaves to talk about her newest album titled Coal.  She saw Al Gore give his famous power point presentation in 2006, and she didn’t sleep for two nights. She got trained by Al Gore to be one of his one thousand Climate Presenters, and has been thinking of coal mining and combustion ever since.

The West Virginian said, “strip mining is raping the countryside.” I could hear the inner struggle coming from the conflict of her ancestry of coal mining and her new understanding of how the burning of coal effects global warming. She’s written an entire album on coal, and says she can sleep better now since taking some action.

via: mattea.com

[Editor’s Note: To view first-hand how mountaintop removal is destroying the beauty of the West Virginian countryside, check out “National Memorial for the Mountains” by the org ilovemountains.

Some of the recommendations the group agreed upon include creating a shared vision for the arts and environment, a National Council on the Arts and Environment, and asking artists to create an official environmental starting point.

Mattea, along with Kateri Callahan, Executive Director of the Alliance to Save Energy, had this to say: “If artists are encouraging their audiences to go green, they must be sure that their own backstage operations are green as well.”

Walking the talk. I like that.

via Market Watch