In what may be the most effective awareness-raising campaign and the best embodiment of the Jewish value of “kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh”* to ever come across my G-mail ticker, Appalachian Voices and Michael Gross have set up http://www.ilovemountains.org/ , the End Mountaintop Removal Action and Resource Center.
It’s a good site to check out in order to see for yourself the devastating human and environmental impacts of strip mining for coal in Appalachia. You can view Google Earth imagery in the National Memorial for the Mountains and read up on current news from the mountain towns of West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia, and from the regulatory agencies in Washington, DC.
Its most impressive feature, however, which reminded me of the Hebrew proverb I quoted above, is the “My Connection” page. You enter your zipcode. You pick your energy supplier. They tell you if your power company uses Appalachian coal from mountaintop removal mines. Then, with another click, you can send an email to your power company telling them to stop supporting mountaintop removal.
That’s what we call using our power of interconnectedness for good.

* “All Israelites are responsible for one another” – I think it’s obvious that the reasons this is true, when dealing with Jewish community issues, are equally applicable to all human beings, when dealing with global issues.