Beehive Design launches "True Cost of Coal"

True cost of coal

After two years of collaborative research, storysharing, metaphor crafting, and meticulous illustrating, the bees have completed an epic illustration about mountaintop removal coal mining!

Teeming with bioregionally appropriate plant and animal species from the most biodiverse temperate forests in the world, the critters that appear in this image are significant to the Appalachian mountains both ecologically AND culturally. A full cast of characters by their common names is available in the narrative.

In 2008, the Beehive Design Collective allied with Appalachian grassroots organizers fighting Mountain Top Removal Coal Mining, a highly destructive practice that blasts ancient mountains into toxic moonscapes to fuel the ever-growing global demand for electricity. This graphic reflects the complexity of the struggles for land, livelihood, and self-determination playing out in Appalachia, while honoring the tremdendous history of organized resistance and the courage of communities living in the shadow of Big Coal.