Long-exploited as a resource-extraction colony within the U.S., the Appalachian Mountains are home to a fight for survival whose outcome will determine in part the industrial might of this country. Our insatiable demand for cheap power has lead to the most extreme, devastating form of coal mining yet, Mountaintop Removal (MTR). The TRUE COST OF COAL graphic is an elaborate narrative illustration that visually explores the interconnections between ENERGY, RESOURCE EXTRACTION, CLIMATE CHANGE and GRASSROOTS RESILIENCY.

Teaming with intricate images of plants and animals from the most bio-diverse temperate forest on the planet, the TRUE COST OF COAL is the culmination of the two years of an intensive and collaborative research process. To create the graphic, the Beehive intertwined hundreds of community members through the Appalachian region. The image id a patchwork “quilt” of anecdotes, statistics, and history that strives to share stories of how coal mining and mountaintop removal affects communities and ecosystems throughout Appalachia and beyond.

The TRUE COST OF COAL will challenge all of us who casually flip on a light switch to examine our own connections to MTR and to think about what we can do to top it within our own communities.

To learn more, please visit, www.beehivecollective.org

About the Beehive Collective:

The Beehive Design Collective is a wildly-motivated, all-volunteer, art-activist collective dedicated to “cross-pollinating the grassroots” by creating collaborative, anti-copyright images for use as educational and organizing tools. We work anonymously as word to image translators of complex global stories, gathered through conversations with affected communities.

They distribute educational graphics through the Americas entirely by grassroots, hand-to-hand distribution. Their graphic, workshops and presentations tackle issues from globalization, trade and resource extraction to energy, biotechnology and climate change.