I love my Appalachians and all their mountain kin, and naturally I am not cool with chopping their heads off and turning them into toxic waste dumps. Not here, not there, not anywhere.
Grist said it best: "Mountains Look Best With Their Tops On"
From iLoveMountains.org 's Flickr photostream (graphs, too.):
Before Mountaintop Removal Mining (Kentucky)---
After---
And so then you do the math---
Versus Wind Farms which would be perfect! for those un-beheaded mountaintops----(I also love wind turbines!)
And that's not even taking into account the jobs that would be created (more) and the environmental impact (duh) and the people who live there not being poisoned (reason enough by itself.) So, you know, you don't have to be a rocket surgeon to see what's what here.So, if you're feelin' it, you can follow the widget over yonder to join in my resounding "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!"
7 comments:
I totally did. Hate coal. What a has been fuel source.
I've been on-site at one of those coal power plants. It ain't pretty. I come home black, covered in ash. I'm with ya! Nothing about it is pretty or logical.
Preach it, sister! Cause we need to hear it. That before and after picture is quite dramatic!
That before and after is so sad. Why are we doing this to ourselves? You preach it, for reals.
This post made me think of the quote from Jim Elliot, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." Of course, he was talking about religious matters. In the case of mountain top removal to get at fuel, the quote could be modified, "He IS a fool who destroys what is eternal to gain what is ephemeral."
Our children's children will think we were mad.
Girlfriend, thank you and THANK YOU for preachin it. I got an email earlier today sending me to have a word with Massey Coal...
btw, I looooooves me some Grist!! Aren't they the best??
Amen! Keep preachin'. We've only got so many Appalachian mountains left, and China is building a coal-fired power plant every four days.
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