MTR – It’s Simply Not Worth It
Posted on May 5, 2008 | By Denny Tyler | 3 Comments
I want to talk about my battle against MTR just a little. You can look around any of my blogs and one of the first things that may or may not be obvious is the fact that you will find no ads. I’m not in this to make money. I’m not in this battle to make a name for myself. I firmly believe with all of my being that when people really start looking at mountaintop removal coal mining it will become quite apparent why people like me are so upset over this practice.
There has been coal mining in the state of West Virginia for 150 years or more. Why is it all of the sudden the only way to get it is by mountaintop removal coal mining? I get the argument all the time about the economic prosperity of the state due to coal. I don’t dispute that in any way, shape, or fashion. If you can call it economic prosperity. That would depend on whether or not you live inside the coalfields or outside.
If we have to get the coal by mountaintop removal to feed a nation hungry for electricity then that sign alone is enough to say – maybe we should start looking seriously at alternatives. I have a tough time understanding how we can be doing so much damage to the planet and to the mountains and still be talking clean coal technology this or coal to liquids that. We can bury carbon here or put it under the ocean there – in 25 years if we are lucky. It seems to me as if the conversation would get a whole lot simpler if we started talking about renewable energy. But instead we will just continue to blow up the mountains and contribute to global warming and when we think we have drained all the money from the taxpayers they are willing to dish out then we may try carbon capture and sequestration and hope it works. I wouldn’t want to be around in 25 years to see your energy bill.
I may be fighting MTR but I’m fighting just as hard for renewable energy. Because if it weren’t strictly for the energy aspect, the coal industry would never get away with the destruction they are heaping on us. The reason I can say that so confidently is because the only other reason mountaintop removal coal mining is an accepted practice is because people in the right places benefit heavily from the carbon coated dollar. Those dirty hands would stick out like a coal miners eyes in a bathhouse were it not for the energy aspect.
I hear a lot of debate over global warming. Most of the debate comes from people that say the planet isn’t heating up. I’m not going to tackle that argument either way but even with my standpoint I believe that continuing to pump all of these pollutants into our air and water will eventually lead to something catastrophic. Regardless of what you do believe there is no way you can believe that all these pollutants are a good thing. Forget about global warming. Think about the planet we are preparing for our children and their children and their children…
I think about the children that will not get to experience pulling that huge catfish out of Big Coal River. I think about the kids that would rather be hunting or hiking or playing softball and not doing drugs. I think about the parents losing their property with no way out for them and at the same time, watching their kids do drugs. I think about everybody’s grandparents having to watch everything that sustained them through their lives disappear right before their eyes. I think about all of our ancestors buried throughout the mountains and I imagine if they were to raise today the first thing we would hear is a large angry collective saying, “What the hell have you done to our home!?!?” Mostly when I think about our ancestors I think about how at one time, like them, I wanted to be buried in the peace of the mountains. For a lot of them, peace no longer exists in the mountains.
Maybe coal is of economic importance to the state but in my eyes – it’s simply not worth it.
Our remnants of wilderness will yield bigger values to the nation’s character and health than they will to its pocketbook, and to destroy them will be to admit that the latter are the only values that interest us. – Aldo Leopold
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May 6th, 2008 @ 8:46 am
very well said, denny. and yeah, i would definitely debate the term ‘economic prosperity’. while the coal industry does provide jobs, the coalfields of WV and Eastern KY are the two of the most poverty stricken regions in the country. not to mention all the health issues there, also. coal is dirty in every form, extraction, cleaning, and burning. clean coal is a myth, and even the industry says that the technology for carbon sequestration is decades down the road.
we need clean, renewable energy and we need it NOW!! those will be long term jobs for the region and higher paying.
May 6th, 2008 @ 10:12 am
Very well said Denny. It is ever-increasingly clear that, as you pointed out in a previous post, that coal is on the way out and the companies are just trying to maximize profits in the short term.
None of us fighting MTR is it in for the money or glory, because to be honest, we are on the wrong side of the issue for those types of accolades. We do it solely because of our love for the mountains, people and culture of Appalachia. For many of us, this is our home, these are our families and from this place we draw our bloodlines. These mountains are so intertwined with our identities, we could no more be separated from them than a fish could be separated from water!
May 7th, 2008 @ 11:10 am
seems to me that the solution is to use less energy.
there are lots of reasons that this idea is not on the table, many of these reasons involving the production of cheap food, weapons to further armed geopolitical and resource conflicts, drug wars, coca cola and computers.
simply suggesting that the point where we are NOW is beyond the tipping point will make you an enemy of the state. what’s good for GM is good for America, what is good for Massey is good for WVa, etc.
If you can do that to a mountain you are capable of all types of inhumanity. Even if you sit in the same church pew or you are kin through your grandmaws side, there are fundamentally different sorts of people at conflict.