Mountaintop Removal
Originally uploaded by paynehollow.
The picture above is what remains of the top of Black Mountain, KY. The picture below is the still barren valley beneath Mt St Helens. Both Mountains lost their tops in horrible disasters. The difference between the two, unfortunately, is that Black Mountain is a self-inflicted wound.
The land around Black Mountain in East Kentucky is phenomenally beautiful. The diversity of the flora and fauna and verdant forests have been the reason some have called the Cumberland region our own rainforest.
My family and I have just spent a week in these lovely hills learning and playing Old Time folk music at the Cowan Creek Music Camp. It was a wonderful week and we appreciate all the work the people at Cowan Creek and Appalshop put forth to celebrate the region. Please check out their work sometime.
I just hope that the mountains are still there for my children to return to when they're my age.
21 comments:
I talked to two friends recently who, together, showed how the Powers and Authorities are totally invested in mountaintop removal. The reason given is usually economic: We hate it, but it will help Eastern KY with jobs. But, my friend, Bill Sykes, has a brother who is trying to invest in windfarms for Eastern KY as an alternative. Clean renewable energy that creates at least as much energy and as many jobs as destroying mountains for nasty coal. But he is running into all kinds of red tape from Frankfort--which is trying to give tax breaks to coal companies.
The second person was Dave Brown Kinloch, who, as you know, is trying to re-open a hydroelectric power plant. Again, clean energy, and job creation for KY without destroying the land--and, again, hampered every step of the way by Frankfort, acting in behalf of King Coal.
If the mountains are destroyed, our grandchildren can blame us along with the coal companies for not using citizen power on behalf of folks like Dave and Bill's brother. We cannot hide behind the excuse of needing to trade jobs for the care of the creation--the alternatives were here. Shall we march on Frankfort and demand them? Shall we ask news cameras if the governor and legislators work for the people or King Coal? What shall we do to save the mountains and employ the people (less dangerously than in mining, btw)? When our grandchildren asked what we did in this time, what will we say?
And the coal company came with the world's largest shovel
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man
And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I'm sorry, my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away
I'd be interested in the figures showing that the windfarm or even the hydroelectric facility provide "at least as much energy and just as many jobs". In the mean time I would have to go on record as etirely misdoubting it.
I'm not saying stripmining is a good thing nor wind power and hydroelcetric are bad, but is does the cause no good to float by alternative energy myths.
If we limited ourselves to using only as much energy as are potentially available from wind and hydro, we'd need so little coal to generate it that we'd never have had to remove a mountain top to begin with.
When we drove up to Black Mountain, we were passed by a coal company employee who told us to get lost. We were on a public road and didn't have to leave and so he angrily told us to "just remember that when we turn on our lights tonight, that we have those lights thanks to coal!"
And, while being hostile and defensive, he was right.
One answer that is within our power is to begin to use less energy. The powers-that-be are using coal because we, the people, are demanding cheap energy in huge amounts.
Unfortunately, this answer requires a change of lifestyle that we are not wont to do.
Eleutheros' message wasn't there when I posted my first message, but yeah, what he said.
One of the factoids that I heard while in E KY was that something like 80% of the coal leaving Kentucky today is going to China.
One of rich ironies of our "winning" the Cold War is our capitalist democracy is finally being emulated, as we so lustily desired and promoted. Unfortunately for everyone, our way of life is not sustainable.
So now that China and India and the rest of the world are trying to be more like us, it will be our undoing. Just t'ain't enough oil and gas and raw materials for everyone to live as we do.
Dan, you are aware of the campaign that Kentuckians For the Commonwealth is spearheading to publicise and bring an end to the devastation caused by mountain top removal and valley fill in the coalsfields of eastern Kentucky and that my sister works for KFTC. She was also involved with Appalshop when she lived in Prestonsburg and Whiteburg. I'm glad you are sharing your perspectives on this deplorable practice on your blog.
Thanks, Tim. KFTC is who led us on the "field trip" to Black Mountain and shared some info and it is an organization I very much appreciate.
Perhaps I met her on this trip - would she have been involved in Whitesburg this last week?
Conceivably, since she is often part of these trips, but I haven't had the chance to ask her yet. Her name is Lisa Abbott and she lives in Berea.
Good luck in your efforts Dan.
Thanks, NC. But what efforts are those? To get the US citizenry to use less energy? Or to get me to use less?
The energy issue as a whole. I'm confident that you could reduce your energy consumption and perhaps get others around you to use less. But I think this ball is rolling.
Since half the population --according to political polls--is of the leftist mentality, I think it would be good for that half to work towards being energy independent on their own. Choosing to return to a lifestyle akin to the Amish is every person's right. If the left puts its money where its mouth is (I an perfectly sure that Dan's intentions are sincere), and those of us who just choose to use the modern conveniences do so at a constant rate, our energy problems would be over!
Personally, I hope to one day be enrgy independent myself. The left doesn't have a monopoly on dreaming of energy independence.
You are pro-choice, aren't you Dan?
Depends upon what the choice about.
For what it's worth, I'm not for legislating people off of fossil fuels. Don't think it'd work - we've tried legislating away popularly supported addictions before and that's not turned out well.
What I AM for is personal responsibility and accurate pricing. To keep to the topic at hand, when coal companies mine the coal here in KY (to sell the bulk of it off to China currently) at a cost of $x/ton, no one pays for all the damage done to KY. If the damage (environmental, societal, human) were paid for out of that coal money, the price would be, let's say, $5x/ton.
In other words, our fossil fuel costs are artificially low - extremely so. If the true costs were paid and the fossil fuel companies and legislators were being responsible, then the cost would be several times higher.
This would result in a natural desire to cut back on the amount of fossil fuels we use (we simply can't afford to pay even a portion of what it actually costs). In this case, the Market would actually work to a limited to degree IF AND ONLY IF true costs were included in pricing.
Are you for accurate pricing or do you prefer artificially low prices that are paid for by someone else - Kentuckians? Your children? Folk overseas? I'd really like to know, daddio (and anyone else interested in answering).
Neo-Con, I agree with you (hah! Thought you'd never hear that, right?). Now is a great time for societal reform to begin on this issue. I'm convinced the decision will be made for us soon by physical realities, but think that we could make the decision ourselves if we were sufficiently alerted to and alarmed by reality and plain simple numbers (again, I recommend Eleutheros' excellent post from last week).
Getting the market to tell the truth is the hard part. When modern capitalism was just getting started (say, with Smith's Wealth of Nations) from mercantilism, resources seemed so limitless that things like air and water were counted as "free goods" and so never made part of the costs of doing business. (And neither Marx nor any other critic of capitalism challenged this, either.) It's hard to change 250 year old habits! States and nations regularly give incentives in terms of tax breaks, etc. to companies to locate and create jobs. That makes it difficult to turn around and add "green taxes" that help the market accurately reflect the total costs, including environmental.
And, then, certain industries become "tradition" and gain a political culture. So, KY lawmakers (as an example) continue to give special breaks to coal companies (artificially lowering the costs) while throwing extra layers of red tape to alternatives like wind and hydroelectric trying to get started (thereby artificially adding to the start-up costs). Thus, the playing field isn't level and the market is prevented from truthtelling. To use Dan's addictive metaphor (an apt one), the KY legislator is playing the role of enabler.
Even as thoroughgoing a capitalist as Adam Smith said that the "invisible hand" of the market only worked if certain conditions were met--among them that entering the market is fairly easy. By throwing roadblocks up to entering the energy market for cleaner renewables, the legislature and the coal companies are distorting the market.
I so think we are in a time to make great progress--both by lifestyle changes, alternative technologies, and citizen policy advocacy. Even with the market not accurately reflecting the true costs of fossile fuels, the prices are rising so fast that people are feeling the pain of their addiction. This is creating some interesting new alliances. Independent truckers, for instance, are now teaming up with environmentalists to DEMAND more investment in bio-diesel. That demand will create a supply.
There is no magic pill that will solve the crisis--and much pain ahead. But we are looking at the beginning of the end of the hydrocarbon society--and the only question is whether we make a smooth transition to another form of society or whether we crash into a new dark ages. The window of opportunity is very small.
"Getting the market to tell the truth is the hard part."
Aye, there's the rub. Which is why an unregulated, totally laissez-faire capitalism could be and has been a tool for great mishchief - even if unintentionally. There simply are no reasons for an amoral market to make decisions for the greater good if all a market is looking for is profit in the short term.
There are some measurements that must be taken into consideration that are counted in decades and centuries and the Market is just not up to that task.
Dan. You took your entire family to a old-timey music camp? That awesome! I am working toward that in very subtle and manipulative ways. My son is only four years old. What age is too young to be learning the fiddle? Eh?
Enjoy your site.
Our daughter started Suzuki violin probably when she was five or six (she's ten now) and have been introducing fiddle to her the last three years or so.
Our fifteen year old son took hammered dulcimer lessons for a year or so but was never interested in it and he sat out on Music week this last week.
Ah well, you can lead a horse to the hoe down but you can't make it dance.
Thanks for visiting, Tim.
Great icon, by the way. Did you create it?
Okay, you posted a pic of the fam pickin' by the creek. when I showed this to my wife she just rolled her eyes. Some men start a long range plan to manipulate their wives into letting them buy a Harley. But me?
The icon has been blatantly stolen (I prefer the term appropriated) from Thomas Merton, that feller from your neck of the woods. It was one of his watercolor paintings and the cover a compilation of his sketches and writing called "Dialogues with Silence." I have it tattooed on my right arm.
Ahh, Merton, very good.
Well, in our case, it is my lovely wife who's really pushing it and I'm just glad to go along. Did you tell her how fun it is?
Hey Dan,
Are you familiar with Orion Magazine? They did a nice job talking about mountain top removal and coal mining a few months ago. If you're interested, I could send you the article if you can't find it online.
Yeah, that author, Erik Reece, is going to be one of the books I suggest for the whorled leaves' next reading. It looks like more of the same from his book, but I'll check it out. Thanks.
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