i heart mountains...forever.

Posted on Oct 14th, 2007 by

(cross-referenced from thinq4yourself@wordpress) (post if not formatted nicely)

Today is blog action day, and another important day in speaking some words about the environment. I've been thinking quite a bit since signing up about what to write, when just about every corner of the environmental front is under assault by government, industry, and just plain stupidity among humans. But the other night I was fortunate enough to finally watch Mountain Top Ministry on PBS's Bill Moyers (thanks DVR), which was yet another disturbing piece on Mountain Top Removal (MTR). That made up my mind...

I love mountains. I always have. I've been going to the mountains since I was a wee little lad, specifically the Smokies, the Blue Ridge, & the Appalachians. Being from Florida, mountains were not an every day sighting. You had to drive 10 (or more) hours to see any good mountains, such as in North Carolina which is riddled with these majestic examples of contour, texture, & habitation. That's where my family & I ended up every year a few chosen times a year. The mountains. The Smokies. The Appalachians. We love mountains.

Well, it's a good damn thing we didn't decide to pick West Virginia...because their mountains really do suck (don't believe me?).

A massive dragline, dwarfed by the huge scale of the operation, at work
on a mountaintop removal operation near Kayford Mountain, W.Va
Photo by Vivian Stockman, Oct. 19, 2003

How majestic. Excellent job destroying something that only took 300 million years to create. Well done section 515(c)(1) of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, and thank you ~~President~~ King George W. Bush, Massey, and all ye who defend this practice and continue to rape our 300 million year old mountains in the name of coal. This is the 21st century, why can't you innovate like everyone else has.

What does President Bush have to do with this? Everything. The Bush administration has declared war on mountains and the people who live there. Seriously.

Toxic West Virginia

So what do you, the average American citizen, have to think about this? It seems you do think about this. A September 2007 survey conducted by the Civil Society Institute found that 65% of Americans oppose the Bush Administration's proposal "to ease environmental regulations to permit wider use of 'mountain top removal' coal mining in the U.S." The study also found that 74% Americans are opposed to the expansion of MTR coal mining in general, and that 90% of Americans agree that more mining should be permitted only after the United States government has assessed its impacts on safety and the environment.

Christians for the Mountains

What does Mountain Top Removal look like? As you can see...it's all about the "Former" mountain contour. Former.

i love them mountains (so does woody)

Most of the links are inline [click4yourself], so click away and learn as much as you can about this eXtremely important, relevant issue that has everything to do with you, your children, and the future of environmental protection. It took these beautiful mountains 300 million years to create themselves for you to enjoy, so a few hours of education and a few more of action to stop this hideous crime is not much to ask in return. I leave you with this...

Mountain Wars