I’m digging deep, and maybe even stepping on a few toes, but a Guardian report via ThinkProgress (or is it vice versa?) cites coal industry spokesman Joe Lucas as saying that mountaintop removal in Appalachia performs a civic function by creating flat earth.
Whoever scooped it hasn’t gotten nearly enough coverage, so let’s revisit with envy and ask how she, or he, got Lucas to step on his own tongue, as it were.
Lucas is vice president of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, or ACCCE, a group SourceWatch describes as a “front group” for the coal industry.
It’s a good label, though I prefer “shill”. Another good SourceWatch label describes ACCCE’s predecessor, Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC), as an “astroturf” organization; that is, fake grassroots.
Enough of labels, though. In the report, Lucas is quoted as saying that community services like hospital and school construction in eastern Kentucky were previously hampered for lack of a flat space – a service that mountaintop removal coal mining performs admirably.
This is like saying that Manifest Destiny simultaneously wiped out Native Americans and buffalo so pioneers could improve their fence-building skills, and just about as offensive.
In fact, mountaintop removal destroys entire ecologies and poisons water resources, and the mining residue – from liquid coal slurry impoundments to coal ash piles near generating plants – has been the cause of some of the greatest human disasters in American history.
I’ve talked to some of the leaders in the (mountaintop removal) opposition, and I can imagine Mountain Justice’s Charlie Suggs comments when he hears that blasting the hills into oblivion is a good way to improve Appalachian communities.
Democracy is utterly dependent upon an electorate that is accurately informed. In promoting climate change denial (and often denying their responsibility for doing so) industry has done more than endanger the environment. It has undermined democracy.
There is a vast difference between putting forth a point of view, honestly held, and intentionally sowing the seeds of confusion. Free speech does not include the right to deceive. Deception is not a point of view. And the right to disagree does not include a right to intentionally subvert the public awareness.
This is a guest post by Josephine Ferorelli, originally published at Occupy.com.
There is not enough room in the national headlines for all the battles between fossil fuel expansion projects and climate activists occurring right now. But the Keystone XL proposal’s public comment period ends on April 22nd, so we can shift our focus to coal exportation for a moment. Domestic coal use is one of the few figures that has been steadily dropping, with...
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The ugliness of mountain top
The ugliness of mountain top mining will no doubt hasten it's demise - good - but the underground type mining is even worse - at least for the miners. If I had to choose between the two, I'd rather live with the mountain top type.
The ugliness of mountaintop mining