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I live in Southern Appalachia. The cliché majestic mountains can't hold up to the beauty I am blessed to see everyday. My firm belief, as well as many others, is that these mountains are here to stay forever; they were here long before us, and will last long after us. My viewpoint changed when I realized one of the most richly diverse places on our planet is being destroyed and sooner than imagined, the mountains in Appalachia will be gone, and what's worse, we're to blame.
Not many know that mountains are being demolished in the Southern
Appalachian states of Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, and most recently
Tennessee. Why do you ask? What reason can there be to blow up mountain
tops, wiping out natural habitats and completely destroying mountains
past what they can handle? The answer is a simple corporate term -- Coal.
The destruction of the Southern Appalachian Mountains through coal mining came to light for me as I watched Jeff Barrie's documentary Kilowatt Ours. Barrie's presentation of this environmental concern brought many aspects of the dilemma forward. The least expensive way to get coal from mountains is to get rid of the mountain. Blow it up. Over 2,500 tons of explosives are used a day in Appalachia. For them to get 40 million tons of coal, 2,400 acres of land must be destroyed. To narrow that down a bit, that's 24 acres gone for every 4 million tons of coal.
Millions of tons of debris are dumped into valleys below the mountains, where no one can see it. It's like sweeping this atrocity under the rug and that's what coal companies are continuing to do, sweep what they do under the rug. Over 1,500 miles of streams have been buried due to the debris dumped in them.
Did you hear about what happened in Dorothy, West Virginia, in 2001? Not many have. Around 85% of the homes were either damaged or destroyed due to the worst flood in the history of Dorothy. When mountains are removed, this causes more runoff when rain comes. Instead of the water being soaked into the ground on the mountain, it runs off and floods nearby towns, just like the tragedy of Dorothy, WV.
Larry Gibson, who lives on Kayford Mountain in West Virginia, says, "This is madness. This is madness. This should not have been allowed to happen...not only are they [coal companies] destroying the land, they're destroying the environment, and they're destroying it for the future of everybody who comes after me and after you."
As we should all know, coal is the cheapest source of energy America has. The burning of coal is what turns our electricity on. Coal is why the television runs and people are able to look at this website. 1 kilowatt (kW) hour of electricity = 1 pound of coal. This allows people to run ten light bulbs for an hour or a water heater for 15 minutes. The typical Southeastern home in the United States burns 6 tons of coal a year.
A road sign near the demolition of some of the Appalachian mountains says, "Stop Destroying my Mountains - God." There is something we can do to lower our impact on the environment. We can start by making our homes more efficient. Get compact fluorescent light bulbs and more efficient energy-star appliances. If possible, go solar by installing solar panels on roofs and get electricity that way. We can all contact our congressman and voice our concerns.
Did you know that even when you turn an appliance off, energy is still being used? The television might be off, but it's still plugged in and using power. So when you're not using an appliance, or when you leave the house whether for the day or on vacation, unplug as many things as you can. Not only will you be helping the environment (by not using electricity you're not burning coal), you're going to save money on your electric bill.
If one room in every home in America had energy-star efficient lighting with compact fluorescent bulbs, we would eliminate a trillion pounds of greenhouse gases going into the atmosphere. The typical washing machine uses 1,000 kW hours a year. An energy-star efficient washer cuts down on the hours to only 282 kW hours a year. That's 70% less energy and 70% less water. This pays for itself in no time (by reducing utility bills) and saves money and the environment year-round.
Recycling saves energy because it reuses already prepared materials instead of making something new. Recycling just one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a television for three hours. We only recycle about one-half of our aluminum cans in the United States. If we all recycled 100%, think of how much we'd be helping the environment and the amount of energy and money we'd save.
You can also do your part by using less. Don't watch as much television, don't do laundry two times a day, and don't keep the assumption that what you do doesn't matter in the long run because you're just one person. We can all make a difference. In this situation, less is most definitely more.
Burning tons of coal is part of the global warming problem due to the emissions of carbon dioxide and other chemicals put in the air from coal plants. Sure, coal may be "cheap" to use in terms of getting electricity, but at what cost to ourselves and every other living thing in the long run?
We pay for the "cheap coal" through health, environmental, economic and other costs. The externalities of mining coal, like people's health and environmental tragedies, are too important to ignore anymore. When we tally up the real costs of this "cheap" source. And really, the alternative, environmental approaches to energy production aren't as "expensive" as the corporations want you to think they are. If we stop using coal, they go out of business -- savvy?
The Southern Appalachian Mountains are stunning. The rolling hilltops and natural aesthetic beauty provides an escape from what our world has become. Soon, however, these mountains may be gone for good. Think about where your electricity is coming from the next time you're about to turn the switch. Try and imagine for every light turned on, that's another block of dynamite taken to a mountain. That's all I think about when I look out my window and see the mountains -- at least for now, while they are still there...
Although buying efficient appliances, turning the TV off etc, is good, it WILL NOT STOP the destruction of the Appalachian mountains. Coal is used in the steel making process, exported overseas, new coal plants are being built today and they are even pushing to make diesel fuel out of it. Mountaintop removal mining is cheaper, plain and simple. Until the coal operators are made to pay for the externalized costs of their destruction, including the destruction of headwater streams which are the southeast's water source, until existing laws are ENFORCED, until new laws are passed, until industry money is no longer allowed to corrupt our judges and politicians, until the grassroots resistance becomes large enough and loud enough that politicians can no longer ignore the cries of the Appalachian people, until a new non-coal economy is born in the region -- no amount of CFL bulbs and recycling will stop it. Efficiency may make us feel better, it may even reduce the need for a few new power plants, but it will have NO effect in stopping the destruction. If we don't address the real reasons this form of mining is allowed to occur, and actual do something constructive about it, it will only end when every bit of coal is gone. http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=1514307400 I live in Logan, WV and see everyday the devastation caused by mountain top removal. It is our ability to empathize that makes us human. Please put your empathy to action and help stop this madness!! |
