[SustainableTompkins] Slideshow from W. Virginia

[Margaret McCasland]

Thanks, Katie, for the links--to AlterNet and to our own coal 
consumption at Milliken Station.

I have a DVD on Mountain Top Removal from a group in Appalachia I'd 
be happy to loan to anyone who wants to host a group discussion on 
why we need to start serious conservation so they can start shutting 
down coal plants instead of opening more up. I also have materials 
from the group that produced it. They are--as always--having a fund 
raising campaign right now.  A nice way to "off-set" your holiday 
lights?   www.iLoveMountains.org.

Caskey's article is a very good context for my DVD (and I noticed 
Monbiot's anti-coal piece showed up in the sidebar ad). The DVD shows 
the beauty of the Appalachian mountains before they get destroyed and 
the steriiity of "reclaimed" land.

One more reason coal should have a heavy carbon tax the moment it 
leaves the ground so that most  of it won't:  remember the little boy 
who was killed a few years ago because a boulder rolled into his 
bedroom and crushed him in his bed?  That was from round-the-clock 
MTR on the mountain above his home.

I've taken two trips through Appalachia and eastern TN and KY. The 
first was in 1961, and I loved the green rolling Cumberland Mountains 
as much as the Great Smokies.  I returned in 1972: I was able to see 
the Cumberlands from a distance: they were brown ziggurats. On the 
way back to Ithaca, I took the back roads through Virginia and West 
Virginia and saw strip mining up close.  But the scale of what is 
going on now is orders of magnitude worse.  I had just seen the 
beginning.

I've tried to minimize my use of coal-fired electricity ever since 
the '72 trip, but this is a constant battle. And we didn't even pay 
attention to global warming back then.  Buying green energy isn't 
enough; lots of people need to use lots less electricity before 
renewable sources can replace coal. Right now I have to change the 
way my living room lights and TV are plugged in so I can turn them 
off from the couch in case I fall asleep while watching TV and am too 
sleepy to get up and go to bed.

Margaret



>Here is a slideshow and article <http://www.alternet.org/story/70475/>
>about the practice of mountaintop coal extraction in the Blue Ridge
>mountains of West Virginia.  Tucked away from our experience, but so
>close to us still, these pictures speak volumes.
>
>A friend of mine works (pushing coal) at the Milliken Station power
>plant on Cayuga Lake and says that we consume 1 train car an hour 24
>hours a day every day of the year - I'm not sure, but I'd guess that
>that coal comes from West Virginia.
>
>When people say they don't want to see windmills on the horizon or hydro
>disturbing our waterways in Tompkins County, I think of the West Virgina
>mountains with their tops blown off and wonder about the consequences of
>perpetuating the out-of-sight out-of-mind status quo of energy production.
>
>-- Katie Q-J
>