Mountaintop Removal, To Our Shame, Continues

Right now, there are two people, Nick Stocks and Laura Steepleton, from climategroundzero.net sitting on postage stamp platforms in two different trees. They've been up there for days and they've got buckets for privies to prove it. Sun, fog, rain, wind -- they've stayed because they're disgusted with the inertia of a political system that allows the travesty of mountaintop removal to continue. Coal companies will destroy gorgeous Appalachia -- hard-working Appalachia -- for no good reason whatsoever. That is, they'll destroy it for money. And they'll do it surrounded by the people who's lives they've ruined, who've gotten very little of that money at all. Surely not enough to send out a fleet of lawyers and lobbyists to stop the destruction of their ancestral lands.

And the coal they get from 500,000 acres of flattened, poisoned hills and valleys; 2,000 miles of ruined streams? It provides 7% of the nation's electricity. You could cut your consumption 7% overnight: turn off a few unnecessary lights, or shut off the TV when you're not in the room, or unplug a few vampire power packs sticking out of the wall (or plug them in to a power strip with an old-fashioned on/off switch).

Here's a damn good explication of the facts from a fine writer who lives in Kentucky, Silas House: Devastating View from the Mountaintop Read it, then go here to tell your elected representatives to get off their asses and do something. Now.