If you’ve never read Coal River, I recommend picking it up from your local library. Destructive, profit-driven, anti-union coal mining is alive and well, folks, and it’s nice to read a story about people who stood up for the right thing and actually got somewhere.
This makes me think more and more that our country desperately needs to get serious about alternative energy. Billions of dollars go into coal and oil industry. Why not billions of dollars to build solar cells or wind farms? Instead of being smart, politicians are sold out for the energy companies. Their loyalty has been purchased already. We sit here like fools, wondering why pregnant women can’t eat fish anymore, why more and more water supplies are contaminated and people are turning to bottled and filtered water, and why asthma rates continue to rise.
I do not believe that the Lord made this earth for us to viciously destroy in search of energy and money. We are supposed to be good stewards of resources, but instead there are people who are so hung up on wanting cheaper gas and utilities that they don’t see the danger that lies ahead. The economy is going down the tubes. I’m not optimistic that there will be a comeback any time soon. But this fool notion that we must consume everything we see and that we have to buy more and more using our shiny credit cards was bound to come back and bite us eventually.
We need to get serious. There are still people who don’t believe in global warming. I don’t know if I do, but I do believe that our desperate attempts to acquire more and more fossil fuels will destroy us. We will destroy natural environments all for what? For an energy company’s gain? When will the madness end?
In my search for more info, I found iLoveMountains.org, a website about mountaintop mining and the tragedy of Marsh Fork Elementary schools. A school should not be located right by a coal processing area. That’s absurd. But instead of fixing the problem, the government wrings its hands and whines about jurisdiction.