Spirituality and Ecological Hope

Fostering Ecological Hope
Today from Margaret Swedish:

Some news is just infuriating.  As we have posted many times in the past, in the hunger for coal to feed our energy consumption, President Bush just cannot seem to get enough of blowing up, tearing up, ripping up, and contaminating Nature.  And, as his presidency comes ever closer to its end, he is speeding up the destruction by executive decree, that dangerous weapon of a lameduck president.

So, from yesterday, this story — President Bush’s Interior Department is about to ease restrictions on the dumping of mountaintopping waste into the valleys, rivers and streams of Appalachia.  In doing so, he is satisfying a long-time wish of the mining industry, frustrated as they are by rules, loosely enforced in any case, that suggest they ought to face some limits in the wasting of the Earth around their mines.

Which is almost cynical in the face of the destruction done to get at the coal veins to begin with.

Here’s more of the scoop from a group called, Earthjustice, an organization using laws and lawyers to defend the Earth:

“The specific regulation the OSM is proposing to overturn is the Stream Buffer Zone rule, a Reagan-era restriction on surface coal mining activities that protects a 100-foot corridor around flowing streams in order to preserve water quality. The new rule, which is expected to be finalized in 30 days, will allow coal companies to dump massive waste piles called “valley fills” directly into streams, permanently burying them. Already, more than 2000 miles of Appalachian streams have been buried or degraded by waste from mountaintop removal mining.” (link)

Kayford Mountain mountaintop removal - Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition

I know I have sent photos and links before, and I do it again.  This story is just so heartbreaking that it bears repeating over and over again.  Among the multitude of ways in which we violate, indeed ravage this precious planet that gave birth to us, none is more offensive than the blowing up of entire mountaintops in the Appalachian Mountains and the bulldozing of the toxic detritus into once pristine valleys so that we can turn on our lights and computers and air conditioners, so that we can power suburban and exurban sprawl and light up those blindingly bright car dealerships along ugly highway strips across the country.

Here’s another photo of the damage.

Mountaintopping Coal River Mountain Watch, Chris Mayda 2005

And, below, another.  If these photos move you at all, please go visit the websites listed below, view the photo galleries, read the testimonies, and then do something — preferably make a stink about it with your Representatives, Senators, and state legislators.

Massey Valley Fill Disaster 2002 - OVEC

We need laws to prohibit this practice, that would take away by law the power of the executive branch to do Nature-destruction by decree.

Now this really matters right now not only because of this heavy-handed decree coming down from the executive branch, but also because of the election.  Our presidential candidates and many Congressional candidates tell us they support ‘clean coal.’ Folks, there is no such thing! When candidates talk about this, they are referring to the potential to burn coal cleanly at the end of a long, destructive, highly polluting process.  That potential lies in technology to capture and sequester (that is, bury) the carbon emissions that come from burning coal.  No one yet knows if this would work on a large scale, and if it did, what the risks would be if, for whatever reason, the process failed and all that buried carbon was suddenly released.  But even to get to this point, we would have blown up hundreds more mountains and gouged out much more land in coal country — not only Appalachia, but states like Illinois where a certain senator comes from.

Friends, we have got to get serious about two things: ratcheting down our use of energy through conservation and efficiency at scales both huge and personal, and developing the true alternative green fuels that can power those things we actually need, not our excess.  We must reduce drastically our use of coal while replacing our fossil fuels with sources that do-no-harm, or at least as little harm as possible.

Violence against the Earth is violence against ourselves. We know this now.  What we do to these mountains we do to ourselves, our very beings.  This destruction is a reflection of us. We need a better reflection, don’t you think?

This transition will be hard.  We will have to get used to living more closely to those ‘beings’ of ours, closer to the heart, with less distraction, alienation, convenience, and excess.

Oh, but that would be such a good thing, don’t you think?

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SOME GROUPS WORKING TO STOP MOUNTAINTOPPING COAL MINING

Mountain Justice
Kayford Mountain photo from the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition
Ilovemountains.org, End Mountaintop Removal Resource and Action Center
Coal River Mountain Watch

ACTION YOU CAN TAKE

We have joined the ilovemountains.org Bloggers Challenge.  You can, too.  Visit our We Can Change the World page and scroll down to add your voice in defense of our mountains!