coal

Many eyes may be on Ireland today, but quite a few are on Washington D.C. where the 4th Annual End Mountaintop Removal Week is taking place. Citizens from across Appalachia and the rest of the country are lobbying Congress to put an end to mountaintop removal coal mining and pass the Clean Water Protection Act(H.R. 1310). The bill would ensure clean drinking water by preventing mining companies from dumping mine waste into valley streams, a provision made legal during the Bush Administration which has already buried an estimated 1,200 miles of waterways. You can help by contacting your representative and asking them to co-sponsor the bill.

Here at ItsYourNature we're no strangers to blogging about coal and growing up in West Virginia, it was impossible for me to ignore the impact that coal mining had on the state. This past week citizens of Appalachia as well as from the rest of the country got the chance to let Congress know how they felt about a relatively new but destructive form of coal mining known as Mountaintop Removal.

Last Monday, the Democratic presidential candidates debated on CNN. And once again, there were exactly zero questions asked about global warming. The perplexing absence of discussion about an issue that countless scientists, economists, and politicians hold up as the fundamental challenge of our times is fast becoming familiar.

I've made no secret of my contempt for coal, sharing David Roberts' opinion that it is, as much as anything else in the world, "the enemy of the human race."

We’re making great strides in the fight to significantly change America’s energy use, but it seems that old habits die hard.