The sin of exploiting the Earth

Pope Francis:

"This is one of the greatest challenges of our time: to convert ourselves to a type of development that knows how to respect creation." 

"When I look at America, also my own homeland (South America), so many forests, all cut, that have become land ... that can no longer give life. This is our sin, exploiting the Earth and not allowing her to her give us what she has within her." 

 I know he speaks truth.

Three of my grandparents came from the coalfields of Kentucky and Virginia. I have hillbilly roots. My kin were active participants in the Hatfield-McCoy dustup. And I love Appalachia. Went to college there. Hiked it. Fought forest fires in it. And it just so happens Appalachia is the perfect set piece for the words of Papa Francis.

To get at a thin vein of coal near the surface of mountaintops, coal companies have destroyed 1.5 million acres of forest, much of it old growth, and dumped rock and other mining debris into 2000 miles of streams and rivers. This lovely practice is known as mountaintop removal mining. Large expanses of an incredibly diverse ecosystem are being dynamited and 'dozered' so a few coal company executives and shareholders can make a quick buck.



Mountaintop removal is back in the news thanks to a new study that shows how the mining process is destroying fish stocks in the region. Here is coverage from the Charleston Gazette:

Appalachian streams affected by mountaintop removal coal mining can have fewer than half as many fish species and a third as many total fish as other regional waterways, according to a new study published this week by researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey. 

Using data from several time periods to track changes in fish diversity and abundance in West Virginia’s Guyandotte River basin, USGS experts observed persistent effects of mountaintop removal associated with water quality degradation and found no evidence that fish communities recovered over time. 

“The Appalachian mountains are a global hotspot for freshwater fish diversity,” said Nathanial Hitt, a USGS research fish biologist and lead author of the study. “Our paper provides some of the first peer-reviewed research to understand how fish communities respond to mountaintop mining in these biologically diverse headwater streams.”

This is corporate sin. This is profit-at-all-costs mentality. It is sacrilege.

But, but, but the coal companies promise to kind of, sort of, restore the land to original contours and reforest. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Standard operating procedure in the coal industry is to declare bankruptcy when a mine is no longer profitable. That is why we have hundreds of thousands of abandoned mining sites all over the country. (Note to frog - scorpions always sting. It is in their nature.) Soon there will be a toxic industrial wasteland covered with a thin layer of soil that cannot support tree root formation. It will be an inglorious monument to greed.

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Today I Give Thanks (TIGT) for this miniature schnauzer, even when he steals low-hanging raspberries: