A destroyed mountaintop after the Mountaintop Removal process.
Today would have been Larry Gibson’s 67th birthday. I only met him a few times, but he was the kind of person that met just about everyone — and stamped a deep impression on you. So, we wanted to take today to do something that would have been the right thing to do by Larry.
As people rally in Charleston, WV to save Blair Mountain and stop Mountaintop Removal (MTR) altogether, we thought we’d make our position clear – that Mountaintop Removal mining must stop immediately.
That’s why Greenpeace fully supports the Appalachian Community Health Emergency (A.C.H.E.) Act.
We support the act because it would stop MTR mining. Period.
Why?
Because of mountaintop removal mining, over four thousand people die yearly because of MTR. 4,000 people.
Because of mountaintop removal mining, Appalachia has disproportionately high levels of cancer, heart disease, pulmonary disease, birth defects and other physical and mental illnesses.
Those are people just like you and me. They are somebody.
They’re getting bombed out so that people in other places can have ‘clean, reliable electricity.’
Because of Mountaintop Removal mining, millions of acres of forests, thousands of miles of streams, over five hundred mountains gone and hundreds of communities impacted.
Coal companies are destroying one of the most biodiverse regions in the world so that people thousands of miles away can flip their light switch and not worry about where the power comes from.
That’s not moral, it’s sure not fair and it needs to stop now. Appalachia is not a sacrifice zone — Larry Gibson was right all along.
That’s why we support the ACHE Act. I hope you’ll take action on this bill today, share this blog with your friends, and go to the ACHE Act website to get informed.
I’ll “amen” everything that Robert Gardner writes. When 4000 people die prematurely due to the industry practice of mountaintop removal that employs 12,000 or so people, the coal industry’s mantra of “jobs jobs jobs” has a dark moral cast to it. What of course is behind the continuation of the abominable practice of mountaintop removal that is (hear this, now) killing lots of innocent people, is coal industry profit. Yes, mountaintop removal is ugly, yes, it is ecologically destructive, yes, the so-called reclaimed land never comes back to the original standard, and yes, the explosions and truck traffic and dust are nuisances. That in itself should move people and our supposed policymakers to abolish this horrid extraction process. But when people are suffering disease, when more babies are born with birth defects, when people too-young are dying, then the issue boils down to plain and simple morality. “Do not kill.”