Big Oil's Right Wing Conspiracy to Stop Renewals Must End Now!

 When it rains, it pours—especially in West Virginia in the 21st century, which is increasingly being defined by the effects of global warming. Climate change plays a role in most everything.

“The Power of Big Oil”, PBS Frontline’s 3 part documentary describes what amounts to a 50 year long conspiracy by fossil fuel companies and right wing think tanks and lobbyists to sow doubt on climate science. Exxon’s scientists were fully aware that disaster loomed and warned industry leaders that the burning of fossil fuels had been impacting the climate since the advent of the industrial revolution. The tipping point has been or will soon be reach, and we are living in a world virtually on fire with melting icecaps, rising sea level, ever more damaging hurricanes, tornadoes, derechos, and the severe thunderstorms that have flooded many WV communities. 

Greenhouse gases, CO2 and methane from producing and burning fossil fuels: coal, oil, and gas are the culprits. But climate change also has impacts on human populations and the movement of people around the world.

Increasingly, immigration from developing countries to western nations is being used to stoke fears that the cultures of their majority white populations are threatened. People don’t just seek to enter the US and Europe for “a better way of life,” they are escaping droughts, fires, environmental damage and wars, causing them to flee for their lives and health of their children. It is often a choice of dying at home or dying trying to cross the desert at our southern border or the Mediterranean Sea in flimsy overcrowded boats.

Scientists warn that pathogens and their carriers will find their way from the tropics to places that were previously temperate. Remember the Zika virus carried by a tropical mosquito whose habitat continues moving farther north?

Many people find themselves reluctant to bring children into a world facing these major challenges (another reason why folks will fight to preserve their right to decide when and how to have children). 

Big oil and coal want to keep the world addicted to fossil fuels. They use their wealth to fund politicians who stop legislation that tries to accelerate the transition to cleaner energy and they advertise the message that any effort to slow the use of the dirty energy that is despoiling our planet will hurt our pocketbooks. But it’s not your pocketbook they’re worried about, it’s theirs. 

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is a human and environmental catastrophe. I don’t know if scientists have ever quantified the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere by the exploding missiles, bombs, and fires wars generate, but when you add the energy needed to rebuild whole cities, it has to be significant. 

This particular war may also have some positive effect, however, on efforts to reduce fossil fuel use. European countries have more than doubled efforts to replace Russian natural gas with renewables. America needs to be doing the same. New investments in fossil fuel infrastructure is a mistake. More oil and gas drilling and building new pipelines won’t add supply fast enough to help Ukraine or lower gas prices during this spike in inflation. Continuing to rely on dirty energy dooms our future; a livable future depends on clean energy. 

The real cost of fossil fuels is much higher than we pay at the pump. We pay with higher health care costs caused by pollution. We paying billions of tax dollars each year on “natural disasters” caused or made worse by a warming planet. Oil, coal, and gas producers should be paying those bills. America could lead the world to put a global price on carbon pollution. We could do it in away that protects poor and middle class Americans from the impacts of rising fossil fuel prices. Our West Virginia leadership should be advocating for these policies, not continuing to allow fossil fuel producers to pay few if any taxes and receive subsidies such as the WV Public Service Commission is allowing to keep coal burning power plants in operation.

Democrats (including Manchin) and several Republicans, passed President Biden’s infrastructure bill last year, which funds some of what’s needed to move our electric grid and transportation toward renewable energy. It’s time to pass the rest of the climate package that Senator Manchin stopped when came out against the Build Back Better package. We must work to leave our children and grandchildren a world in which when it rains, it doesn’t flood; when a forest fire starts, it doesn’t burn for months; where polar ice caps exist and our coasts are not inundated by storms and sea level rise; a world where people in developing nations can live a sustainable life and populations are not forced to become refugees of environmental disaster and war.

Guns Serious, Climate Emergency

Which is a greater threat to our health and safety—gun violence or climate change? President Obama suggests that everyone concerned about the stranglehold the NRA has over Congress should make the support of “common sense gun reform” a litmus test. In West Virginia, this would give us few choices on election day.

The NRA is at the heart of most politicians’ fears of supporting even the mildest restrictions, such as expanded background checks. But they have gotten a lot of help from the conspiracy theory President Obama referred to in a recent town hall meeting that the federal government has a secret plan to register, then confiscate all private firearms in preparation for implementing a totalitarian regime. 

Unfortunately, conspiracy theories and wholesale rejection of science that we used to be able to laugh off as ideas held by tiny slivers of the population are now cynically used by mainstream politicians to garner support from increasing numbers of misinformed, suspicious Americans. And the prime example of that is climate change, which I would suggest is a much more important litmus test for 2016.

Yes, guns in America kill and injure thousands, and reducing that number is an important goal, but failing to reduce the greenhouse gases (GHG) being added to the atmosphere every day has the potential of resulting in catastrophic impacts on a global scale. I should not have to list them: rising sea levels, increased droughts, disease, hyper-destructive weather events, extinctions, populations on the move, and more.

Most Republican politicians, and West Virginia politicians from both parties still either deny the planet is warming, deny that it is human caused, or claim that there is nothing we can do about it. They often say that China and India will continue building coal burning power plants that will offset any of our efforts.

The recent Paris Agreement belies this claim. Almost 200 nations, including China and India, agreed on a plan to implement measures to limit global temperature rise to under 2 degrees Celsius, considered a tipping point beyond which already serious effects become catastrophic. 

No one is calling this agreement perfect. It is non-binding. Each country must set its own goals, decide how to achieve them, report back to the world on their progress every five years, and to the extent they are able, decrease their emissions goal over time. 

As a world leader, historically the world’s largest overall emitter of GHG, and the largest emitter per capita, we have a unique responsibility to make and meet goals under the Paris Agreement. This will not be easy, but it is certainly possible.

Let’s face it—we are addicted to cheap fossil fuels: coal, oil, natural gas. They have literally fueled American prosperity. We see gas fall under $2.00/gallon and cheer. We love our low electricity bills that have been provided by cheap coal. Hydraulic fracturing has brought cheaper natural gas into our homes. But what do they really cost? What will we pay in increased flood damage and worsening storms?  

As a nation, we were addicted to tobacco, and I remember buying cigarettes for $.30 a pack. What did it really cost America in lost time at work, doctor visits, heart disease, lung cancer and emphysema? Today cigarettes cost about $6.00 a pack, and many fewer people are willing to pay that price, which is saving lives. 

If we increased the cost of fossil fuels by applying a fee for their production and importation, we would make them less desirable and set the stage for the development, growth, and acceptance of alternative energy sources. Citizens Climate Lobby (citizensclimatelobby.org) has a proposal to impose such a fee and return all the money collected to households, which would in most cases reimburse them for the increased costs of fuel during the transition to alternative sources.

Find out what the position of candidates for office is on climate change and carbon fee and dividend legislation, and support those who face the future with optimism by dealing realistically with the biggest challenge of our time.

Paul Epstein is a retired teacher, writer, and musician living in Charleston.

Carla Rising, A Novel Worth Reading

I just finished reading Carla Rising, by Topper Sherwood, available as a soft cover paperback only from WV Book Company click here (could be ordered by your local bookstore as well). Full disclosure: Topper and I worked together thirty some years ago and he has sent donations to a project I coordinate called AWARE: Artists Working in Alliance to Restore the Environment.

Carla Rising is a novel written by West Virginia native, Topper Sherwood, about the period in American history known as the West Virginia Mine Wars, specifically, the Battle of Blair of Mountain in 1921, during which thousands of armed miners attempted to march on the town of Logan to free their union brothers who had been jailed without charges. The battle ended only when the U.S. Army was sent in to restore order.  

Sherwood has fictionalized the event, renaming some places and not others, and assembling a cast of characters some of whom can be fairly easily correlated to the historical figures they stand in for. The book is named for a central character, Carla Rising Mandt, raised on Blair Mountain by parents, Bonner Rising, a miner who had died in an earlier labor battle, and her mother, Mary, a quintessentially strong Appalachian woman who quietly endures the hardships of an idyllic rural life trying, but failing to avoid the dangerous politics of the era. Carla has been married for a year to Sid Mandt, a miner and local union leader as the book begins. 

Sherwood, a journalist and small press publisher now living in Berlin, Germany, has long been interested in this period of West Virginia History, having co-authored the history, Just Good Politics, the Life of Raymond Chafin, Appalachian Boss. Sherwood displays virtuosic skill as he paints a rich picture of life in the southern WV coal fields in the early 1900’s. He brings to the page many of the images John Sayles fans will recognize from his 1987 independent film classic, Matewan, which covers some of the same ground, but focusses on the “Matewan Massacre,” which took place a year before the events portrayed in Sherwood’s novel.

Carla Rising explores the minds of two brothers, Todd and Gibbs Bryant, who vie for leadership of the striking miners, one advocating patience and one armed action. Having grown up roaming Blair mountain, Carla’s knowledge of the terrain is valuable to the striking miners, and she struggles to decide which of the two brothers to support.

Along with a host of authentically drawn characters, some born and raised in the mountains, others newly arrived European immigrants: Aunt Tildy and Uncle Harm, Lowcoal, Darko, the evil Baldwin guard, Gaujot, and Carla’s eleven year old brother, Nick, a mute innocent collecting trinkets to display in his secret cave, Todd, Gibbs, and Carla each find their way to important life lessons amidst their struggle to make a better life for the miners and their families in this period of exploitation and corruption in the Appalachian Mountains.

Sherwood’s Carla Rising is an important book because it brings us into the minds of people who struggle against seemingly impossible odds to take on local and state government leaders who are fully beholden to their corporate sponsors. Of course, there are no political leaders such as this in the United States today, right?

Be Part of the Solution

I recently attended the 25^th anniversary of the first environmental conference sponsored by what later became the West Virginia Environmental Council, or WVEC.

It was simultaneously inspiring and disappointing. Inspiring because I was among long-time movers and shakers in the environmental movement in WV like Norm Steenstra, Cindy Rank, Vivian Stockman, Jim Kotcon, Bill Price, and Wendy Radcliff, who  spoke about issues they were working on and passionate about. Disappointing because I was one of only about fifty people in attendance.

One reason this was my first time attending a WVEC conference is that I’ve never considered myself an “environmentalist” or an “activist” on environmental issues.  However, I went because I have come to realize that due to the scope of problems facing our state and our world, all of us must, to some degree, become environmental activists.

The precipitating event for me was the January 9, 2014 Freedom Industries chemical spill which poisoned the water supply of 300,000 people in nine counties of West Virginia including the state capital, Charleston, where I live. I call it Aquageddon. If you experienced it, you haven’t forgotten it. Even if you didn’t, you likely remember the extensive national news coverage of the chemical, “crude MCHM”, about which little was known.  After only a few days, state officials and the Center for Disease Control declared the chemical was present in small enough amounts not to be a health risk.  But even a month or more later, the affected public continued to be highly suspicious of water that had the telltale odor of licorice, which the chemical emits. Questions about what level of exposure might result in long term health risks remain unanswered, and almost a year later there are still people in the affected areas who refuse to drink the tap water.

Prior to Aquageddon, I considered myself a supporter of environmental issues. Given a choice, I always voted for candidates who were more likely to support environmental protection, and on occasion I attended fund raisers, made contributions to environmental organizations, and attended rallies.

In the wake of Aquageddon, I attended rallies and led the singing of “This Land is Your Land,” with new lyrics I’d written about the water crisis and mountain top removal (MTR) mining. I attended public meetings and went to E-Day at the legislature to lobby for the tank storage bill, a bill that passed by a unanimous vote of the WV House and Senate. UNANIMOUS! How often does that happen?

I wondered if this would be a “come to Jesus moment” heralding the beginning of a new day for recognition of environmental catastrophes that have been occurring for decades in West Virginia due to MTR and other lightly regulated industries: poisoned water supplies, flattened mountains, buried streams,  increased cancer rates and other negative health impacts on communities near mountain removal coal mines? Would the legislature take another look at the effects on our water supply and communities caused by “Fracking” in order to decide whether stricter regulations are needed? Would they begin to question the actual cost of burning carbon fuels when damage to roads, water, air, health, tourism, and communities is factored in?

Or was this the Legislature’s version of “giving the Devil his due” in which they would have to be seen doing something because so many rich and powerful people in the state were affected by Aquageddon, but could ignore the by and large rural communities affected by MTR and Fracking. Surprise, surprise, it turns out it’s the latter.

I am not a scientist, don’t like to attend meetings, and don’t want to spend my time walking the halls of the Legislature. But I want to make sure that the environmental heroes who are working to protect us continue to have the resources they need to organize meetings and rallies, to study the impacts that fracking and MTR are having, to take water, soil, and air samples.  Before WVEC was formed, activists from groups working on local issues from all around the state descended on legislators in uncoordinated and overlapping ways. WVEC was formed so the environmental community could speak with a unified voice, sharing information with legislators so they are hearing the facts about the impacts of a lack of sensible regulation on West Virginians. Without WVEC and other environmental organizations, legislators only hear what the industry lobbyists have to say about how laws and regulations might impact their bottom lines.

To help support this critical work, I started a project called AWARE: Artists Working in Alliance to Restore the Environment. AWARE’s mission is primarily to raise funds for environmental organizations in West Virginia, especially WVEC and its member groups, which include the GreenbrierRiver Watershed Association, Ohio Valley Environmental Council, Sierra Club ofWest Virginia,  WV Citizen Action Group, WV Highlands Conservancy, and the WV Rivers Coalition, I hope you will think about what you’re willing to do to help protect our environment, and if it doesn’t include activism, at least make a donation to one or more of these organizations or another like them, or to AWARE, which will distribute the money among them.

Lazy, Hazy, but not Crazy

I can't believe it's almost a month since I last posted to this blog. For months after beginning a strategy for losing weight last November, I posted every week, usually to give updates on my progress and delve into the successes or struggles I experienced. I transformed my eating habits and lost thirty pounds, and though my goal of forty-four pounds remains something I'd like to reach, I've decided to live with this weight for awhile without "trying" so hard to restrict my eating. And so far I've done pretty well, though predictably, I'm at the high range of the weight I decided to allow myself for "maintenance"-- 180 pounds (I had started at 209).

I don't feel like I've been sitting around doing nothing, but I've been decidedly less ambitious than in the months previous to July 3rd when the fundraising event for AWARE: Artists Working to Restore the Environment was held. I had put so much effort into making that a success (netted over $3,000, $2500 of which I'll be distributing to WV Environmental Council and member groups, the rest of which will be used for upcoming projects), that my wife had mused that I was working harder in retirement than I had for years.

So the rhythm of activity has definitely slowed, and I've actually had time to sit down and read a little in the last couple weeks, ride my bike regularly, play a bit more music, even actually doing a "bar gig" of sorts (tip jar Tuesday at the Boulevard Tavern), dusting off a slew of my original songs many of which have not been played in public much over the years, some of which have only been heard by Rita and a couple others. Not that they've been heard by many others after playing Tuesday night -- it was a pretty empty room. But it was good practice, and when I finished my second set and called it a night with a solo rendition of the fiddle tune, Catharsis, a complex G-minor rockin' contra dance favorite, the eight or nine people at the bar clapped and whistled.

Tonight, old friend Joe McHugh and his wife, Paula, will play for a FOOTMAD Wandering Minstrel Concert I organized for them. They live in Washington state and came here to do a couple programs at the Appalachian String Band Festival at Clifftop, WV, and this is their last stop before heading home. I may also play a little fiddle before the anti-Mountain Top Removal at Kanawha State Forest rally at the WV Capitol beforehand (5 pm).

Rita and I fly out in the morning for ten days in Colorado Springs (visiting grandchild, Jack Martorella, and his parents), Albuquerque (daughter Hannah and husband), and points in between. So this is retirement during lazy, hazy, not too crazy days of summer 2014.

A Tale of Two Topics: Diet and Water Crisis

This has been a busy week for a retired guy. On Monday an op-ed of mine that I wrote three weeks or so ago about the water crisis was published in the Charleston Gazette, and I soon was engaged in a Facebook discussion with investigative environmental reporter, Ken Ward. He pointed out a mistake I'd made regarding the fact sheet (Material Safety Data Sheet, or MSDS) on 4-MCHM and a claim I'd made which was unsupported by data. The discussion was started by Ken in response to a post I'd made complaining that my piece had been edited in a way that changed the meaning and made it sound like I was contradicting myself. I'll explain below.

But first, let me welcome any new readers to my blog who came to read about my weight loss journey, which is as much or more a story about learning to eat in a more healthy way. An article in today's Gazette by features writer, Maria Young, in the "Life & Style" section titled, Successful Losers: How three WV residents lost weight and kept it off, summarizes my journey so far. I emphasize so far, because my story does not match the title since I'm only half way to my goal of 44 pounds and I haven't proven I can keep it off. For those of you who want to learn more about my diet, I started blogging about it the day I began, November 3, 2013 and continued every Sunday for many weeks. Recently I've been posting more about the chemical spill/water crisis. I particularly recommend the following entries which you can find on this blog: 11/10, 11/24, 12/8, 12/27, 1/5/14. I think that after today I will post about diet and health on Sundays and other topics during the week for awhile. I am also in the process of looking for a larger blog forum to post some of my writing.

Here are my stats for this week's healthy eating adventure (a game I play is to see how many ways I can avoid using the D word). You'll see a weight loss of 2 pounds this week, but that actually represents a loss of 1 pound over the last two weeks, since last week I had 1 pound weight gain:

Beginning weight 11/3/13: 209 lbs.

Height 5'8" Age: 61

Goal weight: 165 lbs.

Total loss goal: 44 lbs.

Beginning waist size: 43 in.

Current waist size: 39 in.

Weight end of week 16:  186 lbs.

Gain/Loss this week: -2 lb.

Total Gain/Loss:  -23 lbs.

Okay, back to Monday's article in the Gazette. Here's a link to the original, which is now only available on my 2/3/14 blog, and here's a link to the online Gazette version of 2/17. They removed several sentences from the online version because, I incorrectly summarized a now outdated Scientific American article and the pattern of hospital visits related to the chemical spill. They also fixed an editor's mistake in removing an attribution to Erin Brockovich in the print version. I'd written that "According to Brockovich" no new laws are needed regarding chemical safety and by removing those words it made it sound like that was my position. Elsewhere in the article I'd stated that new laws were needed in addition to increased enforcement by DEP. 

Ken Ward pointed out to me an error I'd made by characterizing 4-MCHM as "dissipating" over time according to the MSDS. In fact it used the term half-life, so the time periods during which the  presence of the chemical would remain in air, water, and sediment I reported were approximately half what I should have reported. He also complained that the chemical that spilled was a mixture of crude MCHM (which is mostly, but not all made of 4-MCHM), and a much smaller amount of PPH (about 7%), but the MSDS I referred to was only for 4-MCHM. One thing most people who continue to bring up the issue of the PPH don't acknowledge is that there was no PPH detected in any of the samples collected by WV American Water even in the first hours of the spill (at least not down to 10 parts/billion testing levels they were using).

Regarding hospital visits, I said they had declined since the early days of the spill. Ward pointed out that there had been no data reported for the last three weeks (in fact I had written the op-ed 3 weeks previously, but the Gazette doesn't print my work the same day I write it as they do for Ward). However, I think its reasonable to assume that if the average number of hospital visits attributed to the water crisis went down for the two reporting periods after the spill, that they probably have continued to decline. Ward takes the proper journalistic position that he doesn't make assumptions in the absence of data. I don't feel such restrictions, though I acknowledge I should have hedged in some way such as saying it's my assumption they've continued to decline. At any rate, I don't get unlimited space in the Gazette to explain every detail--800 words is pretty much the limit, and the editor who removed the words According to Brockovich said hum was trying to cut a few words to make it fit in the space available (hum is not a typo, it's a non-gender pronoun, short for human). 

So, I'm not angry with the Gazette--I love the Gazette, and as I wrote to the editor who I communicate with, I appreciate the education I get by reading and interacting with the Gazette, its readers, and its staff. On Wednesday, on this blog, I'll be posting my latest op-ed which I sent to the Gazette a few days ago, titled "Our Water is Safe." I expect it will be pretty controversial, but I've always been willing to speak my mind, even if I hold the minority position among friends.

This Land is Our Land

This Land is Our Land

February 9, 2014

(today’s Diet Challenge ‘report’ is at the end of this post)

Today it is one month since the water crisis in WV began. Pete Seeger died on 1/27, and in searching for some of the songs he’d written I came across a couple verses of Woody Guthrie’s This Land is Your Land he penned, one about income inequality, and one on the environment. And I also saw other verses of Woody’s much more hard hitting than the version usually sung. I had gone to a town hall meeting during which Erin Brockavich and one of her team talked about the need for this community to engage in ongoing community activism in order to start getting our governor to direct the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to enforce existing laws, let alone getting the legislature to pass new ones. There were some mountain top removal activists there also making the point that in the coalfields of WV, the DEP has been letting coal companies destroy their streams and poison their water for years without taking action. So, one sleepless night, after writing a new verse to This Land is Your Land, I went down into my basement, set up my i-phone on a tripod and videoed myself talking about what’s been going on and singing This Land is Your Land. I found my voice, sad but resolute, and I am now committed to doing what I can to hold our politicians to the promise of clean water and a healthy environment, a cause I’ve only supported with lip service and a few donations until now. The video (with some editing), is fifteen minutes long and I plan to put it up on YouTube, but am trying to get permission from the holders of Woody Guthrie’s copyrights first. What follows is a transcript:

Three weeks ago on January the ninth, 2014, there was a chemical storage tank that leaked and spilled its contents, or at least ten thousand gallons of its contents, into the Elk River a mile or so north of Charleston, WV where I live. You’ve probably heard about it; it made national and even international news. Because, well, the water company, a private company, a profit making company, didn’t shut their water intakes, didn’t realize what the chemical was; they thought their systems would filter the water. So, it got into the water supply, and they figured out after a day, you know, several hours, that they had a possibly poisonous chemical in the water system in our city. So they put out a Do Not Use order to all the customers of this West Virginia American Water Company.

They cut off water to, you know, 300,000 customers in nine counties around the capital city of WV. We’re only a city in the city limits of about 50,000, so it’s a wide geographical area that they serve. And we were told not to drink the water, not to wash or use the water, except to flush our toilets or to put out fires.

After four days they started approving certain areas. They said, “Your water is safe now to use, to drink.” People are confused and angry and scared. And there’s been a lot of conflicting reports. There’s not much known about this chemical, MCHM, a chemical used in the process of cleaning coal to make it ready for market, for burning.

So this week, Pete Seeger died, and if you don’t know who he was, Google him and listen to his music – ninety-four years old, sang and was an activist for the Earth, and for labor and for every good cause in the last 70 years. And, you know, he was in the same, almost the same generation as Woody Guthrie. Woody was obviously a little older. And Pete sang Woody’s songs too, and so I’m going to honor Pete with a song he sang a lot, This Land is Your Land, this land is my land. But you know Woody wrote verses that you probably haven’t heard. I’m going to sing those verses in addition to the chorus. And Pete wrote a couple verses, and I’m going to sing those. And I wrote a verse, just yesterday, and I’m going to try to get through that.

This land is your land,

This land is my land,

From California to the New York Island,

From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters,

This land was made for you and me.

One bright sunny morning, in the shadow of the steeple,

By the relief office I saw my people,

As they stood there hungry, I stood there wondering if,

This land was made for you and me.

Was a big high wall there that tried to stop me,

Was a great big sign that said, "Private Property,"

But on the other side, it didn't say nothing,

That side was made for you and me.

Nobody living can ever stop me,

As I go walking my freedom highway,

Nobody living can make me turn back,

This land was made for you and me.

This land is your land (sing it with me)

This land is my land (California)

From California to the New York Island,

From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters (Katrina),

This land was made for you and me.

So yeah, those were Woody’s verses, and you know just singing “Gulf stream waters, and thinking about Deep Water Horizon and the tragedy that was Katrina.  Deep Water Horizon, of course the oil rig that spilled, broke and dumped millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico despoiling their waters.

These next two verses were Pete’s verses, and you know, I don’t know when he wrote them, but this first one’s about inequality and that’s a bit topic right now, and it has been for a long time, but it’s just been getting worse and worse – inequality of income.

Maybe you've been working as hard as you're able,

But you've just got crumbs from the rich man's table,

And maybe you're thinking, was it truth or fable,

That this land was made for you and me.

Woodland and grassland and river shoreline,

To everything living, even little microbes,

Fin, fur, and feather, we're all here together,

This land was made for you and me.

This land is your land,

This land is my land,

From California to the New York Island,

From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters,

This land was made for you and me.

Well, my verse is really about Mountain Top Removal coal mining, because as bad as we’ve had it in Charleston the last three weeks, people of southern West Virginia in the coalfields, and in Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky, Virginia, parts of North Carolina, maybe into Tennessee, are living through a kind of strip mining called Mountain Top Removal. They just plain cut the tops off the mountains and push ‘em over into the valleys. And, uh, you know it covers up the streams, miles and miles and miles of streams. It kills everything, and nothing can grow there. I mean they, they, they spray something on it, makes grass grow. They, they say, “You can put.. shopping malls there.” The place is so depressed, there’s nobody putting shopping malls there. “You can put golf courses there.” It’ll never grow back. It’ll never come back.

And not only that, but it’s poisoning the water for the people down there. It’s been doing it for years and years. It’s poisoning the wells. It’s poisoning the people. The rates for cancer are through the roof! And, these people are strong, proud people. But they’re giving up the fight, and they’re doing drugs, their kids are hopeless and their education system is failing because all the money’s been leaving. And all the jobs have been leaving, because it’s all done by machine. It’s not like the underground mines, which are dangerous and have big machines that require a little more manpower. It’s a, it’s a travesty. Oh well, time to sing:

Our Mountain Mama, they’ve spoiled your water

Cut down your mountains, it’s a true slaughter

But we will rise up and stand together

This land was made for you and me.

Well, that last line, This land was made for you and me, that’s not, it didn’t work for me,  it doesn’t work for me, I mean it’s the song,  I had to change that, because, you know, this land has been here before we were here, before the Native Americans were here. You know there’s a verse of this song written by Native Americans that says, This land was our land before it was your land, you stole it from us.” I don’t know the rest of it. But this land wasn’t made for us to do whatever we want with it—to destroy it….This land is for us, to take care of and leave for our children and grandchildren and those who come after us. And we have Got. To stop this Mountain Top Removal coal mining. We have Got. To Stop. Destroying our mountains, our rivers, our streams. And, you know, whatever cause, wherever you live, write yourself a verse for this song and add this line to the end of it. This line that says, this last line instead of, “This land was made for you and me,” “Saving this land will be our legacy. Saving this land,” wherever you are or come down here and help us save this land. Help us change our government’s mind.

There’s not a War on Coal.  There’s a War on West Virginia. There’s a war on the mountains! There’s a war on the rivers! There’s a war on the People of West Virginia! I’ve been here forty years, and like the people who were born here (I wasn’t born here), I love this land. And I love living here, and there’s a whole lot of people in this town  who are talking about leaving. And that’s the ways it’s been in southern West Virginia for years and years they’ve been leaving, and….(sniff), and not coming back…they love it, or…. so sing this one with me for the people of West Virginia.

Our Mountain Mama, they’ve spoiled your water

Cut down your mountains, it’s a true slaughter

But we will rise up and stand together, saving

This land will be our legacy

Saving this land will be our legacy.

The video ends there and the final credit reads, “learn more, donate, take action” along with a link to a site that serves as a clearinghouse for all the Mountain Top Removal and environmental groups working in the southern Appalachians: www.ilovemountains.org . I hope you will click and join me in fighting this scourge.

Here's how I'm doing on the 2-Day Diet. I'm half way to my goal!

Beginning weight 11/3/13: 209 lbs.

Height 5'8" Age: 61

Goal weight: 165 lbs.

Total loss goal: 44 lbs.

Beginning waist size: 43 in.

Current waist size: 39 in.

Weight end of week 14:  187 lbs.

Gain/Loss this week: -1 lb.

Total Gain/Loss:  -22 lbs.