Chopping Down The Mountains

Two weekends ago, our touring crew drove from East Harlem to the mountaintops of West Virginia to a Mountain Justice Summit.  Mountain Justice is a group of organized folks who work to support those affected by coal mining in the Appalachia Mountains.  This happens in many ways, from protests to direct actions to petitioning the EPA for cleaner water/air mandates amongst many other things.  

In 2010, the Beehive put out a narrative graphic poster called The True Cost of Coal, which is specifically talking about Mountaintop Removal.  I've studied the poster quite a bit and watched different Bees present the graphic in our storytelling manner, but have not spent any time in Appalachia.  The way I have related to the poster in the past, besides being deeply moved by the story and re-thinking my relationship with energy (coal or otherwise), is by relating the story of coal extraction to the story of Marcellus Shale extraction in the form of fracking.  That is something that is personally affecting me and Philadelphia more, and so I relate to it a bit more.  However, here I was, standing on one mountaintop, looking over to the next mountaintop that just wasn't there anymore.  In its place was a mining site and clouds of dusts tumbling down through the trees below to the town below.  A couple to the town folks were standing with us, telling us stories of heavy metals seeping into their water basin and carcinogens pouring out of their faucets, causing huge percentages of their families to develop cancer while their doctor's gag order from the companies denied them the knowledge of what exactly was causing this destruction. What is this world?

The True Cost of Coal poster by the Beehive

this is coal.

this used to be a temperate rainforest-covered mountain top.

the green areas are how the coal companies are re-greening the coal mines.  it is a desert.

this crack in the side of the mountain has been caused by the erosion of the land by strip mining below it and on neighboring mountains.

this is the crew i have been touring with up until now.

this is not what it used to be.  and it will never be that way again.

When I was looking over this desolation, my brain was writhing with the realization of what civilization has done to this earth.  This site is extreme destruction, but we see many kinds of mining all across the Americas and around the world.  We have caused fast, intense ecological changes that have severely effected the land, animals, and people around those places.  The planet's face has changed so much in the past couple hundred years because of human demand for more, more, more.

Want.

Yearn. Dig.

Extract. Burn. Polute. 

Use. "Dispose". Displace. Hoard. Starve. 

Scream. Ignore. Scream. Ignore. Pant, pant. Ignore. 

Infect. Burn. Erupt. 

Scream. Ignore. 

Silence.

In the above picture, the green "hill" (its a mountain top) in the background is where the coal companies attempted to re-green the mined sites after they finished their mining a half a decade ago. It is regulation that they take this step. They put a couple of inches of topsoil down, spray grass seed on it, and plant a few bushes that will actually grow with that little amount of topsoil.  That same mountaintop used to look like the picture below, which was taken on our walk up the neighboring mountain.  

After a while of staring at this mockery of a green landscape, I realized that it reminded me of the high desert in Arizona.  RED FLAG!! RED FLAG!! This mountain in Appalachia looks like high desert???  Oh no!  Under that couple of inches of top soil is hard rock that has been stripped down so much- to a layer of rock that was never surface rock before.  And after 5 years of growth, what we see above is all that will grow on it.  Topsoil take soooo many years to form, especially in this highly elevated place that is torn my wind and rain with nothing but grasses to hold it in place.  Oh... this is not good!  This land will never be the rich, dense forest that housed thousands of animals and insects for generations.  The Appalachian Mountain range... the oldest mountain range in the world.  Desertified. What is this world?

Walking back to camp that night, we were silent with the corners of our mouths pointed down toward this great land we have chosen to fight for and protect.

Rise up, good people!  Take hold of the power we have to change this course we are taking!  Take hold!