Down to the wire : confronting climate collapse / David - Index of

the carbon connection S 117
the ownership of the surface were long ago separated in a shameless
scam perpetrated on illiterate and trusting mountain people
who had ousted earlier illiterate and trusting inhabitants.
Larry describes what has happened using a model of the area
that comes apart more or less in the same way that the mountains
around him have been dismantled. As he talks he illustrates how
mountains are taken down by taking the model apart piece by
piece, leaving the top of Kayford as a knob sticking up amidst the
encircling devastation. So warned, we walk down the country lane
to witness the advancing ruin. A mother bear with her cubs was
said to have run down this road the day before, fl eeing the devastation.
Fifteen of us stand for maybe a half an hour on the edge
of the abyss watching giant bulldozers and trucks at work below
us. Plumes of dust from the operations rise up several thousand
feet. The next set of explosive charges is ready to go on an area
below us that appears to be about the size of a football fi eld. Every
day some three million pounds of explosives are used in the 11
counties south of Charleston. This is a war zone. The mountains
are the enemy, profi ts from coal the prize, and the local residents
and all those who might have otherwise lived here or would have
vacationed here are the collateral damage.
We try to wrap our minds around what we are seeing, but
words do no justice to the enormity of it. Some of the oldest
mountains on Earth are being turned into gravel for a pittance;
their ecologies radically simplifi ed, forever. Perhaps as a defense
mechanism from feeling too much or being overwhelmed by
what we’ve seen, we talk about lesser things. On the late afternoon
drive back to Charleston, we pass by the coal-loading facilities
along the Kanawha River. Mile after mile of barges are lined
up to haul coal to hungry Ohio River power plants, the umbilical
cord between mountains, mines, and us—the consumers of cheap
electricity.
Over dinner that night we hear from two Mingo County residents
who describe what it is like to live in the coalfi elds. Without