We're Just Removing Mountain Tops...

Ahh, the Appalachians, oldest mountain chain in the world, an incredibly biodiverse region, and birthplace of trees. Back in the days of Pangaea, when the environment as we know it was coming into existence, the spine of the continent, the mountains we would come to know as the Smokeys or the Bluegrasses, were the origin point for coniferous life. Leafy trees were born in these mountains, before the land spread apart, before seeds were carried on the wind or in the stomachs of birds, to be pooped out over new topographies, before the world was verdant and seemingly complete. To stand in the Appalachians is still to be surrounded by an air more complex and rich than any nouveau bottle of wine, than any gizmo gadget you hold in your hand and use to make phone calls or listen to music.

Unfortunately, all of that verdant diversity is inconveniently sitting on top of mountains upon mountains of the black gold that we call coal, a gold that we are more and more reliant upon as we try to power our overextended grid and move away from dirty, nasty, geopolitically unfortunate oil. It used to be that men would go underground to find the coal, but those days are over. Now we just use explosives, tear off (usually) the top of a mountain (though sometimes the whole thing), and trust in the almost mystical ability of nature to repair itself in the eons of millenia that still wait down the road, presumably for people other than us, people who haven't killed their environment in the restless zeal to have more electronic playthings (he writes, while typing on a laptop computer).

Vice TV is currently running a five part series on "Toxic West Virginia", exploring the various environmental degradations being suffered by the mountains of "The Mountain State". Part I is about coal mining; I hesistate to use the word "Enjoy".