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Jane Hanger

8/9/12

Unit 6: Globalization, Coal, and Mountaintop Removal

I think Steingrabers quote that hydrofracking is the environmental issue of our time,

is accurate in the sense that it is a major environmental concern, but I think a more accurate

statement would be the extraction and dependence on fossil fuels as our primary energy

source is the major environmental issue. Through hydrofracking, strip mining, mountain top

removal, and petroleum drilling the United States is actively producing large amounts of

greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, destroying flora and fauna in the destruction zones,

decreasing the home values nearby, using millions of gallons of water, and polluting the fresh

ground water and local water sources of the communities. These are just a few of the possible

major environmental problems that fossil fuel extraction causes, but as Steingraber mentions

in her article on hydrofracking it is:

a tree with two trunks. One trunk represents what we are doing to the planet

through atmospheric accumulation of heat-trapping gasses. Follow this trunk along

and you find droughts, floods, acidification of oceans, dissolving coral reefs, and

species extinctions. The other trunk represents what we are doing to ourselves and

other animals through the chemical adulteration of the planet with inherently toxic

synthetic pollutants. Follow this trunk along and you find asthma, infertility, cancer,

and male fish in the Potomac River whose testicles have eggs inside them.

Although she is speaking directly on hydrofracking the same can be said of mountain

top removal and strip mining. Whereas coal mining is a century old practice and our primary

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energy source for decades the most recent extraction methods of mountain top removal have

added an entirely new set of negative effects associated with the mining and use of coal as a

primary energy source. In Appalachia both fracking and MTR are destroying the environment

as well as the population because its abundance of shale natural gas and coal seam deposits

are some of the richest in the nation. Whereas our country is exponentially increasing our

energy dependence and usage that in turn currently relies on fossil fuels, coal, petroleum, and

natural gas, which make up approximately 82 percent of our nations total energy

consumption. With our need for energy increasing and the fossil fuels decreasing extreme

methodologies for extraction have been put into practice to serve as a crutch until better, more

environmentally friendly, cheaper, and faster methods of energy production and fossil fuel

extraction occur.

An interesting point I noticed while watching the June 1stMTR hearing is that the

EPA was the bad guy to not only the pro-MTR members but also to government and state

representatives. At first I was pretty amazed at what I thought was ignorance because the EPA

was bringing to light or more appropriately stated bringing to relevance the detrimental

effects of MTR. But I recognized the effect the EPA has had on the coal mining industry and

the trickle down effects are destructive on many levels economically, socially, and politically.

Whereas the EPA serves a very good cause in bringing to light the destructiveness of MTR on

all facets, it also has caused mining companies to lose permits, millions of dollars in efforts to

gain a permit, hundreds of laid off miners and workers, and a speed bump in the global race

for resources. The United States has leading energy consumption rates, and a large but not

unlimited supply of fossil fuels, in the upcoming decades the global energy need will multiple

as economically flourishing India and China expand, therefore there is no nearsighted end to

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dependence of fossil fuels as our primary energy source. But that being said, our nation wants

to be a competitive force on the global scale of energy production yet unlike many other

nations we have laws, statutes, Congressional Acts, and the EPA that all limit our ability to

produce or mine in the same fashion as other nations that do not have the strenuous humane

and environmental boundaries. So for us to keep up not only do we have to maintain those

boundaries, but as shown in the hearing in order to even petition for an extraction site without

the knowledge of it even being approved is millions of dollars, putting us economically

behind in the global race for energy.

The fossil fuel dependency is not and will not ever be a simple solution or transition,

it has been ingrained in the livelihoods and homes of those through Appalachia especially,

and as MTR and fracking continue to attack that livelihood as a nation we also are fighting a

global battle in the race for energy. I think the multitude of environmental issues and

chemical adulteration affecting us, the animals, and our planets ecosystem will continue to

grow and continue to bring to light the harmful nature of fossil fuel extraction until enough

laws are passed that the current practices of fracking, MTR, and strip mining become

completely economically infeasible and our nation is forced to develop new, cleaner, quicker,

and cheaper energy sources that minimally rely on our depleting fossil fuels and that any

further extraction, production, and usage of fossil fuels are through new methods that are

concretely environmentally friendly.