"To people who think of themselves as God’s houseguests, American enterprise must seem arrogant beyond belief. Or stupid. A nation of amnesiacs, proceeding as if there were no other day but today. Assuming the land could also forget what had been done to it."
Thanks. Believe it or not, that's a strip mine in Napa County, California, Astra. There are dozens all over this country but, having lived in "NoCal" as a kid a long time ago, I found that rape of nature particularly crazy.
oh yes, strip the land of everything and then let it sit and become a waste land for no one to be able to use for anything good.....that sure makes a lovely picture Doug...ugly!
We will pay for the way we live and destroy our environment. The East Coast alone will experience 2 ft of rising ocean and by the end of the century, most of the major cities in New England will be underwater, reported today by scientists.
Yes, you find all sorts of strip mine pictures in West Virginia and other parts of the Appalachin Range where they have done strip mining and mountain removal jobs.
Yes, I've seen some of those pictures too Heidi. It's one thing to see these thing back when mining was new to the West. There should have been better alternatives by now.
Yes, if we as a nation don't get a handle on green-house gases, how much sand and rock are twe going to need just to keep the beaches and the ports open, Tinh?
We have a whole political party over here dedicated to making the Euro-Socialist parties of today seem akin to the Stalinist parties of the old Eastern Bloc in the 1950's, Jim.
Otherwise intelligent people have told me with a straight face that environmentalism is terrorism.
The energy giants (Exxon-Mobile) blame the Environmental Protection Agency for any stall in their quarterly profit statements.
Meanwhile, all the EPA has done to keep people breathing decent air and drinking safe water. Just today a Court of Appeals over here beat back a challenge to the EPA.
The US I'm sorry to say is likely a decade behind the UK and other nations in protecting our land and water resources.
That maybe so, but I don't think we can claim the moral high ground here. Some of our improvements have been, somewhat perversely, due to the Thatcher Government going to war with the unions. The resulting mass closures of heavy industry, mines and others has resulted in the fastest environmental clean-up ever in the UK.
Where I now live, in South Wales, has seen unprecedented improvements to the local ecology. However, the cost has been the closure of the entire Welsh mining industry, the almost complete loss of steel making and the relocation of of other industries off shore. It is a much cleaner and greener place but much of the heart has been torn out in the process with many communities being decimated.
Would I prefer to live there now or then? Well it has to be said that it is a very beautiful area to live now and I would not want to have the pollution that was around then. But, employment in the region is appalling with more than 50% of local jobs being provided by Government agencies and much of what else is available is low paid. Oh, and it should not be forgotten that 30 years on from the mines closures, South Wales still enjoys one of the highest unemployment rates in the UK.
So I guess my message is that whilst we all want a clean place to live in, and it's true that we can't keep extracting resources at the rate we are now, such changes must be handled properly if you are to avoid massive economic troubles in the process.
Yes, remembering the 1980's and the bad old days of Ronald Reagan I could see that happening again. Interior Secretary James Watt and Anne Burford at EPA were some of the biggest anti-conservations ever in office.
That's the first I've heard of much potential good coming from the Thatcher war on miners and other unions, Jim.
In my part of Oregon, there has been a long-range problem with people upset over declining timber sales (and loss of jobs) over Federla timber lands versus the need to protect endangered birds and animals. There's been no settlement on this in part because there is no easy trade-off. JObs in the timber industry have replaced by jobs in retail and tourism but they pay less. And the state firefighters are employed mainly in the Summer time. There's an ugly urban/rural split over how to balance preservation and the regulated commercial of timber lands.
Plus, somebody always loses. If the timber companies have their way in Oregon and Washington state, for instance, streams and rivers will be more polluted and the salmon don't survive and that effects the fishing industry on the coast.
The situation in South Wales does sounds like a first-class conundrum, Jim. For some people I suppose it's a case of "How TOO Green Is My Valley; I Need to Work". And then of course there is the devastaring effect the mines have. As long as people drive cars and people use coal-fire plants, they have to get cars and lorries and energy from somewhere. And, for her locals, that that has to be balanced against the bad health effects on kids and the old and the blighted landscapes.
I'm often amazed at concepts that exclude the reality of other energy resources. They're available, they're more than feasible. Wind & solar...oh, yes. 1. They'd stop the hideous attack on this earth, before it's too late? 2. Then, could we have clean air & water again? 3. These new sources would create who knows how many jobs.
Is that enough? No. Money = power, & corporations would never consider.. not losing money, but not making more. & more & more...
I suspect that if the travesty of GWB, Jeb & the Supreme Court had never occurred, & Al Gore had won, as he should have, we wouldn't even be discussing this now.
My current question and struggle is that since the changes here at Multiply are we sanctioning this deforestation when we continue to participate at the website?
"So I guess my message is that whilst we all want a clean place to live in, and it's true that we can't keep extracting resources at the rate we are now, such changes must be handled properly if you are to avoid massive economic troubles in the process."
I am horrified that people in my home state are fighting alternatives. There are signs in yards that say "No Wind farm" and a local school system had to drop plans to build a wind mill that would save the school system a lot of money and would be paid for with a grant due to parental out rage. There were complaints that the ice would fly off the wind mill and hit children on the head. And last year when I was in the dental chair with my mouth full of cleaning tools and the woman working on me was going on about how she didn't want a wind farm in our county because it would make the cows sterile. Where do people get these ideas?
Long ago & far away, people bought their necessities in little local stores. The goods were put in woven bags. People wove those bags, & were paid for it. When paper bags came along, what did the poor weavers do? Die? When paper went out, & plastic came in, (I abhor plastic), what did the paper people do?
What happened to ploughs driven by oxen? Sewing machines to 'store bought' clothes? Rain water, (pure then), to water from a tap to purified water in bottles? We've made transitions throughout time. This surely isn't the Apocalypse unless we LET it be!
I knew this would come up at some point...needless to say by Heidi. No promises Douglas but I shall do a pros and cons on this area and what other countries are doing the very same - yet there are pros and cons to so many areas.
I don't believe that pros & cons are precisely equal. Pragmatic & humane evaluations must be made. Who makes them? I think this would be determined by the majority who benefit.
Things will sort out in the long term I admit. We just need to get on the right path for that to happen and be cognizant of the people who are displaced by newer forms of energy. .
There always are to diffuicult situations Jack. But we need ot remove ourselves as much as possible from finite sources of energy tha tare getting more and more expensive to extract. And it won't be easy given that there will be a lot ofbig companies and thier lobbyists in pursuit of the status quo.
Doug, do they have to be "displaced?" Couldn't they learn about solar panels, windmills? That's why I used the analogy that I did. The weavers didn't die. They must have made the transition. ?
You're right Lucija. I meant displaced from their jobs, not always their places to live. Many rural people had to travel to cities in England, Germany, Japan, etc, during their Industrial Revolutions of the 1800-1900s but that doesn't seem as necessary now.
Doug, that's what I meant. :) Jobs. They'll have to learn other skills to make a living, & some of those skills could be learned on the job. I'd think there would be plenty of unemployed who would b anxious to learn...not the highly skilled technical things ar first...but a start.
The worst to overcome will be, as you said, "there will be a lot of big companies and their lobbyists in pursuit of the status quo."
The photographs you shared were almost physically painful. Giant unhealed wounds in the earth's flesh.
With all due respect the Oil Sands have there pros and cons Doug. The idea of the Canadian Oil Sands do have merit as well as do effect the habitat. However I have seen them and the thought was and is to produce oil and gas while building other types of energy Doug. The power went out here (ironic) when I was reading this. What my feeling was and has been is that after the European Summit, the Prime Minister of Canada said some very sound yet harsh words regarding the economy and fast bailouts. Thereafter the Oil Sands came to be a focus for many writers and media. There are allot of companies which are involved within this parcel of land. Canada ownes it yet are we speaking of money matters or are we thinking of ecology?
Lucija has a tremendous point here as there are great skills which are learned as well - there is a tremendous amount of young people which come from all corners of the world to get trained within a skill and make a living. In the past there was a huge international amount of people which would come into Canada to gain a trade as well as it was a means for young people to get started within something.
Although there is the ecological component which has graduated since Obama took Presidency.
Which leads to how many dirty mines are still running. Ironically most all thought this was a picture of the Oil Sands of Alberta. It's a hard call Doug, I wished to write on this - I may.
"Canada ownes it yet are we speaking of money matters or are we thinking of ecology?"
Jack, I know this for sure: If it's the U.S. it's about money no matter how they try to disguise it. It's about money if it means hundreds of thousands of deaths, & another country destroyed. Sadly.
I just wonder how many decades it takes for the sands to shift, (no pun intended), the world to get out from under the heels of the wealthy, & with determination accelerate new energy sources to save the planet we live on before it's too late.
Jack, as to: "With all due respect the Oil Sands have there pros and cons Doug. The idea of the Canadian Oil Sands do have merit as well as do effect the habitat. However I have seen them and the thought was and is to produce oil and gas while building other types of energy Doug."
Short term yes. We have to make that...here's the word again...transition. We can't just throw up our hands & say no more production. But not in a long-term goal. I haven't yet seen any true evidence of that. It doesn't seem "while building other types of energy," but..."maybe, some day but not now."
I know there's use of both solar & wind. Private solar is beyond the dreams of other than a billionaire...strike that, billions don't count anymore...trillionaire. I honestly haven't researched well enough to say other than we may be on our way, but not nearly fast enough. Money will prevail until enough of us put a stop to it. Starting with Citizens United.
It's all intertwined I suppose Jack--how much of the economy can we despoil before someone comes up with a way to keep the power on and do a better job protecting the environment? It's not just about the local area wherever one is of course,as you know. The seas near the East Coast are rising in part from coal-fired plants and automobile exhaust.
I haven't researched enough myself, Lucija. But there doesn't seem to be the profit-related incentive to move to other fuel sources--solar and wind are always considered "down the road" solutions.
I'm beginning to think we'll never get down the road, barring some kind of quantum jump in energy technology. Until then, we drill and deface (short-term) and hope the earth won't pay us back (long-term) with our children's extinction.
Referring back to the quote above. I have not read anything by Barbara Kingsolver but some of her books are on my "want" list. Have other people read any of her books and do they have one or two that they would recommend.
No argument here.
ReplyDeleteAt all....
Thanks.
ReplyDeleteBelieve it or not, that's a strip mine in Napa County, California, Astra. There are dozens all over this country but, having lived in "NoCal" as a kid a long time ago, I found that rape of nature particularly crazy.
oh yes, strip the land of everything and then let it sit and become a waste land for no one to be able to use for anything good.....that sure makes a lovely picture Doug...ugly!
ReplyDeleteoh yes go look at a picture of the landscape in Alberta where they do shale oil mining it is awful the landscape looks like on Mars sick
ReplyDeleteWe will pay for the way we live and destroy our environment. The East Coast alone will experience 2 ft of rising ocean and by the end of the century, most of the major cities in New England will be underwater, reported today by scientists.
ReplyDeleteagreed
ReplyDeleteBut to do anything about it would mean adopting European Socialism Doug, well according to most political pundits in America that is.
ReplyDeleteStill it could be worse, you may have to become communists in order to make life better. ;-))
Yes, you find all sorts of strip mine pictures in West Virginia and other parts of the Appalachin Range where they have done strip mining and mountain removal jobs.
ReplyDeleteMakes me sick---some companies would destroy the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee (or the Cascade foothills) if they had the chance.
http://www.ohvec.org/galleries/mountaintop_removal/007/
Yes, I've seen some of those pictures too Heidi. It's one thing to see these thing back when mining was new to the West. There should have been better alternatives by now.
ReplyDeleteYes, if we as a nation don't get a handle on green-house gases, how much sand and rock are twe going to need just to keep the beaches and the ports open, Tinh?
ReplyDeleteThanks nahim.
ReplyDeleteWe have a whole political party over here dedicated to making the Euro-Socialist parties of today seem akin to the Stalinist parties of the old Eastern Bloc in the 1950's, Jim.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise intelligent people have told me with a straight face that environmentalism is terrorism.
The energy giants (Exxon-Mobile) blame the Environmental Protection Agency for any stall in their quarterly profit statements.
Meanwhile, all the EPA has done to keep people breathing decent air and drinking safe water. Just today a Court of Appeals over here beat back a challenge to the EPA.
The US I'm sorry to say is likely a decade behind the UK and other nations in protecting our land and water resources.
That maybe so, but I don't think we can claim the moral high ground here. Some of our improvements have been, somewhat perversely, due to the Thatcher Government going to war with the unions. The resulting mass closures of heavy industry, mines and others has resulted in the fastest environmental clean-up ever in the UK.
ReplyDeleteWhere I now live, in South Wales, has seen unprecedented improvements to the local ecology. However, the cost has been the closure of the entire Welsh mining industry, the almost complete loss of steel making and the relocation of of other industries off shore. It is a much cleaner and greener place but much of the heart has been torn out in the process with many communities being decimated.
Would I prefer to live there now or then? Well it has to be said that it is a very beautiful area to live now and I would not want to have the pollution that was around then. But, employment in the region is appalling with more than 50% of local jobs being provided by Government agencies and much of what else is available is low paid. Oh, and it should not be forgotten that 30 years on from the mines closures, South Wales still enjoys one of the highest unemployment rates in the UK.
So I guess my message is that whilst we all want a clean place to live in, and it's true that we can't keep extracting resources at the rate we are now, such changes must be handled properly if you are to avoid massive economic troubles in the process.
If Romney gets in it might happen Doug...you know how he wants less govt....and no restrictions on anything.
ReplyDeleteYes, remembering the 1980's and the bad old days of Ronald Reagan I could see that happening again. Interior Secretary James Watt and Anne Burford at EPA were some of the biggest anti-conservations ever in office.
ReplyDeleteThat's the first I've heard of much potential good coming from the Thatcher war on miners and other unions, Jim.
ReplyDeleteIn my part of Oregon, there has been a long-range problem with people upset over declining timber sales (and loss of jobs) over Federla timber lands versus the need to protect endangered birds and animals. There's been no settlement on this in part because there is no easy trade-off. JObs in the timber industry have replaced by jobs in retail and tourism but they pay less. And the state firefighters are employed mainly in the Summer time. There's an ugly urban/rural split over how to balance preservation and the regulated commercial of timber lands.
Plus, somebody always loses. If the timber companies have their way in Oregon and Washington state, for instance, streams and rivers will be more polluted and the salmon don't survive and that effects the fishing industry on the coast.
The situation in South Wales does sounds like a first-class conundrum, Jim. For some people I suppose it's a case of "How TOO Green Is My Valley; I Need to Work". And then of course there is the devastaring effect the mines have. As long as people drive cars and people use coal-fire plants, they have to get cars and lorries and energy from somewhere. And, for her locals, that that has to be balanced against the bad health effects on kids and the old and the blighted landscapes.
Thanks for providing that example.
As you say, a conundrum.
ReplyDeleteBut being a bit of an optimist, I feel there must be a solution to it somewhere. ;-)
Yes, Jim, I hope you're right.
ReplyDeleteI'm often amazed at concepts that exclude the reality of other energy resources. They're available, they're more than feasible. Wind & solar...oh, yes. 1. They'd stop the hideous attack on this earth, before it's too late? 2. Then, could we have clean air & water again? 3. These new sources would create who knows how many jobs.
ReplyDeleteIs that enough? No. Money = power, & corporations would never consider.. not losing money, but not making more. & more & more...
I suspect that if the travesty of GWB, Jeb & the Supreme Court had never occurred, & Al Gore had won, as he should have, we wouldn't even be discussing this now.
In what has now become our part of the internet it seems there is also a problem with deforestation.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.globalforestwatch.org/english/indonesia/forests.htm
My current question and struggle is that since the changes here at Multiply are we sanctioning this deforestation when we continue to participate at the website?
Sorry, that response was to jazzmaniac.
ReplyDelete"So I guess my message is that whilst we all want a clean place to live in, and it's true that we can't keep extracting resources at the rate we are now, such changes must be handled properly if you are to avoid massive economic troubles in the process."
He did win.
ReplyDeleteI am horrified that people in my home state are fighting alternatives. There are signs in yards that say "No Wind farm" and a local school system had to drop plans to build a wind mill that would save the school system a lot of money and would be paid for with a grant due to parental out rage. There were complaints that the ice would fly off the wind mill and hit children on the head. And last year when I was in the dental chair with my mouth full of cleaning tools and the woman working on me was going on about how she didn't want a wind farm in our county because it would make the cows sterile. Where do people get these ideas?
ReplyDeleteLong ago & far away, people bought their necessities in little local stores. The goods were put in woven bags. People wove those bags, & were paid for it. When paper bags came along, what did the poor weavers do? Die?
ReplyDeleteWhen paper went out, & plastic came in, (I abhor plastic), what did the paper people do?
What happened to ploughs driven by oxen? Sewing machines to 'store bought' clothes? Rain water, (pure then), to water from a tap to purified water in bottles? We've made transitions throughout time. This surely isn't the Apocalypse unless we LET it be!
I knew this would come up at some point...needless to say by Heidi. No promises Douglas but I shall do a pros and cons on this area and what other countries are doing the very same - yet there are pros and cons to so many areas.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that pros & cons are precisely equal. Pragmatic & humane evaluations must be made. Who makes them? I think this would be determined by the majority who benefit.
ReplyDeleteThat 2000 election result seems more and more of a national backbreaker, Lujica.
ReplyDeleteIll-informed coworkers and AM Radio I suspect, Mary Ellen.
ReplyDeleteThings will sort out in the long term I admit. We just need to get on the right path for that to happen and be cognizant of the people who are displaced by newer forms of energy. .
ReplyDeleteThere always are to diffuicult situations Jack. But we need ot remove ourselves as much as possible from finite sources of energy tha tare getting more and more expensive to extract. And it won't be easy given that there will be a lot ofbig companies and thier lobbyists in pursuit of the status quo.
ReplyDeleteDoug, do they have to be "displaced?" Couldn't they learn about solar panels, windmills? That's why I used the analogy that I did. The weavers didn't die. They must have made the transition. ?
ReplyDeleteYou're right Lucija. I meant displaced from their jobs, not always their places to live. Many rural people had to travel to cities in England, Germany, Japan, etc, during their Industrial Revolutions of the 1800-1900s but that doesn't seem as necessary now.
ReplyDeleteDoug, that's what I meant. :) Jobs. They'll have to learn other skills to make a living, & some of those skills could be learned on the job. I'd think there would be plenty of unemployed who would b anxious to learn...not the highly skilled technical things ar first...but a start.
ReplyDeleteThe worst to overcome will be, as you said, "there will be a lot of big companies and their lobbyists in pursuit of the status quo."
The photographs you shared were almost physically painful. Giant unhealed wounds in the earth's flesh.
With all due respect the Oil Sands have there pros and cons Doug. The idea of the Canadian Oil Sands do have merit as well as do effect the habitat. However I have seen them and the thought was and is to produce oil and gas while building other types of energy Doug. The power went out here (ironic) when I was reading this. What my feeling was and has been is that after the European Summit, the Prime Minister of Canada said some very sound yet harsh words regarding the economy and fast bailouts. Thereafter the Oil Sands came to be a focus for many writers and media.
ReplyDeleteThere are allot of companies which are involved within this parcel of land. Canada ownes it yet are we speaking of money matters or are we thinking of ecology?
Lucija has a tremendous point here as there are great skills which are learned as well - there is a tremendous amount of young people which come from all corners of the world to get trained within a skill and make a living. In the past there was a huge international amount of people which would come into Canada to gain a trade as well as it was a means for young people to get started within something.
ReplyDeleteAlthough there is the ecological component which has graduated since Obama took Presidency.
Which leads to how many dirty mines are still running. Ironically most all thought this was a picture of the Oil Sands of Alberta. It's a hard call Doug, I wished to write on this - I may.
ReplyDelete"Canada ownes it yet are we speaking of money matters or are we thinking of ecology?"
ReplyDeleteJack, I know this for sure: If it's the U.S. it's about money no matter how they try to disguise it. It's about money if it means hundreds of thousands of deaths, & another country destroyed. Sadly.
I just wonder how many decades it takes for the sands to shift, (no pun intended), the world to get out from under the heels of the wealthy, & with determination accelerate new energy sources to save the planet we live on before it's too late.
Jack, as to: "With all due respect the Oil Sands have there pros and cons Doug. The idea of the Canadian Oil Sands do have merit as well as do effect the habitat. However I have seen them and the thought was and is to produce oil and gas while building other types of energy Doug."
ReplyDeleteShort term yes. We have to make that...here's the word again...transition. We can't just throw up our hands & say no more production. But not in a long-term goal. I haven't yet seen any true evidence of that. It doesn't seem "while building other types of energy," but..."maybe, some day but not now."
I know there's use of both solar & wind. Private solar is beyond the dreams of other than a billionaire...strike that, billions don't count anymore...trillionaire. I honestly haven't researched well enough to say other than we may be on our way, but not nearly fast enough. Money will prevail until enough of us put a stop to it. Starting with Citizens United.
One last thing, please.
ReplyDeleteIt chills my blood that in this super, advanced technological age, men still die buried alive in coal mines. Amen.
Agreed.
ReplyDeleteStill sending people down deep shafts to pull out veins of coal does seem like something from the early stages of the Industrial Revolution.
It seems like something we wouldn't need to do anymore.
ReplyDeleteIt's all intertwined I suppose Jack--how much of the economy can we despoil before someone comes up with a way to keep the power on and do a better job protecting the environment? It's not just about the local area wherever one is of course,as you know. The seas near the East Coast are rising in part from coal-fired plants and automobile exhaust.
ReplyDeleteI haven't researched enough myself, Lucija. But there doesn't seem to be the profit-related incentive to move to other fuel sources--solar and wind are always considered "down the road" solutions.
ReplyDeleteI'm beginning to think we'll never get down the road, barring some kind of quantum jump in energy technology. Until then, we drill and deface (short-term) and hope the earth won't pay us back (long-term) with our children's extinction.
Referring back to the quote above. I have not read anything by Barbara Kingsolver but some of her books are on my "want" list. Have other people read any of her books and do they have one or two that they would recommend.
ReplyDeleteSadly I've been "meaning to get around her famous award-winner "The Poisonwood Bible" for a while, Mary Ellen, but I haven't yet. :-(
ReplyDelete