Nashville News Blog

It is unfair to call people against mountaintop removal "tree huggers."

Mountaintop removal goes far and beyond what is socially and environmentally acceptable. It is a scourge upon the earth.

Brad,

Is Logan County Airport, a hardwood flooring plant, Twisted Gun Golf Course and a regional jail not socially and/or enviromentally acceptable to you? Southern, WV now has all thanks to MTR. Also, none were possible without it. What is wrong with some flat land. Most people enjoy it and if they don't have it, they make it. It seems only when you take coal as part of the process it becomes taboo. TVA has burried far more stream bed than MTR will ever do and did not create one flat acre. In fact they destroyed hundreds of thousands, forever. Do I sound extreme? You seem to know little about this subject matter. Denying the facts is what gives one the title, "TREE HUGGER" Denying us what we want for our homeland and only worrying about what you want for us, I call "TREE HUGGING" If that is you, then I say,"no thanks, tree hugger"

Once again, the people of Appalachia are seen as unable or too ignorant to make their own decisions.
Let's get to the bottom line ... these mountains are owned by individuals or companies. They are NOT the collective property of some imaginary United Socialist States of America. This is a question of basic property rights.
Would you want someone telling you that you can't put up a swing set in your back yard for your kids because it would "spoil the viewshed" of your next door neighbor. Oh, I'm sorry, Californians do that. So do New Yorkers.
At the risk of too far down in the weeds, as a student of history and someone with a Scot ancestry, I am reminded of the Highland Clearances. The original inhabitants of the Highlands were tossed out, replaced by the landed elites who thought the Highlands too beautiful to "waste on the Scots." As a result, all that was left was empty glens.
These new elites want to do exactly that to the mountains of West Virginia -- to claim them as their own because we native West Virginians can't be trusted with them.
I, for one, don't need or want your help or your advice.
Here's a concept, clean up your own back yard before you tell me what to do with mine.

Conrgrats, that you've written a post that is an interesting read. I stumbled across it in Google and have spent the last 10 minutes reading and absorbing!