Mountain Blog

A Message to those in 2200

As environmentalists storm the bastions of Massey Energy in Richmond today, my thoughts turn to Thomas Jefferson, a genius in many respects but a man trapped by economic cirsumstances.

As a young man, Jefferson argued for the abolition of slavery, but he held slaves until he died. I have a theory about why this anomoly. He could not solve the economics of slavery. Slaves were needed on the farms of the south. In those days before the inhdustrial revolution, and end to slavery would have meant an end to agrarian capitalism.

In fact, the Industrial Revolution ended slavery as much as the Civil War.

So it is with mountaintop removal. Two hundred years from now, our descendants will wonder why we allowed our mountains to be destroyed in order to get the coal that lies beneath the ridgetops. Even after 200 years, it will probably be another 300 years before the deciduous forests will be restored on that raped land. And while our descendants will marvel at our ingenity on some fronts, they will sadly shake their heads at what we did to the land.

Jefferson was a slave to slavery and, sadly, we have become a slave to coal and cheap eneergy. We can't figure out a way to keep this state marginally solvent and end mountaintop removal mining.

When Tom Jefferson held parties for his friends at Montecello, the slaves were invisible. They worked in the kitchens and in the basement under the house. The dumb waiter that Jefferson invented kept them out of sight and out of mind. The food magically appeared and the dishes magically disappeared. Not so with mountaintop removal and the by-products that stain our mountains.

If, by some miracle, this tome survives for 200 years, let me tell those who read it that I am truly sorry for what we did. We weren't as smart as we thought we were and we didn't try hard enough to do what's right.

Some of us knew what was going down, but not enough of us. Let's hope you guys in 2300 are wiser.

posted by Dave Peyton @ 3:29 PM