Dreaming of a Flat Earth

Blast off my mountaintops, bury my streams!

More black coal for less green earth!

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, has encouraged more mountaintop-removal mining by removing the last legal hurdle, a 25-year-old law that prohibited surface coal mining activities within 100 feet of flowing streams.

Once green mountains teeming with wildlife, Appalachian mountaintops are ruthlessly blasted off for coal.  Photo courtesy:  Stop Mountaintop Removal. See source for copyright information.

The U.S. surface coal mining is done by blasting off mountaintops and dumping the debris in the adjoining valleys in Appalachia, across Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia and Virginia.

About 10 percent of U.S. coal production, nearly 127  million tons of coal, came from U.S. mountaintop mining in 2007, according to the National Mining Association.

“The EPA’s decision is a slap in the face of Appalachian communities, which have already endured enough injustice from mountaintop removal … My home and thousands of others are now in greater jeopardy.” Said Vernon Haltom of Coal River Mountain Watch.

Mining debris from about 411 mountaintops that were blasted off have buried about 1,200 miles of mountain streams have been buried under mining debris.

Alpha Natural Resources, International Coal Group, Massey Energy Co., and Patriot Coal Corp are among Appalachian surface mine owners.

Related Links:

• Remove mountaintops; fill valleys; kill streams!
• Amazing Images of the Day: Mountain Top Removal
• “Don’t worry, boss, I know what to say!”

• NO More Coal-fired Power Plants Here!
• World CO2 Emissions
• Look me straight in the eye & tell me you can’t

• Carbon Footprint of Your Dollar
• The Billionaires’ contribution to CO2 pollution
• First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities

• Shameful EPA slammed with yet another lawsuit
• EPA Plays Piggy In the Middle
• The White House of Horror!!

• Disgrace, Disgrace, You’re Such an Ugly Disgrace …
• EPA official resigns citing Dow Chemical

Other Related Links:

• EPA eases rule on mountaintop coal mining debris
• Survey: 65 Percent of Americans Oppose Mountaintop Removal
• Stop Mountaintop removal

That’s Mars’ Sister!

WILD FACTS SERIES

[Updated] Index of Human Impact on Nature (HIoN) March 2008

As of End March 2008, the MSRB-CASF Index of Human Impact on Nature (HIoN), an index for calculating the full impact of human consumption and activities on the Earth’s life support systems, stood at a terminally high level of 177.43, a rise of about 3.5 percent over the previous year. In other words, the full human impact including the ecological footprint and the damage inflicted on the living environment by his activities in the 12-month period ending March 2008 was 77.43 percent higher than the load which the planet’s ecosystems in their current state can cope with.

Components of HIoN

The HIoN Index integrates updated data and methodology used by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Synthesis Report for Global Status of Provisioning, Regulating, and Cultural Ecosystem services.

Before and After [Top : Blue Marble composite images generated by NASA. Bottom (left), Mars from Hubble Space Telescope, (right) “Late spring on Mars” portrait taken with the HST Wide Field Planetary Camera-2 by NASA. Final composite image by FEWW.]

According to HIoN projections, our cities and population centers would become almost entirely unsustainable by as early as 2015.

 

Source: Index of Human Impact on Nature

Related Links:

• The First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities

.