Tennessee is a red state, and like so many other red states in our country, it has a challenged relationship with environmental issues like climate change, clean air and how to preserve their natural land. Mountaintop removal mining is one of the main industries of the state and if anyone there cared too deeply about their hills and dales, the image above would not be a gut-wrenching part of Tennessee’s legacy. But it is. They’ve had no problem blowing apart their mountains and destroying their terrain for years and don’t really like anyone telling them not to, but suddenly of late they’ve become very protective of those same mountains. What’s up? Sudden-onset environmental guilt?
Nope. China.
Chinese mining concerns want Tennessee’s mountains for their coal and, though up till now it’s been acceptable for Tennesseeans to blow up the mountains of their red state, damned if they’re going to let “red China” come in and do the same. From Mother Jones:On Tuesday, the Tennessee Conservative Union, which bills itself as the state’s “largest and oldest conservative group,” started running anti-mountaintop removal coal mining ads on television throughout the state. Their complaint? The Chinese company Guizhou Guochuang Energy Holding Group announced last year that it is acquiring Triple H Coal Mining, which does mountaintop removal. The Tennessee Conservative Union ad warns that they will become “the first state in our great nation to permit the red Chinese to destroy our mountains and take our coal.”“We’re proud that Tennessee is a red state,” the ad concludes. “But just how red are we willing to go?”That’s putting it bluntly. And not just a little un-pc. In a drawling, southern cadence, the narrator says “red Chinese” with a sneer so audible you can practically see it and the jingoistic point is made. Here’s the ad; see what you think:But these are conservatives! They’re generally more concerned with money, industry, and profit margins than saving forests and wildlife habitats. Have they gone soft? Turns out, surprisingly, that whatever they might have thought on the topic before, the very idea of the Chinese coming into a southern state to blow up their mountains was a tipping point… though they’re parsing it a little differently:“The Tennessee Conservative Union is 100% pro-Coal, but our organization does not support destroying our mountain heritage,” TCU Chairman Lloyd Daugherty said in a statement Tuesday. “Mountaintop removal mining kills jobs because it takes fewer workers to blow up a mountain.” [Source]
aren't these the same guys who wanted to drill baby drill in other states preserves? sounds like whats good for goose gander don't play that game. the whole oil thing is geared to the rich notv to provide oil for you but money for them.
The Scenic Vistas Protection Act is a bill being considered this week by both the Tennessee House and Senate. It would offer protection for any “ridgeline above 2000 feet elevation about sea level” and in a state being decimated by mountaintop mining, this is no small thing. And it just so happens the Tennessee Conservative Union supports the bill. Which means environmentalists fighting to save their mountains will swallow any antipathy for drawling anti-Chinese rhetoric and welcome the support and collaboration of TCU with… open arms.JW Randolph, Tennessee director of Appalachian Voices, a group that has been working to pass the anti-mountaintop removal law, welcomed the ad. “We don’t care if you’re from Bristol or Beijing, blowing up the oldest mountains in America for a few tons of coal is a bad idea,” he said. [Source]Which, according to Chattanooga website, Nooga.com, is exactly what has been happening. While Tennessee is not the worst purveyor of mountain destruction in Appalachia, it has lost 6 of its mountains so far:Just a few hours north of Chattanooga, mountaintop removal—a form of surface mining for coal—is destroying the very mountains that Tennesseans cherish, impacting an area the size of metropolitan Chattanooga (roughly 80,000 acres).
Pro-business groups dismiss the environmental concerns and say the project would bring thousands of badly needed jobs to the US and help keep oil prices down.Which brings us back to the question of where the Alberta oil that would flow through the entire XL pipeline would end up.Proponents contend that this oil will increase US “energy security” and decrease US reliance on other sources of foreign oil. They imply that the oil will go directly into the US market, without actually promising that it will. Opponents argue that it won’t improve our energy security at all, because both the composition of the oil and the location of the Gulf coast refineries it would serve make it highly likely that the refined products will end up going overseas.In fact, both may be partly right. But that just begs a bigger question: What is energy security, and and how does or doesn’t this pipeline help us achieve it?Bottom line, oil is a global commodity—essentially one big pool. The full XL pipeline would add more Canadian oil to that pool, and so dilute the share from the rest of the world.
and there it is the BS behind the whole ball of wax, i mean coal, one of the chief pollutants and contributors to global warming.
you might wonder why in this day and age of cyber advances and new fuel sources are the right wing still pushing hard for oil and and coal, money they are heavily invested in those markets good for a few more years of exploitation at the pump or the tank in your back yard
