This morning I received an e-mail from the Kentucky-born and bred novelist Silas House. Which I mention not to brag, except I will note that back when I had a magazine Silas was kind enough to write for it, and that (to borrow from Willie Nelson) was something to brag about it.
Silas isn't a household name, so I'll add that he's written three novels which make up a kind of cycle built around the world of mountains and coal and the people who intersect them...and music, of course. He's also written a play or two, and is not only as talented a writer as I know but he's also one of the kindest people I have been fortunate enough to run onto.
He's also one of the leading agitators against the coal mining industry's insidious...no, the word is simply evil...practice of removing mountaintops so as to extract the coal.
If you'll jump down the hole with me, I'll tell you what Silas asked.
This is a simple thing. They want to eat up another mountain. The people who live there, and those of us who attend to such things, they'd like for the mountain to be left alone. They'd like for the spent rock and such not to block up their streams, for their roads and homes not to be damaged. They'd like to be left alone, if it's all the same to everybody.
This is the part where our energy policy hits the ground. The clean coal folks spent a bundle of money this election, and even I am forced to concede that we will need to depend to some extent on coal for the foreseeable future. Which gives only added impetus to the urgency with which we must approach developing alternatives. And some day I should like to engage in a discussion of nuclear plants, but not today. Today I'd like you to follow this link to read about a place called Wilson Creek, where I have never been.
And then I'd ask that you follow this link to sign a petition in opposition to the destruction of this particular mountain.
Those of y'all who haven't already lost your jobs might want to visit the Kentuckians for the Commonwealth site, because that venerable organization is leading the charge against mountaintop removal, and they could use your financial help as well.
That's all I've got today. My daughter gets off the bus in a few minutes. She's five. I'd like to save some small part of this world for her.