West Virginia"Drill, baby, drill!"
That's what Rudy Giuliani chanted at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.
Here's the link to the text of his speech in the Los Angeles Times: Drill, baby, drill!
Americans are not entitled to the earth's natural resources at the expense of the rest of the planet and future generations, contrary to what Republicans are telling them -- yet Obama's platform is not much better: "As president, I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power. I'll help our auto companies re-tool, so that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built right here in America. ..." Here's the link to the text of his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
Clean coal? Safe nuclear? They do not exist.
Above is a photograph of the mountains of West Virginia. Here's a link to coal industry plans for these mountains: Mountain Top Removal.
I grew up in Pennsylvania, 30 minutes north of coal-mining country. One (or more?) of the Molly Maguires was supposedly hanged in what was the schoolyard of one of the places where I went to middle school. The Molly Maguires were a group of Irish miners who wanted to organize labor in 1870s, when organized labor was illegal.
By the time I was growing up the miners were unionized, but they lived a dilemma -- on the one hand, they depended on mining for work and for the energy to power their (and mine) lifestyles. On the other hand, their profession was destroying their communities -- and, we now know, the planet. Here's a link to some photographs of a former mining town in my county, Centralia, Pennsylvania. It's now a ghost town due to mine fires that still burn.
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