Rogersville Shale 9 to 10,000 feet deep in KY, 12 to 14,000 in WV (Up to 1000 feet thick)

OVEC — 2015 Recap and a Look Ahead with an End of Year Appeal

From Vivian Stockman, et al, OVEC Staff, December 28, 2015

Source: http://ohvec.org/end-of-year/

As we celebrate the successes, we recognize the challenges ahead.

For instance, while OVEC has been at the forefront of the movement to end mountaintop removal coal mining for nearly 20 years, our work must continue in 2016. Our persistent efforts have stopped some MTR mines altogether, slowed others down and forced mining companies to spend nearly $500 million on treating toxic mine pollution. And, as coal markets have declined, MTR mines have been shutting down faster. But Big Coal is still blowing up mountains and burying streams.

Peoples’ lives and health are still being destroyed by this egregious MTR mining method. Nearly 30 peer-reviewed health studies link MTR and coal toxins to many illnesses including cancer, heart disease, and birth defects, contributing to lower life expectancy. Sadly, none of this has made one iota of difference to most WV politicians, whose top priority continues to be “saving coal.”

As coal revenues decline, our politicians now are looking at yet another dirty fossil fuel to make up the difference. Oil and gas companies have targeted Cabell (where OVEC’s office is located), Wayne, Putnam and Lincoln counties for a land grab, for fracking — drilling down very deeply for the Rogersville Shale. Our concerns have already been validated by citizens with whom we work in north-central WV who face serious environmental and health problems; fracking for the Marcellus Shale has been underway there for several years.

With your continued investment in OVEC, we promise to push back against the power structure that gives outside corporations the “right” to pollute our water and air. Please, consider donating to OVEC. You can donate here today. Your contribution is tax-deductible.

We truly appreciate you, and thank you for making our work possible in 2015. Here’s to 2016!

#  #  #  UpComing Activities

January 9: 3-6 p.m. WV Rivers Coalition hosts the Safe Water For West Virginia Public Forum at the Culture Center, State Capitol Grounds in Charleston, WV.

January 19: 7-10 p.m. WV Environmental Council’s Legislative Kick Off Party at the Charleston Woman’s Club.

January 21: 6-8 p.m. Shale and Pipelines: What the Frack is Going On in Putnam County? OVEC will host a community forum on Rogersville Shale and the Mountaineer Xpress Pipeline at the Eleanor Presbyterian Church, 205 Eleanor Circle, Eleanor, WV in Putnam County.

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Some Words of Wisdom from Bill Moyers

In The Plutocrats Are Winning. Don’t Let Them!, a recent op-ed, Bill Moyers writes:

As we are reminded by this season, there is more to life than politics. There are families, friends, music, worship, sports, the arts, reading, conversation, laughter, celebrations of love and fellowship and partridges in pear trees. But without healthy democratic politics serving a moral order, all these are imperiled by the ferocious appetites of private power and greed.

So enjoy the holidays, including Star Wars. Then come back after New Year’s and find a place for yourself, at whatever level, wherever you are, in the struggle for democracy. This is the fight of our lives and how it ends is up to us.

With your support, OVEC works to quell the ferocious appetites of private power and greed. Thank you very much for your work and assistance. See you in 2016.

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See also: “Rogersville shale information sheet“

Comment Period on Selenium Standard Extended to October 10^th

From: Appalachian Voices . . . .

Dear Friend of the Mountains,

Date: September 28, 2015

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has extended the public comment period on a critical decision for the health of Appalachia’s waterways and aquatic life.

Take action now and tell the EPA that it is unacceptable to weaken selenium standards and put clean water at risk.

The significance of the EPA’s decision on a new chronic selenium standard cannot be overstated. Selenium is toxic to fish and other wildlife at very low levels and is commonly found in wastewater from mountaintop removal mines. Once it is released into waterways, selenium enters the food chain and accumulates in fish, causing reproductive failure and deformities.

Officials in Kentucky have adopted, with the EPA’s approval, a standard with serious scientific flaws that does not sufficiently protect sensitive species. Without an enforceable federal limit, citizen monitoring and enforcement under the Clean Water Act will be seriously compromised.

The comment period has been extended to Oct. 10. Please take action today and tell the EPA to create a selenium standard that protects fish and people from the devastating impacts of mountaintop removal.

For the mountains, Erin Savage, Central Appalachian Coordinator, Appalachian Voices, 171 Grand Blvd, Boone, NC 28607.   See also: http://www.Appvoices.org

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U.S. EPA Now Regulates Toxic Heavy Metals from Coal Ash in Waterways

From an Article by Don Hopey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 30, 2015

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has issued the first federal rules aimed at reducing toxic water discharges into lakes, rivers and streams from coal-fired power plants and coal ash dumps.

The regulation will eliminate most releases of ash-contaminated wastewater, require treatment of sludge and cut discharges of toxic heavy metals, including mercury, arsenic, lead and selenium by 1.4 billion pounds a year, according to the EPA, producing health benefits totaling $463 million annually.

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said: “These cost-effective, achievable limits will provide significant protections for our children and communities across the country, including minority and low-income communities, from exposure to pollutants that can cause neurological damage in children, cancer, and other serious health problems.”

“Today’s rule will make a huge dent in the nation’s largest source of toxic water pollution,” said Abel Russ, attorney for the Environmental Integrity Project, a Washington, D.C. environmental organization… “This is a significant step forward, and it will directly benefit human health and the environment.”

The EIP and other environmental organizations sued the EPA in 2009 to prompt the agency to issue these regulations, which become effective 60 days after publication in The Federal Register.

Diesel Trucks on WV Country Road

Nanotoxicology: An Emerging Discipline Evolving from Studies of Ultrafine Particles (2005)

From a Scientific Article by Günter Oberdörster (Dept. of Env. Medicine, Univ. of Rochester), Eva Oberdörster (Dept. of Biology, So. Methodist Univ.) and Jan Oberdörster (Toxicology Dept. at Bayer CropScience, Research Triangle Park, NC) in 2005

ABSTRACT — Although humans have been exposed to airborne nanosized particles (NSPs; < 100 nm) through-out their evolutionary stages, such exposure has increased dramatically over the last century due to anthropogenic sources. The rapidly developing field of nanotechnology is likely to become yet another source through inhalation, ingestion, skin uptake, and injection of engineered nano-materials. Information about safety and potential hazards is urgently needed.

Results of older bio-kinetic studies with NSPs and newer epidemiologic and toxicologic studies with airborne ultrafine particles can be viewed as the basis for the expanding field of nanotoxicology, which can be defined as safety evaluation of engineered nanostructures and nanodevices. Collectively, some emerging concepts of nanotoxicology can be identified from the results of these studies. When inhaled, specific sizes of NSPs are efficiently deposited by diffusional mechanisms in all regions of the respiratory tract.

The small size facilitates uptake into cells and transcytosis across epithelial and endothelial cells into the blood and lymph circulation to reach potentially sensitive target sites such as bone marrow, lymph nodes, spleen, and heart. Access to the central nervous system and ganglia via translocation along axons and dendrites of neurons has also been observed. NSPs penetrating the skin distribute via uptake into lymphatic channels.

Endocytosis and biokinetics are largely dependent on NSP surface chemistry (coating) and in vivo surface modifications. The greater surface area per mass compared with larger-sized particles of the same chemistry renders NSPs more active biologically. This activity includes a potential for inflammatory and pro-oxidant, but also antioxidant, activity, which can explain early findings showing mixed results in terms of toxicity of NSPs to environmentally relevant species.

Evidence of mitochondrial distribution and oxidative stress response after NSP endocytosis points to a need for basic research on their interactions with subcellular structures. Additional considerations for assessing safety of engineered NSPs include careful selections of appropriate and relevant doses/concentrations, the likelihood of increased effects in a compromised organism, and also the benefits of possible desirable effects.

An interdisciplinary team approach (e.g., toxicology, materials science, medicine, molecular biology, and bioinformatics, to name a few) is mandatory for nanotoxicology research to arrive at an appropriate risk assessment.

Reference: Environ Health Perspect 113:823–839 (2005). doi:10.1289/ehp.7339 available via http://dx.doi.org/ [Online 22 March 2005]

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NOTE: Diesel exhaust contains toxic air contaminants and is listed as carcinogenic for humans by the International Agency for Research on Cancer ( IARC ) in group 1. Diesel exhaust contains fine particles which are harmful. Diesel exhaust pollution was thought to account for around one quarter of the pollution in the air in previous decades, and a high share of sickness caused by vehicle pollution.

Watching DEP Sec. Randy Huffman

WV-DEP’s Huffman: Strip-mine health studies deserve ‘closer look’

From an Article by Ken Ward Jr., Charleston Gazette, March 12, 2015

West Virginia’s top environmental regulator says studies that have found residents near mountaintop removal coal-mining operations face increased risks of serious illnesses and premature death deserve to be carefully examined by state and federal officials. “I think it is something that is worthy of a closer look,” said Randy Huffman, secretary of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection. “It is something that is worthy of consideration. The evidence that is being stated in some of the studies, that needs to be considered.”

He said a variety of agencies on the state and federal levels would need to be involved in any such project. He mentioned the state Bureau for Public Health, the federal Office of Surface Mining and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as logical participants.

“I can’t take a study that someone hands me and make a policy call to stop a particular practice just in one state,” Huffman added. “If you really want something changed, you’re not going to get that by just picking on [the] DEP.” These comments, made by Huffman during an interview earlier this week, come just days before an anti-mountaintop removal protest that citizen groups have scheduled for Monday outside the DEP’s Kanawha City headquarters, in Charleston.

Calling themselves “The People’s Foot” and the 11 a.m. event “No More MTR Permits Day,” the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and other groups are promoting the protest as an effort to demand that the DEP stop approving mountaintop removal permits and to encourage Congress to pass legislation to address the issue. Billboards around the area say, “Stop the Poisoning.”

In a news advisory, the citizen groups said the DEP “continues to ignore the studies that show mountaintop removal is drastically harming our health and cutting our lives short.” “Time to put your foot down,” the advisory states. “No more mountaintop removal permits.” Bo Webb, a longtime mountaintop removal opponent and one of the protest organizers, said he was pleased to hear of Huffman’s comments.

While Huffman was already scheduled to be out of town the day of the protest, Webb and other citizen group leaders are expected to meet later in the day with DEP Deputy Secretary Lisa McClung, agency environmental advocate Wendy Radcliff and several other staffers, said DEP spokeswoman Kelley Gillenwater.

Former West Virginia University researcher Michael Hendryx and other scientists have, over the past few years, published more than two dozen peer-reviewed journal articles that examined the relationship between large-scale strip-mining operations in West Virginia and the health of residents who live near these mines.

The work has linked health and coal-mining data to show, among other things, that residents living near mountaintop removal mines face a greater risk of cancer, birth defects and premature death. Continuing research has tried to examine actual pollution levels near mining sites and in mining communities, to provide more answers about the potential impacts. The U.S. Geological Survey, though, has pulled funding for work its scientists were doing on mountaintop removal’s health effects.

Even as the studies have continued, though, state elected officials and other leaders have tried to dismiss or ignore the findings. Coal companies put together a $15 million research project, based at Virginia Tech, aimed at least partly at countering the health studies.

Coal industry lawyers have fought to keep the studies out of court cases over mining permits, and they are continuing an effort to investigate Hendryx’s work through a public-records lawsuit against WVU. In a Supreme Court filing, Alpha Natural Resources lawyers said the company needs the information “in order to evaluate the validity of the studies themselves and the conclusions reached in the Hendryx articles.”

Huffman noted that the DEP did commission a $250,000 report that examined some aspects of air pollution from blasting associated with mountaintop removal.  “It’s not the last word on it or anything, but it adds to the body of knowledge out there,” Huffman said.

Gillenwater said the DEP report “showed that air quality near a Raleigh County operation was within a normal, safe range, even during blasting.” She said the DEP “has reviewed and will continue to look at several studies” on the issue, but that, “there is currently no conclusive data that would result in changes to the permit application review process.”

Hendryx, who now works at Indiana University, said the state’s report took samples in the wrong locations and also did not focus on the very tiny particles of rock and dust from strip-mine blasting that recent research has said creates “elevated risks to humans.”

Also, Hendryx noted that, since the state report was written, peer-reviewed journal articles have tied living near mountaintop removal operations to lung cancer and to blood inflammation that is predictive of cardiovascular disease.

“An analogy of a partially completed jigsaw puzzle may serve as illustration of the overall state of evidence in this area,” Hendryx wrote in the blood inflammation paper, published just last month. “Some of the puzzle pieces represent environmental evidence for impaired air and water quality caused by mining and present in mining communities. Some represent epidemiological evidence from mortality and morbidity data. Some represent laboratory evidence of biological harm caused by particulate matter from mining communities.

“The newly discovered piece presented in this paper shows evidence for biological impact among people living in mining communities,” he wrote. “All of these pieces are not yet put together into a single picture. The missing connectors will measure environmental exposure, dose, and biological impact all among the same persons who live in mining communities versus controls who do not.”

See also:  www.FrackCheckWV.net and  www.Marcellus-Shale.us

Two New Fracking Videos by Cineplex Rex, July 18, 2014

Who doesn’t remember the John Denver song with lyrics about “Take Me Home Country Roads”, and “Almost Heaven — West Virginia”? Many people have had wonderful life experiences in Wild, Wonderful West Virginia. Unfortunately now it is more like ‘Oh My God!’  What are they doing to this State?

After 29 flights recording this growing ugliness you would think one would somehow be calloused to it all, but the areas in these two GoPro videos still give that jaw-dropping OMG!  Be sure to select the 1080HD resolution for the ‘best’ picture.

The first installment, 5-minutes over Majorsville recorded in October 2013 has received 4,000 views revealing its popularity, so what about a sequel?  Here it is. When flying a loop around this eyesore on the WV-PA border, it is hard to know where the perimeter ends, which is why this new video is 10-minutes long.

The area west of Clarksburg in Harrison and Doddridge counties seems to have a compressor station for every few well pads, and some of those compressor stations are the huge 10 to 12 compressor station models … with many more under construction. Pipeline cuts galore, and more coming!

If it has not already happened, these videos show what the oil and gas industry may do to your neighborhood next. They are only a pipeline away.

See also: www.Marcellus-Shale.us

 VIDEO — RETURN TO MAJORSVILLE: Marshall County near Pennsylvania: http://youtu.be/6-ABs-NsYF0

VIDEO — TAKE ME HOME FRACKING ROADS: West of Clarksburg, WV: http://youtu.be/Gi5ob0RrLSo

PowerShift 2013 -- Don't Frack Our Water

2500+ Youth Rally for a Clean Energy

An Article from We Are PowerShift, October 21, 2013

More than 2,500 youth activists at Power Shift 2013 marched through the streets of Pittsburgh today to confront corporate polluters and demand they join the fight for a clean and just economy.

Thousands of people rallied in Allegheny Landing Park, alongside the Allegheny River, then marchers took over a bridge to cross to downtown Pittsburgh where they marched through the streets of Pittsburgh to confront big corporations and elected officials for financing fossil fuels and permitting fracking.

“Big corporations, and elected officials all the way up to President Obama should know that our generation will use political and financial power to stop financing fossil fuels and permitting dangerous fracking,” said Maura Cowley, executive director of Energy Action Coalition, “We’re marching to demand PNC and elected officials stop being complicit in fossil fuel destruction like mountaintop removal and fracking, and work with us to build a strong, green economy”

Deb Thomas of the Power River Basin Resource Council in Wyoming, kicked-off the rally by enlisting the 2,500 participants to join the call on President Obama and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to take real action on fracking, starting by re-opening the investigation into fracking-water contamination in Dimock, PA, Pavillion, WY and Parker County, TX. More than 270,000 petitions already been sent to the EPA by a coalition of organizations including Energy Action Coalition, Stop The Frack Attack, Americans Against Fracking, MoveOn.org, Food & Water Watch and more.

“The EPA studies in Dimock, PA, Parker County, TX, and Pavillion, WY, need to be re-opened because impacted people, who are forced to live with oil and gas development need information about what they have been exposed to. It’s critical to protect their families and their health. Our government must protect people not toxic industry” said Thomas.

The march went across the Roberto Clemente Bridge where a massive banner was dropped that said “Don’t Frack Our Water” and then marched across Pittsburgh, stopping at PNC Bank branches to demand they stop financing mountaintop removal mining, one of the most destructive forms of mining that is destroying communities in Appalachia.

“We are here as the face of the many communities impacted by mountaintop removal strip-mining and the short-sighted investment practices of PNC bank,” said Teri Blanton of Kentuckians of the Commonwealth. ”Our homes are flooded, our water is poisoned, our lungs are filled with dust—all because of the mountaintop removal mining. The worst part of it all is that they can’t put it back—they can’t fix the mountain or the stream—and that means it’s not only our health that’s compromised, but the health of future generations. That’s what PNC is investing in: the permanent destruction of our health and homeland.”

The rally and march capped off Power Shift 2013, a national convergence of nearly 8,000 student and youth activists working on climate change, environmental justice and building a clean energy economy.

For those unable to attend the “Water and Wellness” seminar yesterday, you can watch the entire program of speakers on the video clips referenced below. The program was held in Morgantown, Saturday, September 8th and sponsored by the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, the WV Sierra Club, and WV Highlands Conservancy. Focus was on Marcellus shale gas development (MSD) and mountain-top removal coal mining (MTR).

Dr. Wilma Subra was keynote speaker, with presentations also by Dr. Michael Hendryx, Dr. Jill Kriesky, and Dr. Ben Stout. Additional speakers included residents of WV and PA who have personally been impacted by either shale drilling or mountain top removal coal mining and they shared their personal stories.

Dr. Wilma Subra presented information about the harmful toxins associated with shale gas drilling and their effects on human and animal health and environment. She presented statistical research about the levels of these chemicals that have been measured and documented all around these drill sites, compressor stations and beyond. It should be enough to lead even the most skeptical person into a call for action to demand a closer look by our regulatory agencies and legislators to determine if this “unconventional drilling” is as safe as the industry claims that it is! The industry rushed into the Marcellus drilling frenzy without really knowing all the facts about the short and long term impacts to health and environment. The resulting evidence coming from these communities now is just too serious to ignore!!!

>>> Diane Pitcock, www.wvhostfarms.org (See Part 12 below.)

NOTE: Everyone who lives anywhere in the region of drilling should watch these first two videos, where Dr. Wilma Subra describes the toxins and risks associated with shale gas development. You don’t have to live close to a well site to be affected… Robert Donnan.

Water & Wellness: Health Impacts of Fossil Fuel Extraction
Saturday, September 8, 2012 seminar in Morgantown, WV

Part 1 – Opening greetings and a presentation by environmental scientist Dr. Wilma Subra who begins her presentation at the 12-minute mark of the video.
http://youtu.be/znFOo7CloVg (36:32)

Part 2 – End of presentation by environmental scientist Dr. Wilma Subra.
http://youtu.be/LiV1XAWeSac (17:04)

Part 3 – Presentation by Greene County, Pennsylvania resident Pam Judy describing the health effects her family has experienced from a compressor station that was built 780 feet from their new home.
http://youtu.be/-qVGWAZXi7s (7:14)

Part 4 – Presentation by Christina Woods of Doddridge County, West Virginia who describes problems with dust from drilling traffic on the road near their home which were compounded when flowback being was applied to the road for dust control.
http://youtu.be/vjDBCyf8Ypo (5:18)

Part 5 – Presentation by Linda Headley of Fayette County, Pennsylvania who describes how being surrounded by Marcellus Shale drilling sites has adversely affected her family’ health and wellbeing.
http://youtu.be/JPIauYgBNYo (3:16)

Part 6 – Presentation by Nada White of Boone County, West Virginia who describes the health effects of coal mining and mountaintop removal.
http://youtu.be/uM9Mi1LSJDw (4:53)

Part 7 – Presentation by panelists Dr. Michael Hendryx – Professor in the School of Public Health at West Virginia University; Dr. Jill Kriesky – Center for Healthy Environments and Communities (CHEC) at University of Pittsburgh; Dr. Ben Stout – Aquatic Biologist at Wheeling Jesuit University.
http://youtu.be/umfg0PO5xg8 (31:42)

Part 8 – Q&A session with panelists Dr. Michael Hendryx – Professor in the School of Public Health at West Virginia University; Dr. Jill Kriesky – Center for Healthy Environments and Communities (CHEC) at University of Pittsburgh; Dr. Ben Stout – Aquatic Biologist at Wheeling Jesuit University.
http://youtu.be/02Gc5fjzEuM (36:33)

Part 9 – Q&A session with panelists Dr. Michael Hendryx – Professor in the School of Public Health at West Virginia University; Dr. Jill Kriesky – Center for Healthy Environments and Communities (CHEC) at University of Pittsburgh; Dr. Ben Stout – Aquatic Biologist at Wheeling Jesuit University.
http://youtu.be/OkUV8SsYR2Q (4:51)

Part 10 – Lorelei Scarbro of Raleigh County West Virginia describes what happened during and after mountaintop removal mining took place behind her house.
http://youtu.be/LLwEP1QUCX0 (9:15)

Part 11 – Danny Cook of Boone County West Virginia describes what happened during and after mountaintop removal mining took place behind his house.
http://youtu.be/DKMftkX7jgA (6:18)
Magazine story:
http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/201203/coal-mining-appalachia102.aspx

Part 12 – Diane L. Pitcock describes the WV Host Farms Program.
http://youtu.be/5YhCyf-WbCg (6:30)

"Stop the Frack Attack" Rally

Environmental Uprisings Abound

S. Tom Bond, July 31, 2012

Largely unnoticed by the mainstream media (MSM), a whole series of strong environmental reactions are taking place over the country. They are seldom connected in the MSM, but they arise from the same cause.

Since this is being published in the Marcellus shale area, I would assume most of the readers would be familiar with the reaction that industry is getting in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York, and now in Ohio, Maryland and Delaware. The reaction started in Texas and the West, where shale drilling started, and it is now everywhere it has been tried. At present there are more than 200 Internet sites against shale drilling. Just this week past there was a demonstration against “fracking,” as it is commonly called, in Washington, D. C. [The “Stop the Frack Attack” rally may well have involved close to 10,000 people in its various aspects.]

A second huge protest has been against the Keystone XL Pipeline, which will bring the Canadian Tar Sands “oil” all the way across the U. S. from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. The extraction of tar sands “oil” requires huge investment of energy, producing carbon dioxide at the source, and results in huge quantities of waste from the process. It pollutes surface water, causes cancer and other sickness, has very low energy return on energy invested, and pollutes aquifers. The pipeline crosses major rivers, including the Missouri River, the Yellowstone, and the Red River, and the Oglala Aquifer for a total of 2147 miles. Three feet in diameter, it is designed to move as much as 830,000 barrels a day. There is a full-fledged, national campaign to prevent it from being built. Not only environmentalists are fighting it, but also meteorologists (who fear the vast amount of carbon dioxide), public health people, farmers and many others.

Mountain top removal of coal is another topic readers will be familiar with here in Appalachia and across the nation. Powerful interests ignore health and social effects of the thousands of square miles affected by strip mining for coal.

Most people are familiar with the PB Macondo well disaster in the Gulf of Mexico through the high profile “we’re good guys” advertisements on TV. The three month long, 5, 000,000 barrel leak was the result of incompetence and indifference on the part of BP and its subcontractors. This kind of deep-ocean drilling is being done all over the world, and BP is well and thoroughly hated in the Gulf.

So what is going on? Is there some kind of plot against the hydrocarbon extraction corporations, so favored by government and investors? Hardly. There are two big reasons for the reaction. The first is the growing recognition that the earth’s temperature is rising because of human activity.

Foremost among causes of global warming is additional carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Although the increase in temperature is slight by some standards, enough is known about earth’s climate in the past to understand that carbon dioxide is capable of warming the earth substantially and having dire effects. The time has come when climate change deniers, financed by the very interests finding new ways of getting additional carbon out of the earth to burn, are loosing their creditability. It is clear carbon dioxide is the culprit.

Few people understand that the carbon dioxide produced by burning carbon in fuels weighs far more than the carbon. The ratio is 12 to 44. One pound of carbon in a fuel produces three and two-thirds pounds of carbon dioxide. Whole geological formations have been converted to get the energy. A ton of coal produces over three and a half tons of carbon dioxide.

The second reason for these political movements is also simple to understand. In resource development, the “easy stuff,” the part that yields product with least effort and investment is taken first. As time passes more difficult resources are drawn on. The human race is going to greater extremes, using more difficult technology, investing more energy, taking greater risk, doing more environmental damage to get carbon energy.

Environmental damage is really destruction of other resources to get the objective, in this case energy. Environmental damage is loss of pure water, soil that can produce food, timber, un-contaminated living space and other resources society needs. It is frequently seen to some as an effort to maintain a pristine original state of the out of doors, a conservatism of “nature.” This is true of parks. But “nature” is the standard of comparison, not the final objective for large areas. Protection of biological productivity is the value most everywhere.

As time passes we will see more and more people adopting this view of nature. Hopefully, sooner rather than later, the sentiment will coalesce into a movement against subsidies for hydrocarbon miners, against exceptions for them from laws designed to protect the public from toxins, and against exceptions to laws to protect their workers. Hopefully we will see laws favoring renewable energy and ways to get energy from the constant immense flows around us in sunlight, wind and waves of the sea.

The good news is that efficiency of solar, wind and wave power, being in the early stages, is increasing rapidly. In a few years these will be cheaper than the increasingly expensive hydrocarbons. After all, human history goes back over 10,000 years. Won’t hydrocarbons be useful in the future if we don’t burn them all up in the next few decades?

S. Thomas Bond is a farmer and citizen of Lewis County, West Virginia.  He is a retired chemist and teacher in the public schools.