Arguments to be heard in mountaintop removal appeal

[struggle4progress]

By ERIK SCHELZIG
AP Business Writer
September 18, 2005

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Federal appeals judges are scheduled to hear oral arguments Monday in a disputed decision to bar streamlined permitting for waste disposal at mountaintop-removal coal mines in West Virginia.

The July 2004 ruling by U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin revoked 11 permits that had been issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He also ordered the agency to suspend previously authorized valley fills and surface impoundments on which construction had not yet begun.

Underground mining is still the predominant method used in the country's second-largest coal producing state, but companies in West Virginia have been turning to mountaintop removal mining to extract thinner seams. <snip>

And without the corps valley-fill permit, he said, "these mountaintop removal projects will not go." <snip>

http://www.dailypress.com/news/local/virginia/dp-wv--mountaintopremova0918sep18,0,7204736.story?coll=dp-headlines-virginia

[firefox]

1. That horse has done left the barn

Efficiency has already beaten environmental destruction. Do you think somebody is going to reverse course now?

[struggle4progress]

2. "Resistence is futile," eh? eom

[firefox]

4. Resist all you want.

Resistance did not stop it from happening in the first place. With the environmental movement being hijacked there is no force to stand up to destruction. I fully expect that they will be removing mountaintops until the day I am die.

People do not even know it is happening. I only read about it here at DU within the last year. It is another thing filtered out by the MSM along with mercury pollution, the rising acidity of the oceans, fluoride in the drinking water and MTBE.

Who do you think is going to stop the practice when we have fascist rule?

[ridgerunner]

7. Trust me

just because you just found out about it doesn't mean folks aren't aware of what is going on. This has been covered several times by the MSM, but guess what, people don't care cause they think it doesn't affect them. That's how life is, people don't give a shit about things that they should cause they can't see how it really affects them.

And BTW, fascism has already arrived in America, welcome to the party.

http://www.appvoices.org/mtr/default.asp

[firefox]

9. You are dreaming

If you think half the people in this country know what you are talking about, you are dreaming.

I am with you on stopping the practice and I am being honest in my opinion that as long as we are a fascist country the practice will continue. The only court needed is the Supreme Court.

Cannabis Prohibition is as senseless as you can get. Even when you have 80% of the American people overcoming the government propaganda, it does not make any difference. I have said several times on cannabis websites that you are not going to bring about legalization with reason. I say it is like trying to wrestle a policy out of a gorilla's hands, when what you have to do is beat the fascist gorilla with everything you have while tugging at the fingers.

I have helped you by stating the problem. We are a fascist country. Until you beat the fascists and have the public understand that the corporations run the country, the policy will not change. Is reason on the side of stopping mountain top removal? Probably so, but it makes no difference because with fascist rule profits are the guiding principle of government.

[ridgerunner]

10. Actually, yes I do believe that many Americans

are aware of mountain top removal, they just don't give a shit. I'm from Kentucky, and you'd be hard pressed to find many folks here that have never heard of it. A simple google search returns 3,400,000 hits for mountain top removal. Americans are idiots, no argument here.

And dude, I've been a hempster for a long time, you'd be amazed what reason can do.

[struggle4progress]

13. You seem to believe that power somehow flows from the top: in fact, ..

.. it is constructed from countless tiny daily interactions, moments in which people choose to say or do one thing instead of another, instances in which people parrot official stories or tell their own story, second in which people either hurry to do what they are told or elsecarefully and deliberately swim against the current in some way or another.

Repeating "it's hopeless" and "nothing can be done" are themselves political acts with political consequences ...

[NNadir]

5. It is unless you have an alternative to coal.

The Greenpeace crowd has no alternative to coal (except for rich people) whatever lip service they otherwise pay to the matter.

If you don't like coal, but oppose all practical alternatives to coal, you're basically full of shit.

[ridgerunner]

6. Where are you getting your misinformation?

Greenpeace is all about alternative forms of energy.

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/climate-change/solutions

Okay I see now, I checked your profile. So Nuclear physics is a hobby of your is it? Yeah I can see how if your part of the problem, you'd be oppossed to the solution.

[NNadir]

8. Greenpeace is calling for small percentages of renewables by decades

from NOW. They stupidly demand the end of nuclear power NOW.

Here's there's blabber on wind:

"it is an entirely realistic goal to for wind to provide 12 percent of the world's energy by 2020..."

I won't go into their perception of "entirely realistic" since they are strong on big mouths and low on delivery.

What would replace 20% of the world's energy NOW? Coal, even though global climate change is happening not in 2020, but NOW.

Then they skip inanely about "bioenergy," thusly:

Therefore, a sustainable approach to developing biomass energy systems must address concerns such as:


Burning wood from ancient forests
The use of genetically modified organisms
Intensive fertiliser and pesticide use
Loss of top-soil
An increase in salinity and toxic emissions


In addition, a standard certification system is needed for all the biomass fuel types.


It is important to note that none of these possible problems are fundamental to biomass technology, and they can be avoided with proper implementation. In areas with plentiful farmland, biomass can play a major role in supplying heat and electricity, and done properly biomass is a climate friendly solution to energy needs..."

No percentage given, but let's say 10% of the world's energy can come from bioenergy. Let's see 100%-12%-10% = 78% from fossil fuels.

As for the solar claims (PV), the claim is " From a current level of just 354 MW, by 2015 the total installed capacity of solar thermal power plants will have passed 5,000 MW, according to projections. By 2020, additional capacity would be rising at a level of almost 4,500 MW each year, and the total installed capacity of solar thermal power around the world could reach almost 30.000 MW - enough to power more than 30 million homes." Note these are magical solar "watts" with 20% capacity loading.

Thirty million homes...on a planet with billions of people...and no doubt given the price of PV, the thirty million wealthiest homes on the planet. Let's give them an (inflated) 5%.

So even with a generous acceptance of their fantasies, we see that they want to shut down 20% of the world's electrical energy, and replace 30% of it with renewables. This leaves 90% for fossil fuels. Do you really believe that a putative 10% reduction in coal demand will do shit for the mountains?

When we consider that Greenpeace, an organization brimming with conservatives, a conservative being a person without a new idea in decades, has been saying the same bullshit for thirty years, a conclusion is easily drawn:

Greenpeace, I repeat, is full of shit. They don't have anything to offer except power for rich people. They don't give a rat's ass about these mountains, and any reference to them is just window dressing.

It is very easy to criticize what others are doing when you are doing nothing yourself. Greenpeace, which best I can tell an acrobatic company for dilettantes, has done zero for the environment. If you are for the environment, you are agitating for nuclear power.

If by the way you are really interested in the cost to the environment and health (ie external costs) by energy, you can always access the EU study of the question:

www.externe.info

Here is table giving the preliminary results of this study, the units are in EUR-cent per kWh for electrical generation:



It's pretty clear that nuclear energy is by far and away the cleanest and safest form of continuous, on demand energy, irrespective of what the circus clowns at Greenpeace have to say.

[ridgerunner]

11. Well the way I look at

we continue to posion our planent or we can use renewable energy sources. I'm a firm believer in the power of hemp. There's a reason why it's illegal and it ain't got nothing to do with smoking it.

[struggle4progress]

12. Your usual "Greenpeace sux" and "antinuclear = procoal" nonsense. eom

[NNadir]

14. One's opinion on that matter is a measure of whether one can think.

By definition, if you support the Greenhouse, whoops I mean Greenpeace positon you can't think.

Energy doesn't come from nowhere. So called Greenpeace "solutions" do NOT work anywhere in the world at a scale that could save even one mountain.

Even Greenpeace, their low intellects and hypocricy aside, concedes that the world will not be more than 20%-30% renewable energy by 2050, and even this is daydreaming and little else. So, given the fact that Greenpeace members understand zero about risk analysis and so rabidly oppose nuclear energy, with more drunken ferocity than they care about any real environmental issue, it's appropriate to ask where's the other 70% coming from?

I know what I will get here: A list of resumes of political "scientists," biochemists, or senile activists or some comment about my nasty personality, but I will not get an answer on with what the fuck the frauds at Greenpeace intend to replace the coal.

QED

Greenpeace is full of shit. Greenpeace = coal. I will continue to repeat this truth as often as the inverse lie is repeated.

[struggle4progress]

15. Mere vituperative noise. eom

[NNadir]

16. More vapd indifference CM

[jpak]

17. Yup

and Excelon and Entergy and The Southern Company* and Duke Energy all the other nucular utilities and the uranium miners and the uranium conversion plant operators and all the US reactor vendors are marching and chanting and chaining themselves to bulldozers in an effort to halt mountain top coal mining...

*charter member of the infamous Climate Coalition - an industry greenwash group that opposed any government effort to halt global warming.

yup - them nuke boyz is leadin' the charge in the war agin global warmin'!!!!!

:rofl:

[riverwalker]

3. we really are insane, you know

can you imagine any other culture cutting off the tops of their mountains? To the mountain people of the Andes or the Himalayas it would be like cutting off your mothers head. The Appalacians are one of the oldest ranges on the planet. Sure, they are gentle rolling hills now, but at one time they as tall as Everest, but eroded with time. They are ancient.

[phantom power]

18. This is one of those topics...

that's kind of like having to "argue" evolution. The fact that we're even having an argument about this makes me feel like we've already descended into madness.