Leading Scientists Call For Mountain-Top Removal Ban

Grist:

The scientists received no outside funding for this; they donated their time. One says the project was sparked by a request from NGOs.

They're calling for a moratorium on permits until there can be a "rational hearing" on the science. Many of them were new to the issue when they started this; all of them seem kind of shocked by how horrific it is and by how little attention it's gotten.

Read the whole story: Grist

Comments

[OkieMon]

02:18 PM on 01/11/2010

how about also banning the new horizontal drilling/high-volume hydrofracturing technology that the bush/cheney administration exempted from the clean air act and safe drinking water act in 2005? you just know this new technology will pollute the water and air on a massive scale....

[mp3sevdam]

10:25 AM on 01/10/2010

To save the mountains and the life around them, we must first make bribery illegal.
http://belsoguklugutedavisi.blogcu.com/

[DemoGoddes]

05:36 PM on 01/09/2010

Two or three protesters who hung a banner protesting mountaintop mining were later arrested at their home and charged with terrorism--for hanging a banner! It seems to me that the real terrorists are the mining companies who continue their environmentally destructive practices in the face of overwhelming evidence that it is so harmful.

[Bartel5]

12:04 AM on 01/08/2010

I love the FIRST line of this article: "The scientists received no outside funding for this; they donated their time.". If nothing else, those East Anglia fibbers have set a new standard for researchers: CYA FIRST

[winterkills]

03:41 PM on 01/08/2010

Ahh, you're such a warm and intelligent human being...

Just because you've never done anything altruistic, don't assume that everyone else is the same way.

[quillsinister]

12:32 AM on 01/10/2010

Amazing. Usually you mistrust a scientist because his work has been funded by a special interest that is paying for a biased result. Our friend here mistrusts them when they haven't been!

Oh, irony! :-D

[hulagirrrl]

09:27 PM on 01/07/2010

Having read about this issue a long time ago, I am glad that it is not forgotten. More power to them for working on stopping this stupid greedy practice.

[TMAN]

05:17 PM on 01/07/2010

Is there any wonder at all that the "r@ce" globally, now is so pessamistic and hopelss regarding the continued existance of itself, manifested as it is, in so many dark ways? One simply cannot believe that there ever should have been a legitimate reason to allow this to continue. What in "gods" name have we degenerated into. Ask that next time you see a neat headline about all these "neat" toys and gagets that are, oh my ever so advanced and sophisticated. What manner of creature, even further devolved than pigs would testify to the "sane" behavior of it's fellows in pursuit of a carefully masked greed in the name of "benefitting the masses?

Time is quickly running out for us to "CHOOSE" a better more life affirming way to be.
Thank you.

[Caru]

12:40 AM on 01/08/2010

Why are you so down on pigs?

There is way to come out shining, my friend. First you must be optimistic, then you must gather, then you must act. There is much time in which to change.

[Joethepauper]

04:21 PM on 01/07/2010

How long did it take to figure that out? Did it even require a study? Now that all the mountians they wanted to blow-up are already blown-up, that's convenient! The next thing they will discover will probably be that drilling oil in the gulf affects the ocean or that clearing rainforest to let cows graze affects the rainforest. Will foreign policy "experts" finally conclude that what we were doing for a century, concerning "resources" in the Middle East, garnered some resentment amongst the people who live there? Will economists conclude that what Wall St. and the banks are doing is harmful to the economy? How long will it take to conclude that analysis?? I can tell them right now, and I'm right about almost everything (90% at least). That coal they are looking for causes global climate change, besides F#*king-up our landscape.

[lightningbolt]

04:00 PM on 01/07/2010

This ban is never going to happen. Most of our elected officials are in the pockets of the coal industry. Until bribery is made illegal, mountaintop removal will continue and people and animals will continue to get sick and die from its effects. To save the mountains and the life around them, we must first make bribery illegal.

[winterkills]

03:38 PM on 01/08/2010

Never say "never" my friend (I never do...).

Btw, I agree with everything else that you said.

[rougebaisers]

03:50 PM on 01/07/2010

Who needs mountain tops? Who needs whales? Who needs birds? Humans are such a destructive and ignorant species.