"Turn on more lights, burn more coal." -- Don Blankenship
Don Blankenship is the CEO of Massey Energy, the largest coal producer in Appalachia and the most notorious perpetrator of mountaintop removal mining. Mr. Blankenship, known as "the scariest polluter in America," makes millions of dollars overseeing the destruction of America's oldest mountains in the region where he himself was born.
Perhaps Blankenship's extreme wealth is why Forbes magazine decided to interview him. But what shines through more than anything is Blankenship's extreme anti-environmental worldview. In short, it may come as no surprise to learn that this unabashed coal baron adamantly opposes any regulation intended to protect clean air and water, let alone to address climate change -- the existence of which Don steadfastly refuses to believe.
If you can stomach it, read the full interview which was published yesterday. But I've chosen to excerpt Blankenship's answers and to provide a succinct rebuttal -- or reality check.
Don on climate policy:
I don't know how we let the enviros and the humanitarians off the hook, that they continue to stymie the development of other countries. You've got people dying of preventable disease every day, and yet we're getting ready to spend billions of dollars on climate change.
The irony is as thick as coal dust. In essence, Blankenship is defending the destruction of Appalachia's environment and justifying the poisoning of local residents by trying to argue that the dirty coal reaped (raped?) from America's oldest mountain range is fueling progress in other countries. He clearly has no qualms about how mountaintop removal is harming the health of his fellow Americans living in the coalfields.
Consider this: coal processing leaves behind billions of gallons of toxic waste -- called "sludge" -- that includes selenium, as well as other dangerous chemicals. This toxic stew is typically "stored" in unlined earthen structures called slurry dams or injected underground, often into abandoned underground coal mines. These toxins seep into the ground water of nearby communities. A recent blockbuster story by the New York Times detailed the dangers of drinking water in Appalachia that is polluted by mining waste. The article profiled West Virginia, Blankenship's native state, where people try to avoid any contact with tap water, which causes painful rashes and scabs and dissolves childrens' teeth. Tests there show alarming levels of lead, nickel, arsenic and other contaminants that federal regulators say could contribute to cancer and damage the kidneys and nervous system. Maybe Don should travel to the town of Prenter Hollow, where a health survey found that 98% of adults interviewed in the area have gallbladder disease. And don't forget that coal mining costs Appalachians five times more in early deaths as the industry provides to the region in jobs, taxes and other economic benefits.
Don on cutting carbon pollution:
I think it's all a hoax and a Ponzi scheme. I can't find any logic to the fact that the climate is actually changing any more because of man than it would without man.
Denial ain't just a river fast-drying up in Egypt. It's ridiculous these days to take any global warming skeptic seriously. I mean, who are you gonna believe, Don Blankenship or your lying eyes? (Pull on your high-waters and watch out for melting glaciers.) Put aside the motives of a man who makes his living off an industry that profits at the planet's expense. The debate over climate change is over and the science is indisputable. Just last week new analysis by climate scientists reveals that global temperatures are now expected to rise by 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. This rapid warming trend is far faster than the forecast just two years ago by the Nobel Prize-winning U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In fact, the predicted increase is nearly double what scientists say is the upper limit of warming the world can afford in order to avert catastrophic climate change. I hereby invoke John McEnroe to respectfully counter Big Coal's biggest booster: "You cannot be serious!"
Don on Forbes ranking West Virginia at the bottom of the list of greenest states:
You've constantly got hyperbole in the press, and you've got the government trying, because of their belief in climate change, to drive up the costs and increase the bad press, so it's really hard to overcome it. I find it odd that the environmental movement says that the area [West Virginia] has to be protected as one of the most pristine ... diversified forests in the world. We've been mining there for 110 years, and if we didn't destroy it under the previous laws, we certainly aren't going to destroy it under the current ones.
Whoa. For a man who hails from Appalachia, he sure is disconnected from the region's heritage, which is based on a every mountaineer's deep-seated love of and respect for the land. In short, this area of the country is known as one of the most biologically diverse places in the world -- rich in lush forests, teaming with wildlife, and brimming with some of the cleanest waterways in America. Clearly, underground mining is not the most benign activity but it pales in comparison to the devastation caused by using explosives and heavy machinery to flatten entire mountain peaks and then dump the waste into waterways.
As West Virginia biologist Ben Stout explains:
It's a complete change, from one of the most diverse and productive forest ecosystems on the planet to a grassland that's nowhere to be found naturally in the southern Appalachians. Whole lineages, like the mayflies, are basically disappearing because they can't tolerate the conditions. Migratory birds from South America, their breeding places are rapidly disappearing from southern West Virginia.
And as Appalachian native Jeff Biggers adds:
The abuse of the land has always gone hand in hand with the abuse of the people ... Mountaintop removal is not simply about 'minimizing the adverse environmental impacts' or the fact that the practice has destroyed 500 extraordinary mountains and over a million acres of hardwood deciduous forests in our nation's carbon sink of Appalachia. It has also ripped out the roots of one of our nation's vital mountain cultures -- the very arena of so much social change and innovation that has shaped our country -- and effectively removed important chapters of the Appalachian and American experience from our memory.
You can never go home again, Don, mainly because you're hell-bent on wiping away any trace of it.
Don on the benefits of coal:
[T]he only way this country can be energy independent or actually even have homeland security is to turn to coal. We have more coal than the Middle East has in oil. Coal can create the wealth in this country that funds the Manhattan Project on the next generation of energy. But as long as we're wasting such huge amounts of money on renewables and nonsense...we're not going to have those funds.
If America is the Saudia Arabia of coal, then I'm the George Clooney of the environmental movement. The fact is, the supply of coal is dwindling faster than most people realize -- particularly here in the U.S. Regardless, all fossil fuel will run out sooner than later whereas clean power generated from the wind, sun and geothermal won't ever run out, nor will it cook the planet. And as for supposed wealth generated by coal, why is it that Appalachian coalfied counties are among the poorest in the nation? According to a study by West Virginia University researcher Michael Hendryx, "Coal-mining economies are weaker than the rest of the state, weaker than the rest of the region, and weaker than the rest of the nation." The study revealed that the coal industry generates a little more than $8 billion a year in economic benefits for the Appalachian region, yet it costs $42 billion a year.
With the U.S. Senate about to take up clean energy and climate legislation, the pressure will be intense to dirty up the bill in ways that benefit the fossil fools crowd. But the urgency of the climate crisis means that we simply cannot afford the same old dirty business as usual. We must break the stranglehold that has allowed Big Coal (as well as Big Oil and the Nuke Boys) to dictate America's energy policy. Such stale, short-sighted energy policies will hurt our economy and our environment and leave all of us stuck paying too much to heat our homes and to fill our tanks. However, investments in renewable energy alternatives will pay dividends in the creation of new jobs, cuts in our energy bills, and a decrease in oil dependence.
More jobs, less pollution and greater energy security. That's common-sense, not nonsense.
This post originally appeared on NRDC's Switchboard blog.
Follow Rob Perks on Twitter: www.twitter.com/NRDCSwitchboard
Went to a Hillary fundraiser and I didn't see one liberal driving a small 42mpg car. Got it on film. Why? Went to a Sierra Club meetting and all I saw was suvs and other fuel inefficent cars. Even a DTS Cadillac like the one Gore drove in his movie. Why? I thought liberals cared for the environment? Yet they can't drive smaller cars? Why does Rachel Maddow, Obama, Biden, Rangel, etc... drive fuel inefficient vehicles? 42 mpg cars exist. They didn't buy them. Why? China is now leveling mountain tops to produce the 4 pounds of toxic neoglyium that is needed for electric cars. Coal isn't perfect. I am a renewables expert and i don't see why liberals don't start complaining about their own people's pollution profiles. Don would be more helpful if he saw us liberals behaving less hypocritically. I know the negative issues of coal. I know the negative issues of all those fuel inefficient cars liberals are driving in cities like NYC and San Francisco, etc.... also.
Joe Vecchio and God
Perhaps you and your god could supply us with links to back up all of your accusations, and then you can explain what you know about the decision for the DNC to "advertise" 4000 lb. Mercedes SUV's above any other make or size of car.
very same gas in the neighborhood of 8,000 ppm? It is unconscionable that
our government is demanding that we try to regulate the concentration of this gas in the atmosphere,
knowing full well that concentrations more than 20 times that amount produce absolutely no ill effects on American sailors.
Despite all evidence to the contrary, the left just will not quit with their lies.
There has been no warming since 1998, temperatures are falling everywhere and the solar cycles say we are heading into another ice age.
Why do these people keep beating this dead horse? Money and power. It’s a perfect way to control the citizens and people like Al Gore,
who has at least two carbon credit selling businesses, can continue to commit fraud for profit.
The world's best meteorologists using the most advanced computers cannot predict local weather two weeks in the future.
So how can global warming proponents predict the entire world's climate 50 or 100 years in the future?
The answer is that they can't.
"Why The Military Is Worried About Climate Change"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-powers/why-the-military-is-worri_b_280529.html
"U.S. Military Says We Need Action on Climate Now or We Will 'Pay Later'"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frances-beinecke/us-military-says-we-need_b_255680.html
"Top ex-military leaders call global warming major security risk"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070415/na-gen-us-global-warming-security/
Maybe you did not know how seriously the military takes global warming when you began posting that submarine atmosphere crap, but you know it now. Repeating that lie, to encourage environment and energy policies that would put more United States soldiers, sailors and pilots in danger, would be un-patriotic. Do not do it again.
Blankenship seems to be on the edge of a melt down. Some of his statements are just totally bizarre. I've met and been around a few opium dependents and they have that same sense of disconnect from reality.
I don't know why so many people don't see the connection between the massive profits from resource extraction, and the urge to misrepresent reality to prevent the evaporation of those profits.
I live in Ketchikan, Alaska, and I moved here in 2002. At the time, I heard about how Pres. Clinton's roadless rules and lumber harvest quotas had "killed" the town (it's still here, and doing fine, with tourism). I kept my mouth tightly shut, in a town full of right-wingers -- and also because I didn't know different.
Turns out that the pulp mill had, before it closed, a long history of refusing to comply by existing standards -- those that dated from Reagan and Bush I. When the EPA under Clinton finally set a deadline for compliance or fines, the pulp mill took their profits and left town, blaming it all on Clinton.
So the message here is: as long as there are profits to be made from harvesting scarce resources (and shipping them oversees to Japan, in this case) there will be defenders of the practice. As soon as enforcement gets serious, however, they'll blame it all on the Liberals and skip town with the money.