|
Earth
Day
(happy
40th birthday)
April
22, 2010
On
this Earth Day, I have a message for corporate America.
STOP
DESTROYING THE EARTH!
Now
that I have that out of the way, I can move on. Recently, two events
have occurred that are stark and unkind reminders of what is good,
what is right, what is bad, and what is wrong. I am talking about
the explosion at the West Virginia Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch
Mine that has claimed 29 lives and the oil drilling platform
Deepwater Horizon leaving 11 missing and 17 injured.
Upper
Big Branch Mine, April 5, 2010.
On
Monday, April 5th the Upper Big Branch Mine owned and operated by
none other than Massey Energy suffered an explosion, the worst
mining disaster in the US since 1970. Massey Energy has been fined
for violations at this mine alone 1,342 times over the last 5 years
and was even cited for safety violations the day before the
explosion. One would be hard presses to ask, how do these guys get
away with this? Well, for one, they own the government. They own the
West Virginia government and the Congress in Washington. They spend
millions on lobbying and they pay their lawyers hundreds of
thousands of dollars if not millions to keep these safety citations
tied up in court, and then
people die. Massey
Energy should be tried and convicted for manslaughter, if not for a
more serious charge. After all, the Supreme Court says that they are
a person, right?
Massey
Energy is also one of the biggest culprits involved in the criminal
mountain top removal mining. Please get a copy and watch "Burning
the Future, Coal in America."
Deepwater
Horizon 
The
Deepwater Horizon oil drilling platform exploded on Wednesday, April
21, 2010 injuring 17 with 11 still missing. The Deepwater Horizon
has been in operation since 2001, only 9 years old.
It
just goes to show even with up to date and what I am sure is
considered state of the art equipment, how dangerous drilling for
oil still is. Over the course of the next week, we will gat a much
better picture of the environmental impact from this event. I am
sure it will not be pretty.
So
once again, we have witnessed the danger, devastation, and loss of
life that the coal and oil industries have repeatedly offered up for
the so-called "cheap energy" they produce. This leads me
to only one question, had those souls that were lost been working on
a rooftop installing solar panels or working on a wind turbine, or
perhaps a tidal turbine, would they still be alive today? I think
so.
Whenever
the opportunity arises, and even otherwise, please support alternative
energy, wind, solar, tidal, and bio-fuels. Doing so will save lives
and the planet.
Mr.
Green
|
