Death of A Mountain

“Compare the two economies: The forest’s and ours. The sulfur dioxide that escapes from coal-burning power plants is responsible for acid rain, smog, respiratory infections, asthma, and lung disease. Due to acid rain and mine runoff, there is so much mercury in Kentucky streams that any pregnant woman who eats fish from them risks serious, life-long harm to the fetus she carries. And this year, thanks in large part to coal burning, climatologists found record-high levels of climate-altering carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

“A forest, by contrast, can store 20 times more carbon than croplands or pasture. Its leaf litter slows erosion and adds organic matter to the soil. Its dense vegetation stops flooding. Its headwater streams purify creeks below it. A contiguous forest ensures species diversity. A forest, in short, does all of the things that mining and burning coal cannot – that is its intelligence.”

Erik Reese, from “Death of a Mountain: Radical Strip Mining and the Leveling of Appalachia,” in Harper’s Magazine, April 2005.