Killing Us Quickly With Coal Mining

Never let it be said that Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear does not have an overdeveloped sense of irony.

The day after an expert on coal mining's effect on Eastern Kentucky gave a speech condemning all strip mining, brazen coal cheerleader Beshear announced his heartfelt commitment to "renewable energy."

I put "renewable energy" in scare quotes because, as usual, Beshear either thinks blasting mountains to smithereens and destroying the freshwater streams upon which local communities depend in order to get cheap coal qualifies as "renewable," or he's lying.

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear today announced that he is joining the U.S. Governors’ Wind Energy Coalition.

SNIP

While studies show that Kentucky does not have the classic Level 3 winds currently required to produce enough wind power for base-load generation, many business people and farmers are interested in distributed wind generation.

In other words, Beshear is endorsing a form of renewable energy that has precisely zero chance of becoming viable in Kentucky, far less than zero chance of challenging King Coal's death-grip on the Commonwealth, and 100 percent chance of providing a fig-leaf for Beshear and other state politicians while they rake in millions in campaign cash from the Mountain-Destroying Community Killers of Big Coal.

This bullshit comes from Beshear just hours after he listened to this:

Ron Eller, Eastern Kentuckian and former direct of UK's Appalachian Center, was on a panel yesterday with Dan Mongiardo and Steve Beshear at the Eastern Kentucky Leadership Conference, and.... well, let's just say that he spoke truth to power.

He started by saying he wanted “to be a little more frank with you tonight.” He told the crowd he’d undergone triple by-pass heart surgery and “that sometimes gives you a different outlook on life.” He said he wanted to address the assembly “as one of you, someone from the mountains, not someone from Lexington.”

Eller was more than just “a little frank.” He said things many who live in the mountains don’t want to hear.

“We must change how we understand this place and how we understand our place in it,” said Eller. “We must look beyond an extraction based economy to one that values and enhances the landscape and the resources it holds.” He said the region needs a new generation of political leadership and new ways of looking at developing “the good life” for the people who live there.

Then, he delivered the most provocative statement of the night.

“We must begin – I think – by abolishing surface mining, including the radically destructive practice of mountain top removal. Mountain top removal isn’t necessary to the region or the national economy. It’s just cheaper.”

Forty-six years ago, Harry Caudill wrote everything you need to know about how coal destroys everything alive, good and worthwhile in Eastern Kentucky, in his classic Night Comes to the Cumberlands.

Forty-six years later, Big Coal's grip on Kentucky is tighter than ever, Eastern Kentucky is poorer than ever, destruction from strip mining is more horrific and fatal than ever, and Kentucky's political leaders are stupider, blinder and more corrupt than ever.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....