Two Young Kentuckians at Denmark's Talks

If anyone at the global climate change talks in Copenhagen starting today suffers under the impression that Kentuckians don't understand how coal is making the planet uninhabitable, two young Kentuckians are there to set them straight.

Lauralee Crain, a Transylvania University senior from Flemingsburg, will participate in youth rallies as a member of the 18-person Sierra Student Coalition. Marcie Smith, a 2009 Transy grad from Richmond, will return to Copenhagen, where she advocated for more aggressive actions and nations, particularly developed countries, during last December's dress rehearsal for this year's United Nations climate conference.

Both say they hope to represent their generation by encouraging global leaders to take bold actions against pollution not only in industrialized nation but also developing countries.

"Climate change has started to happen and continues to happen. So the most culpable countries ... do have a responsibility to clean up the messes in other countries — the countries that are bearing the brunt of global climate change," said Smith, who has taken a job as an international media coordinator for the group Climate Justice Fast. People from at least 23 countries, through that effort, have been fasting since Nov. 6 to raise awareness about and underscore the urgency of actions to slow climate change.

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Crain and Smith both said they know some of their outspoken stances won't be popular in their native state, where coal mining remains a staple of the economy.

"I don't think people realize that Kentucky is climate ground zero," Smith said. She likened it to oil fields in the Middle East, where drilling companies profit but those who live nearby and even work for the companies struggle to escape poverty. Extraction of fossil fuels "means your home exists to be exploited," Smith said.

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"A green economy is necessary to the survival of Kentucky because coal is not a forever resource," Crain said.

Smith said that's one of the debates she looks forward to engaging when she one day returns to live in Kentucky.

"If coal has so much potential, why have the poverty rates in Eastern Kentucky been stuck at 30 percent for the last 100 years?" Smith said. "Why are we still one of the poorest states in the nation? Why do I still get made fun of every time I go anywhere out of the southeast United States?"

Wouldn't it be great if Smith and Crain were invited to speak about their Copenhagen experiences before the General Assembly's Natural Resources Committees in January?

Wouldn't it be better if those committees weren't run by a repug in the Senate and the inhmanly idiotic Jim Gooch in the House?