Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining by Jenifer Garlitz

About the Book

We turn on our air conditioning and TV and plug in our chargers without an awareness of where the energy for our electricity comes from. We don’t know that about half of our electricity comes from coal. We don’t know that some of this coal comes from mountaintop removal coal mining that has devastated families and communities throughout the Appalachian Mountains.

Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining: Why Mountains Are Going Missing and What We Can Do About It is a resource for understanding and connecting the dots between flipping on the light switch and coal mining, flooding in Appalachia, air and water pollution, health problems, and global warming. Reader-friendly and hopeful, this book offers suggestions for how each of us can make our voices heard and make changes in our everyday lives to prevent further destruction of our country’s majestic mountains and our magnificent planet.

Mountaintop removal coal mining is a type of coal mining that began in the 1970s and has become increasingly common, because it is a cheap way for mining companies to mine coal. Yet this kind of coal mining creates problems for families living in Appalachia: mountain streams and valleys filled with rock and debris, polluted drinking water, flooding, and coal sludge overflows. Burning coal in power plants also creates environmental damage that affects everyone, from air and water pollution, which cause health problems, to global warming.

Ed Wiley, Maria Gunnoe, and other determined, courageous activists in West Virginia and Kentucky are an inspiration to all of us. They inspire us to tell others about the harm of mountaintop removal mining and encourage us to take action to stop it. Ed Wiley marched from West Virginia to Washington, D.C., to raise money for a new school for the students at Marsh Fork Elementary School, a school that would not be near a coal sludge pond. Maria Gunnoe, winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize, worked tirelessly by testifying in court, writing letters, organizing groups, and protesting mountaintop removal.

Here are some ways we can be part of the solution to the problem of mountaintop removal mining. We can join an environmental group working to stop mountaintop removal mining. We can find ways to save electricity. We can let our elected representatives know that we want the dumping of rock and other mining debris in streams to stop. We can tell our lawmakers that we want a greater portion of our tax dollars spent on research and development of sustainable energy sources, such as solar and wind power. Humankind faces many challenges along the way to a clean energy future. By working together against mountaintop removal mining and for sustainable energy, we will create a healthier planet for all of us, and help to turn the tide of global warming.