Buckeye Forrest Speaker

When David Maywhoor came to speak to our class last Wednesday, I wasn't quite sure what he was going to talk about. I'll admit that I though exactly how much can a forest commission do? I was honestly pretty much dreading listening to an hour of lecture on trees. But after having heard what David had to say, I'm very much pleased that he came to speak. I was very interested in what he had to say about Haiti and how they're in for even more devastation because of the deforestation in the country. I'm consistently impressed at how many applications there are for environmental knowledge that often gets overlooked.

Paper Topic

For my paper I was originally brainstorming ways to somehow incorporate the movie avatar, and this is what I came up with:

I'm sort of a movie buff, so what I'm thinking about doing is looking at how the environment has been discussed in some of the highest grossing films in the last 5 years. The way I see it, what we say through the media says a lot about us as a culture and If I can examine that through movies, I think that's something I could really enjoy.

Feel free to share and input or suggestions!

Last Third of LM

In the last 1/3 of Lost Mountain, Erik Reece uses Wendell Berry's comparison of the "rational" and "sympathetic" minds to explore differences in the ways people think. Rational minded thinkers think mostly in absolutes. They see issues as black and white matters. There is no ambiguity in the world of the "rational" thinker...they dismiss the "grey area". Rational minds often make decisions based on the best possible outcome for themselves, leaving others in the wake of their choices. They pay little attention to how their choices might affect anyone or anything other than themselves.

On the other hand, "sympathetic" thinkers embrace the "grey area" and often heavily consider the implications that are carried in the ambiguous areas of complex issues. Sympathetic thinkers significantly weigh the affects of their actions on others. They consider how their actions and choices will effect others both directly and indirectly. Their prime concern is still to reach the best possible decision for themselves, but they want to reach the best possible decision with the least amount of negative affects on those around them.

In a large way, the entire book Lost Mountain is an example of Reece applying his sympathetic mind to strip mining and mountain top removal in the Appalachians. He examines how this practice negatively affects the inhabitants of the area, both human and animal. He looks at how it negatively affects the mountain itself.

In the final chapter Reece wraps up his account with a lot of statistics and more examples and a general summary of mountain top removal and the many reasons why it's a practice in need of significant remedy. But, my favorite part of Reece's conclusion was when he was talking about writers and their accounts of the nature they fell in love with and ultimately, how, as a culture, we've fallen out of touch with that sort of connection to nature.

"What is disturbing and destructive is that our ethical values, our spiritual values, and our aesthetic values have not kept pace with science. A scientist can explain the exchange of atmospheric vapors that give color to a sunset, but only a poet like William Wordsworth can convey the aesthetic, the spiritual, the inexplicable value of the same sunset. The poet understand the natural world not as a machine, but as an organism with intrinsic values and laws more mysterious than we might have otherwise accounted for."

I know that is a long quote, but I found it profoundly moving and exceptionally convincing. My personal beliefs are a lot on par with the wording in this quote. So many things in nature are mysterious far beyond our comprehension. Its possible our scientists can regurgitate formulas attempting to explain it, but explanation does not always demonstrate understanding. In our many times over active and over industrial world, we too often forget about the mysteries that surround us in nature. We lose touch with the real value of the things around us and when that happens, I believe, we lose small pieces of ourselves.

"

LM Through 162

At this point, we've pretty much gotten to the meat of this book. The further we dive into Reece's research on Lost Mountain, the more his stories hit the hard places and the deeper they twist your stomach.

In this section of the reading, I found more than one example where Reece's experience impacted my emotions. For starters, when he talks about the Slurry runoff (pg 129)....Something like 300 million gallons of toxic coal runoff seeped into Coldwater Creek and Wolf Creek, two bodies of water that people depended on. To me, slurry is probably the scariest aspect of the mountain top removal. Sure, a lot of it is wrong, but I could let a little bulldozing go if I had to. What you can't ignore is when people are put in harms way as a direct result of strip mining and the practice of mountain top removal.

Another danger that Reece touches on is the risk of falling land and rock; he calls it "flyrock." The example he gives about a couple who was rudely inturrupted by a stray boulder stuck out to me. With all the dynamite and explosions, nearby homes are at risk for debris and that's something obvious that I feel is often over-lookcd.

While this book does a good job getting the point across, I, personally, am beginning to feel that I got the point already and now its just being driven home. I just feel like I get the point already and maybe Erik Reece has said all he has to say. Each chapter sort of says the same thing in slightly different language. "Strip Mining and Mountain Top removal is unethical dangerous and terrible for the environment"....I understand.

pgs 1-85

In the first part of Erik Reece's book Lost Mountain, he begins to paint his picture of strip mining coal in the Appalachian Mountains. He tells his story through his observations of a mountain in Kentucky called Lost Mountain. He starts by describing the wildlife that typically inhabit the Appalachians. He talks about different birds and animals and how their habitats are being destroyed by the mountaintop removal practices of the coal industry. Along with completely demolishing Appalachian wildlife habitats, strip mining coal from mountaintops also releases toxic chemicals into the wilderness, and produces a toxic runoff called slurry making the areas inhabitable. Reece does a really nice job accounting his first hand individual experiences. Though I've never been to see the effects of Appalachian strip mining first hand, I have seen a few segments of a documentary depicting the same problem in West Virginia Appalachians. The footage I've seen its pretty captivating and it's really amazing the destruction that these coal mining practices cause.

Reece also starts to talk about how mountain top removal not only effects the wildlife but also affects the people living nearby the mountain. Some of the most compelling information that Reece gives was the firsthand account of Kentucky resident, Teri Blanton. Her testimony includes the story of a well that becomes so overwhelmed with toxic chemicals that anyone who comes into contact with it wont live past 55. To me, that is overwhelming evidence that there's a problem. Later, in the same chapter, Reece mentions his own sort of diagnosis of the situation. He starts to look politically at how the coal companies are 100% aware of the adverse affects of their strip mining practices, and yet they continue to turn a cheek and even go as far as to acknowledge that a more environmentally friendly alternative may exist but they make more of an effort to avoid the new alternative in favor of the more environmentally harmful option because it saves money. On page 50 Reece says "the White Star Cemetery is a collection of terminal facts." This was the perfect quote to end the chapter with and the one I found most captivating. I look forward to continuing my journey through Lost Mountain and I think it will be a very informative and eye opening book.

Clean Coal

So for my class we're supposed to look into the two sides of the clean coal debate by examining two websites, one pro clean coal and one against it.

The first website I checked out was the main website for a campaign against clean coal called "This is Reality". Initially I definitely was entertained as a cartoon canary flies around the screen and takes the reader from fact to fact. With each surprising fact, the canary poetically dies as you read (I say this is poetic, because canaries were historically used to warn miners of dangerous gasses in the mines. The indication of danger came when the toxic gas killed the canary first, thus alerting workers to get out.) The site looks like it's targeted predominantly for individuals who've heard of the campaign and want to learn more/get more involved.

The second website I looked at was Americas Power, a site sponsored by the Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity is dedicated to showing the important role coal production plays in our society and how research efforts are underway in an attempt to develop a clean coal technology (or eco friendly coal production) that will revolutionize the industry by making it clean. This site, like its message, looks clean and crisp while seeming intellectual and trustworthy. Based on appearance alone, I felt comfortable that the information on this site was credible. The "reality" site is much darker and much simpler than the bright "power" page. At the power page, it seems that the target audience might be a homeowner, a husband/wife, somebody who pays the bills. The site looks to inform them that coal is a necessity in their lifestyle.

The clean coal debate is essentially this: Coal Production is a dirty industry. It produces a huge amount of greenhouse gas and damages our environment. Clean Coal is a concept that would allow production plants to trap their CO2 emissions prior to their release into our atmosphere. According to "America's Power," over $12 billion is being put into clean coal research, and in the mean time, the coal industry has lowered its toxic emissions by 77% since 1970.

The flip-side of this, and the true thesis of the "reality" campaign, is that the coal industry uses these facts to make the public feel comfortable and content with their efforts, but the reality is that there is not one clean coal plant that exists today.

In my opinion, each site has some strengths and some weaknesses. The "reality" definitely has the edge when it comes to emotional appeal. When the cartoon canary dies as you finish reading the facts, a part of you dies with it and you want to bring down the coal companies. Coupled with the canary's presentation, the emotion brought on with each fact is maximized.

However, the "power" site gets the edge in the logical department. There is so much going on at this site that you can find support for their position in almost every offered link. The "power" site is much deeper than the "reality" site and in my mind, depth of knowledge gives you more credibility. Thus, I also give the edge to the "power" site in terms of trustworthiness. Though this is a close call because there are many powerful facts (with sources) that make up the "reality" site.

To conclude, I really think that these two sites are arguing completely different things. The "reality" site, wants to dispel any rumors that clean coal exists, but on the "power site" there are no indications that they are claiming clean coal plant DO exists, but rather, the research to develop it does. Really I think that both of these sites want the same thing: a clean alternative to the pollution ridden coal production industry that we have today.

About the author

My name is Mitch Barley. I'm a twenty-one year old college junior at Ohio University. At OU, I'm an advertising major with a sociology minor. I created this blog for an English class that I need to take before I graduate in a year. Anyways, my first assignment is to post about myself, so here comes a little rambling:

Hudson, Ohio is where I call home...it's a town that sits right between Akron and Cleveland...and I like it there a lot. I'm not one of those kids who doesn't like to go home, actually, I enjoy it quite a bit.

I'm a big Cleveland Browns fan, and with a family full of Steelers fans, it was incredibly nice to enjoy a victory this year over the black and gold. I LOVE movies. I actually think that my appreciation for movies has a lot to do with why I've chosen the major I have. That's another story that I might be posting about later....but I see a lot of movies.

Lastly, I'll mention that I've been dating my highschool sweetheart for more than 4 years and I couldn't be crazier about her.

Good Day,