Wednesday, January 26, 2011

So this guy from my school-- someone with whom I went to school-- kind of-- I don't even think this guy made any of my AP or honor classes, but who knows he might have been in trig or something- anyway, he starts spouting off about how we need Steel to make cars and that is a good reason to have MTR mining. Then he starts saying that two bottles of some name brand water (COKE subsid?) spilled on the ground meets the same criteria for a EPA "stream". How can people be so brainwashed rude that they have the logic of fox Swen?? People that I know-- My age-- My generation?? can think this way-- How is it possible? he must be drunk, I guess.

I have these great headwaters on my land-- I have been listening to them running the last few days and this is one of the only times they REALLY run; after snow starts melting, and when it rains. Let me tell you that in ANY rainforest, the rain creates the headwaters, the streams and the rivers. Even in Nahiku, Maui, Hawai'i, where it rains more than 300 inches in a year, the streams still go dry. And believe you me, they are still very viable streams (and sound like trains coming down the mountain when they flash-- very exciting!!). At least the EPA has people that have the education in ecology and environmental natural history and biology to know how important these headwaters are. They know how important it is that these temporary streams remain clean, filtered with roots of living forests, leaf mold to hold and filter sediment, and rocks to slow the run off as it finds its way into the larger streams and rivers.

I am very disturbed by the idea that for profit of removing coal quickly and cheaply, we would allow that the top soil be completely stripped, the forests clear cut and completely destroyed, all the wildlife there- removed through devastation of habitat, and the headwaters filled with the overburden of these mining processes as they dig deep into the area, bombing with explosives and then pushing with heavy equipment all that is not coal into the areas all around. So this guy I went to HS with is saying he believes that it is okay that these headwaters are they are buried with powdered stone filled with heavy metals now blown to bits so that it dissolves into our waterways, poisoning us and our fisheries downstream --and everone is downstream from headwaters-- that it is okay to bury them, completely, for miles, and then replace the water "ways" with straight down big rock runways- no trees, no leaves, no slowing down, no keeping any pools of water, no keeping the water on the land, just a big man made mess. he could stand there, and say that a stream could compare to water poured from a plastic bottle-- chlorinated, irradiated and chemically filtered water-- that any adulterated water could have any resemblance to a living breathing stream is at best theatre of the absurd.

I do a USGS frog survey up at Birch River and the numbers of some of the frogs near the base of the MTR sites up there are stable, but the diversity is down and declining. How could the diversity of one animal stay stable when the diversity of all the plants and soil organisms and mushrooms and animals have been eliminated? Then the water is toxic-- and why shouldn't headwater start out cleaner than a pepsi product bottled in plastic? Headwater should be the Cleanest water EVER! Protect water like your life depends on it!!

I don't have all the answers. I don't know what you do for a living and I don't really care. Your family's job wasn't my business in HS and it's not my affair now. My family has never been into exploitative industry and my grandfather even refused to use DDT when it was legal-- because he was a smart, conscious man who loved the environment as his surroundings, part of himself and his life. And like Maria said in one of those films-- "I don't owe you a job". Nobody guarantees me a job and they never have. People that do something they hate or that they feel is morally wrong are selling their own souls-- and I know that I have compromised myself in driving a car, in using electricity, in drinking treated water and I have regrets about that, but I am working on what I believe is right.

I know protecting my water, and the structure of the land is RIGHT. Protecting the headwaters is right. Putting the lives of people who depend on clean water above those who want to get paid to pollute water is RIGHT. So what if I drive a car right now? I am working toward not depending on a commute. I am working on growing my own food, and creating wealth of values I hold true independent of the national economy-- PEOPLE, WATER, FOREST , SOIL--

I'm not perfect- I am intolerant. I am conflicted. I drive slower in the snow and ice as the temperatures drop. I don't need to lose traction to know my limits. I don't have to self medicate with drugs and alcohol or prescriptions or porn or sodas or smokes and I think that being and praying is all I really have to accomplish in any moment to be worthy of a place on the planet, including access to clean drinking water, clean air and the right to pursue happiness.

I am not a raw foodist, but I think they are wonderful and smell great and I love the energy of raw foodists and I would love to live in their ranks. I am not a vegan by any means and adhere more closely to the perma-cultural models of having animals to create healthier soils. I am afraid there are many who find keeping animals exploitative, and I do try to understand that sentiment, but I do not agree with it. I do abhor shark finning. I do love sharks, elephants, tigers, and mountains. Some people believe that means I would never keep a dog in a kennel-- but it does not. I will even crate a dog for training purposes, so don't think I'm going to go burn down a lab, cause I'm not. I'm not going to throw paint on a fur coat. My problem is that I would rather see furs made from domestic cat than from wild cat or lynx-- I think wild animals deserve some freedom to be wild. I am not sure how the whole eating and animal thing got into this entry, but I think it is the similar way that driving a car gets mixed up with certain reckless mining practices.

some things are phasing out-- like driving on the regular, and some things are just stupid-- like eating fast food on the regular, like blowing up mountains for your night light
okay enough already

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