My Project Topic Is Mountaintop Removal

On April 29, 1910, the largest forest fire in American history occurred. Some would come to know it as the Big Burn, or the Big Blowup. Later others called it the (the one that says it saved American landscape.) This travesty took more than 100 men. The impact it had on Americans was monumental. Timothy Egan’s The Big Burn, he writes about the many people who perished during this disaster. Stories of people who were engulfed by the flames at Bitterroot Mountain who had little chance of escaping their devastating fate. Even though this is still seen as a travesty, some look at it in a different way. Due to how large the fire was and how far it stretched, it made people aware of the importance to protect Americas forests and natural resources. During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, reform was occurring. The United States population was on a rise which had an effect on economic growth. This caused expansion in the consumer market and made way for an enormous amount of advancement in technology. Due to all of this, the demand for natural resources vastly increased. Inventions such as cars and trains consumed massive amounts of fossil fuels. Wood was stripped away from forests to make comfort items such as chairs, tables and other items for the large number of families now setting in the United States from foreign countries. People did not seem to pay much attentions to the effects these changes were having on the land. However, President Theodor Roosevelt had

For my summer reading, I chose to read Mountains Beyond Mountains: the Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World. I chose this book without reading the description and mainly based my selection on the great reviews for this book online as well as the fact that the author, Tracy Kidder, had won a Pulitzer Prize in the past. Ultimately, this book turned out to be as remarkable as the reviews stated it was.

Appalachia, a vast, beautiful panoply of lush green mountains. At least, most of the thin line of peaks that make up the Appalachian Mountains used to be that way. Currently, the continued spread of a method of coal extraction known as mountaintop removal mining has plagued areas of the eastern United States, mainly including the state of West Virginia. Throughout its increasing stages of implementation, mountaintop removal mining has caused numerous hampering effects, including causing serious harm to nearby residents, and polluting a once-pure environment. Because of this, mountaintop removal mining needs to be limited in order to preserve the natural state of the Appalachian Mountains.

What is the tone of this video? What is the purpose? Who is the audience? Did you like the video, or not? Why?

Picture yourself climbing the tallest mountain in the world, Mt. Everest. Many people have successfully scaled this mountain, but others have tried and failed. Mt. Everest has been called a Himalayan Wonder because of its geography and weather extremes (Urmann). By exploring the geography, the people who have tried to climb it, and the supplies you will need, one can see how brave the many people who tried to climb it have been.

A documentary called "From the Ashes" speaks about the employees, and communities that are supported by coal mines. In the documentary the director of Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign, Mary Anne Hitt, goes on to describe a "life and death struggle" when mine layoffs occur. This means that the employees will lose their pensions, healthcare, and basically their livelihood. It was believed that the increase of miner layoffs was due to environmental regulations, but that was proven incorrect by the US Energy and Information Administration. One of the leading causes is the increased use of natural gases, and a statistical analysis over a 6 year time period proves that when natural gas usage increases, then coal usage

Are you for coal or against coal? Maybe better yet, are you for the preservation of the mountains and nature or are you against it? These questions held such a deep meaning and understanding that on the surface seemed immaterial to large corporations such as the Coal Mining Industry or political leaders within the State of West Virginia. Combating Mountaintop Removal by Bryan McNeil gives us the views of what it looks like from a grassroots environmental activist within the West Virginia coal country. In the book you see how the social and moral arguments are framed from different agents such as the Ant-MTRM (Mountain top removal) organization, the Coal Miners and Union works, to the Coal Mining Companies, and finally the State through political

Coal in the United States has long been the #1 producer of energy. Massive seams of coal are found in the Appalachian Mountains, and our reliance on this fossil fuel has meant devastation for many mountain residents and over 500 mountains. As our society advances, the need for more energy advances. What were once beautiful rolling hills are now flattened plateaus reminiscent of a landscape you would see in the desert. We as a nation have only short-term interest in our environment, and choose to ignore the many warning signs this planet continues to offer us. Left in our path of destruction are the many residents of Appalachia and a landscape that begs us for forgiveness.

This paper will review past practices and policies relating to mountaintop coal mining, evaluate and analyze current research on the impact of coal mining on human health, and provide recommendations for further research guided by logic and in agreement with biblical truth.

As the Great Depression continued to tighten its grip on America, nature turned against many already suffering Americans. The Dusty Bowl, also know as the Dirty Thirties, was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damages the ecology and agricultural production of the United States and Canadian plains. Many farmers and ranchers were driven to the Great Plains by the American sense of expansion. The land they inhabited was used primarily for ranching till advances in agricultural mechanization and high grain prices caused by World War I, made agriculture more productive as ever; thus causing farmers to exploit the land in their attempt to make a large profit, setting up the region for an environmental catastrophe. As a result of over farming, a failure to implement dryland farming techniques-which would have prevented topsoil wind erosion-and a severe drought, 150,000 square miles of land in Kansas, Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico, faced havoc not previously seen in American history. The first “black blizzard” occurred in 1931, and they occurred till conservation efforts in the 1940s, but the damage had been done, reflected on the upturned land and record heat, as well as the unleashed swarm of locust and jackrabbits, causing terror in children and adults alike. Consequently, massive amounts of people migrated from the plains fleeing the storms, and those who stayed faced the harmful effects from the inhalation of dust particles.

Turk, J., & Bensel, T. (2014). Contemporary environmental issues (2nd ed.). San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.

The Dustbowl was a series of extreme and deadly dust storms in the nineteen thirties that caused severe droughts and destroyed farm land throughout the southwestern United States. The deadly dust storms took over seven thousand lives mainly due to dust pneumonia and other respiratory problems (“When Deadly Dirt Devastated the Southern Plains”). On April fourteenth, nineteen thirty five the worst dust storm in American history occurred. Commonly known as Black Sunday, the dust storm eradicated farms and caused thousands of people to migrate to San Joaquin Valley. Many people died that late afternoon, due to the dust filling their lungs. Not only had the Dustbowl taken thousands of lives it also cause economic damage. During that time America’s

In this article we see how two authors share their opinion on wether or not the earth is out of balance. The first author, Otis L. Graham, Jr., states how the earth is out of balanced because humans are exhausting it of all its natural resources. However, author Bjorn Lomborg argues how the earth is not completely out of balance and the way people have overstated how much of the earth's natural resources have affected mankind. The article states that since the beginning of American history it was clear that maintaining the Earth’s land was not one of the primary priorities. The first European settlers were more interested in taking the land instead of protecting and conserving it.

The video starts off with a group of friends riding their bikes and playing in the suburbs. The sun is out and it looks to be about midday. The weather looks to be about eighty degrees with only a few clouds out. This represents the cliché suburban life for these teens. However, the teens start noticing the decay of their suburban life at 1:20. They see smoke from what I assume to be an explosion far away with what looks like an attack helicopter heading towards it. This scene is only for a couple of seconds though, as the teens continue to play afterwards. At 1:53 you see a boy and a girl from the group of friends about to kiss, representing again the suburban life of teens falling in love and having fun without much worry. The video then switches between the teens playing and men with rifles in army uniforms, wearing black masks patrolling

Despite his original intent to motivate a crowd of striking sanitation workers, Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” served as his final words of support and encouragement to a nation still struggling with social problems and to future advocates of social justice and change. The rhetoric behind “Mountaintop” reveals King as a humble yet forthright and intelligent speaker whose convincing arguments and powerful voice directed his listeners to action. Under the “five canons of rhetoric”-invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery- “Mountaintop” is truly a captivating speech and an essential piece to understanding King’s legacy.