Erik Reece in the first 85 pages does a great job bringing his point across to the audience. He is not preachy or completely one sided. The I’s are prevalent in his writing but he is able to use it appropriately. His facts and knowledge is mostly expressed through the nature he observes, the experiences he observes and through the words of the people he communicates through his journey.
The best source he has so far in this book is Teri Blanton. Through her, the reader is introduced to many different aspects of the argument. She leads Erik Reece through a cemetery of people who died too soon due to the coal industries effect. She pointed out how nobody lives passed 55. Blanton informed Reese about the “killer well,” where anyone who lived around it died. She also introduced the government and business side to us. In her stay in Dayhoit, she has dealt with many coal companies harassing her because of her strong say in meetings and her successful plea to have the EPA check their contaminated waters. She successfully made Dayhoit a superfund site in 1992.
Reese’s explorations through the forest have painted an awesome picture. His comparison of the view prior to the strip mining to during the mining makes the audiences have to pity nature and the community surrounding. Words like “nasty orange syrup” describing water and the coal company having no “conscience or constraint” makes me picture a page out of “The Lorax” by Dr. Suess.
But, as compelling of an argument, the solution is not as simple as he sometimes puts it. Million dollar corporations put up a pretty good fight when there business is put at risk. And as far as jobs go, until people stop thinking of coal as a great place of employment nothing will be done. Lost jobs need to be replaced with new jobs. There are solutions but there are many stubborn people in the way of people learning that.
I have realized where I fit into this book. I am the consumer of coal that hasn’t opened my eyes to the coal industry. I am a typical American who is blinded by these issues because they are not my day-to-day problems. This book is made for a person like me to open my eyes and realize that, even though I don’t see it happening before my eyes, it is a problem.
On the job aspect, if coal companies were required to clean up the land, fix any damage to property and leave it the way they found it, hundreds if not thousands of new jobs would be created in kentucky and other mining states. The coal workers need to realize that we dont want them to loose their jobs, we just want them to mine for coal in a more responsible way.
ReplyDeletelooking is hard to do and we are not encourage to look. I know what you mean about jobs. I looked up our Ohio congressmen and they all accept money from power companies. Reece is concerned about the poeple and the jobs. I am not sure his answers are sufficient. I am not sure we can affford to keep trashing the mountains waiting for green jobs. But we do need tto take care of those people, coal workers included.
ReplyDeleteGeee, I feel better already.
I like your recognition of Reese's expression. I too was surprised with the vividness of his descriptions despite their length, which is usually a turnoff for me. Also, he does make it sound too easy to drastically change the coal culture of eastern Kentucky; I agree with you about the stubbornness of people.
ReplyDeleteNice Job recapping and analyzing these pages. I especially like your shout out to "the Lorax" haha (and it works too, cuz I think I know exactly the page you're talking about.)
ReplyDeleteAnyways, just for the sake of argument and to play the devils advocate, I'll comment on Max's above comment: Sure implementing a policy where coal companies have to clean up after themselves will create jobs, but it will also cost more....and a lot of that will likely come from tax dollars.
The more I learn about this issue, the more I realize that its like an onion in the sense that there are so many layers to it....and it's completely a double edged sword...You have to be extremely delicate in dissecting this issue.
Agreed with Max's idea, but I might at that it may be a different solution to possibly re-route the runoff to another area. We cannot put a stop to coal mining until other means of energy sources are found, so until then we need to find a better way to take care of the aftermath. An idea might be to create a wind energy plant on top of these mountains to create more jobs and to further get use out of the top of the mountains. It seems to me quite useless to just leave the mountain bare without reaping some sort of benefit.
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