We’re destroying mountains, including their soils and forests, in order to get at the coal. In other words, we’re destroying a permanent value in order to get at an almost inconceivably transient value. That coal has a value only if and when it is burnt. And after it is burnt, it is a pollutant and a waste – a burden.
That statement is from Wendell Berry in a conversation with Bill Totten. The conversation covers a lot of moral ground on resource use, poliitics and sustainable life. I found it provacative. “If you take our present life and subtract cheap fossil fuel from it, what would we have left?”
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