Just say no to Coal liquefaction!

I personally oppose coal liquefaction for many reasons. First, replacing one fossil fuel with another one is a flawed idea. Second, the increased demand for coal which has all kinds of negative costs to people who should be encouraged to leave mining as a nightmare of the past. Third, how to solve the negative impact on our environment from the carbon emitted for the burning of coal. Lastly, say we don't do underground mining but hilltop removal instead which destroys our environment in ways where it can never be regained.

First, replacing one fossil fuel with another one is a flawed idea. We should all know by now that fossil fuels take a very long time for the planet to create. Why would we invest in another fuel which has a limited life span when we already know what the end result of limited resources will come to in the future?

Second, the increased demand for coal which has all kinds of negative costs to people who should be encouraged to leave mining as a nightmare of the past. As the daughter of a coal miner, I can personally tell people that there is no greater pain then waiting to see if you father is coming home alive. I would not wish that on any child in the future in this country. Coal companies have no respect for the lives of the people who work for them. Just because the demand would increase does not mean that safety would increase in the coal fields. I grew up in the coal field of Southern West Virginia were I and most of my childhood friends now have rare forms of cancer. Could it have been the red river that ran by my home as a child because of mining activities upstream?

Third, how to solve the negative impact on our environment from the carbon emitted for the burning of coal. We all trust power companies to follow the rules not to emit pollution into the air we have to breathe in after all they have such a illustrious tract record of that in the past right?

Lastly, say we don't do underground mining but hilltop removal instead which destroys our environment in ways where it can never be regained. Again I grew up in those hills. I have seen the results of hilltop removal. I can personally tell you that flatten the ground and throwing grass seed on it is not replacing an environment that was truly a complex system built up by nature over millions of years. We have a limited number of these types of complex environmental systems due to human population so do we really want to destroy something that can not be replaced in our lifetime or even that of our children or grandchildren. Right now the people in the coal fields have been turning to the industry of tourism and protecting the environment to product a living do we really want to turn back the clock and encourage them to destroy the environment like they did in the sixties. I don't think so…

This country must say no to coal liquefaction to protect the future of our families and the environment. There are too many other forms of energy that are cleaner and do not require the sacrifice of human life for us to take the easy way out with this issue. We can not live in the past where the lives of low income individuals did not matter and where the environment took a back seat to progress. We will have a new president in just less than a year and I know that our country will once again start to move in the right direction when it comes to the issues of energy independents and the environment.