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Culture Clash

Kendra Pierre-Louis | Tuesday 27th October 2009

Mountaintop Coal Removal courtesy of Clean Coal is Dirty

Last week I attended an Anti-Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining event, co-sponsored by Earth Justice and the coal ash is often improperly stored; just last year a billion gallons of toxic sludge spilled across 300 acres of East Tennessee.

And yet, despite all of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining's deleterious effects there are residents of the region who are reluctant to end the practice. I didn't understand why until I attended this event which featured a screening of the documentary film, Coal Country , which explains the effect of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining, followed by a brief concert by musicians from the Appalachia region. As I sat in the red velvet seats of New York's Town Hall Theater, I was pulled from the hustle and bustle of Broadway to the rolling hills of Appalachia. Sitting there, it struck me that although Sustainable Development is often framed as an ecological and an economic issue, at its core it's a cultural issue.

"Well, I was born a coal miner's daughter\ In a cabin on a hill in Butcher Holler\We were poor but we had love\That's the one thing my Daddy made sure of\ He shoveled coal to make a poor man's dollar" begin the lyrics to Appalachian native Loretta Lynn's famous song Coal Miner's daughter. This song is one of thousands, if not tens of thousands of songs from Appalachia that highlight the complicated relationship that Appalachians have had, throughout their history, with the coal mines. The mines give them enough to survive, but often little more, and are often the source of much loss and grief. However uneasy that relationship is, when carpet bagging environmentalists enter this region to say that coal is bad, they are in effect saying that the foundation upon which Appalachians have created their identity is bad, which in turn means Appalachians are bad too.

No wonder people resist.

Appalachia needs to shift away from coal for its own preservation. Not just because coal is environmentally toxic, but because the newer technology shifts means less people are needed to work the mines; machines are doing an increasing amount of the work. It will not be long before Appalachia has no coal, no mountains, no jobs and nothing to show for it but a polluted environment. Environmentalists, however, will not going to get very far if they ignore the cultural relationship that Appalachians have with the coal mines. The writer Antoine Saint-Exuprey wrote "If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea."

These are not stupid people; they, like people everywhere, want a bright future. But they do not want it at the cost of their sense of self. Those of us committed to the field of Sustainable Development, both nationally and internationally have to give people the space to articulate their vision for the future, and then show them how sustainable options can help bring those dreams to fruition. Appalachian's have already shown when given a choice between sticking with coal or taking a chance on wind, which means increased jobs and a cleaner ecosystem, they go for the latter. We just have to allow them the freedom and the framework within which to choose, and to accept, that they might say no.

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