Google Earth Teams To Fight MTR

According to Plenty Magazine (which is a great magazine, btw), Google Earth is teaming up with ILoveMountains.org to fight mountaintop removal mining (MTR).  If you’re interested in learning more about MTR, I posted about this atrocity back in November.  

Google Earth agreed to partner with I Love Mountains and included the site’s National Memorial for the Mountains, the project’s first phase, as part of the Google Earth map software. The Memorial appears on a map of the eastern states as a field of 450 American flags spanning the Appalachian Mountains, each commemorating a ‘decapitated’ mountain. Zoom in close to a single mountain and there’s a step-by-step explanation of how machinery literally scrapes away peaks, and aerial photos of a site the size of Manhattan. via PlentyMag.com

If you want to see if your power company gets any of its electricity from the coal obtained in MTR, then just go to ILoveMountains.org and put in your zip code.  Here’s what I found out: Your electricity provider, ComEd - Commonwealth Edison Co, buys coal from companies engaged in mountaintop removal. I see my power plants on the map and also see the mine where they get some of the coal.  When I click on the mine, I find out information about it.  When I dig even further, I see that much of the coal comes from Rawl, West Virginia.  Then I get a story about the town and how MTR has affected it.   If you’d like to see some video stories, checkout their YouTube group.

I just also found out that there is a documentary called Black Diamonds which discusses MTR.  It’s an absolutely disgusting practice which until last year I didn’t realize was happening.

Black Diamonds

Source: Plenty Magazine