They are on my local stations in Fairmont. They show biologists working on streams and with wildlife radio antennas making sure the power lines don't damage the environment. They brag that their towers are darkened steel so they blend in, etc.
From: Mary Wimmer [mailto:monwimmer@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, October 06, 2008 7:49 PM To: Grubb, Karen Subject: Re: Walker Machinery AD
I have not seen PATH advertisements.
On 10/5/08, Grubb, Karen Karen.Grubb@fairmontstate.edu wrote:
So is PATH.
From: Mary Wimmer [mailto:monwimmer@gmail.com] Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2008 8:16 PM To: Jim Sconyers Cc: Michael Price; william.depaulo@gmail.com; sallywilts@yahoo.com; regina1936@verizon.net; matt_keller@tws.org; Grubb, Karen; freesource@cheat.org; jkotcon@wvu.edu; mdavis@hsc.wvu.edu; daves@labyrinth.net; bill.price@sierraclub.org; blittle@citynet.net Subject: Re: Walker Machinery AD
Coal surely is spending a lot on TV advertising these days -- fancy ads that grab you at first until you realize where they are from -- turns my stomach!
On 10/5/08, Jim Sconyers jim_scon@yahoo.com wrote:
Bizarre would be an understatement! What are they smoking over there...???
Jim Sconyers jim_scon@yahoo.com 603.969.6712
Remember: Mother Nature bats last.
----- Original Message ---- From: Michael Price greyhawkwv@verizon.net To: william.depaulo@gmail.com; sallywilts@yahoo.com; regina1936@verizon.net; matt_keller@tws.org; monwimmer@gmail.com; kgrubb@fairmontstate.edu; freesource@cheat.org; jim_scon@yahoo.com; jkotcon@wvu.edu; mdavis@hsc.wvu.edu; daves@labyrinth.net; bill.price@sierraclub.org; blittle@citynet.net Sent: Friday, October 3, 2008 8:39:52 PM Subject: Walker Machinery AD
This is Walker Machinery's response to their Yes, Coal Clean, Carbon Neutral Coal !
mike
YES, COAL.
Clean, carbon neutral coal.
Science and technology are reengineering coal to be clean and carbon neutral for the 21st Century. This goal and commitment can put thousands of West Virginians to WORK - meaningful and purposeful WORK that respects the environment and strives to diminish and eliminate all types of emissions that may be harmful.
This reengineering is well on the path to providing clean, carbon neutral coal that provides meaningful WORK for researchers, scientists, utility technicians, natural resource workers, computer engineers, and yes, coal production ... all high-tech, high-wage WORK opportunities. This rising tide of clean coal will unquestionably lift the quality of life and multiply meaningful, purposeful WORK opportunities for ALL WEST VIRGINIANS irrespective of industry, professional, or consumer economic sectors.
The evidence of this WORK commitment can be seen in the vast and urgent research by colleges, universities, private research, think tanks, and governmental entities. All are eager to make coal use clean and carbon neutral. Institutions like Marshall University, West Virginia University, as well as our neighbors at Virginia Tech, Penn State, and the University of Kentucky are expanding opportunities in clean energy and environmental sciences to provide purposeful WORK for their faculties and our students. Additionally, the National Energy Technology Laboratory in Morgantown, W.Va., works tirelessly and successfully to improve coal's continued viability.
The overwhelming need for clean, carbon neutral coal in the 21st century will stimulate the migration of our sons and daughters back to West Virginia. That influx of human treasure re-ignites WORK opportunities, reunites families, and revives our state's economy causing a new revolution of infrastructure development and social awareness.
While coal opponents selfishly ask West Virginians to "sit out" the nation's greatest energy boom and WORK opportunity of our lifetime, we find this unacceptable and unfair to working families. Furthermore, it is contrary to our mountaineer spirit that seeks to share our resources and work for the greater good of all our country.
Coal, which represents 52% of America's electricity production, cannot simply be ignored. Going forward, it is imperative that West Virginians understand that clean, carbon neutral coal is paramount to energy, economic, and national security while providing a healthy and safe environment. Even the most rapid pace of alternative energy development, which we must all support, cannot save us from the present need for expanded and uninterrupted supply of our nation's energy. Clean coal technologies, utilizing integrated gasification and carbon capture and storage, provides honest WORK, a safe, healthy environment, and must be enthusiastically supported by informed and caring West Virginians.
Building coal to liquid plants offer WORK of the highest purpose. By expanding WORK into transportation solutions, like coal-to-liquids, West Virginians can lead the nation to lower gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel prices. That puts money in the family budget. This can lessen our dependence on foreign oil through greater fuel diversity and competition ... hallmarks of a free market society. It will strengthen national security.
It is important that West Virginians loudly sound the alarm to their leaders at local, state, and national levels to aggressively and generously fund Clean, Carbon Neutral Coal technologies that will KEEP WEST VIRGINIA WORKING. We must say it loud, proud, and often.
Especially now, as our economy grows more fragile, West Virginia can ill-afford coal's opponents to deny us our honest day's WORK. It is troubling that coal's opponents, using our courts, have placed benthic macro-invertebrates (bugs) at a higher moral standing than the citizens of West Virginia who need lucrative, dependable WORK. In a desperate attempt to stop coal mining, coal's opponents have artfully and guilefully turned to the judiciary via utilizing the complexities and ambiguities of the Clean Water Act to present a very technical representation of our ecosystem. They present an argument that is extremely debatable among experts yet really defies common sense. It defies science and common sense, in that we are expected to believe, that as rock and dirt are moved to the dry ditches near the tops of mountains, that the benthic macro-invertebrates (bugs) will be destroyed, thus impacting the entire ecosystem and all life as we know it. The mining community, more than any other, is keenly aware of the ecological science involved in the benthic communities' importance in determining the health, structure, and function of streams including headwater. By law and regulation, they protect these relationships through mining design and mitigation. The rains fall and the rainwater flows over and throughout the mining areas perpetually and naturally as always. It is important to note that these creatures have lived and adapted here for millions and millions of years before man. They inhabit almost every square foot of the watersheds across this great globe, within and outside mined areas. This is hardly criteria for extinction or endangered species. Although metamorphosis times vary, (a lifecycle of an egg, nymph, and adult most often lasts less than a year, perhaps more, depending on the insect order), they quickly breed and die naturally sometimes within a day or two. They do not have house payments, car payments or student loans. In truth they quickly re-inhabit the reclaimed and often mined lands to repeat their biological destiny and breed in large quantities we can't imagine. If this logic of coal's opponents would carry forward by the courts, human beings could not build roads, homes, hospitals, schools, cities, or communities for fear of such an ecological Armageddon. As if it mattered, more bugs are killed overwhelmingly by car windshields or "bug spray" than mine sites. Are we on such a destructive path that a human being's right to WORK and moral standing is subordinate to a bug or anything we wish to relate as nature? Is man not part of nature and higher moral standing? Is this judicial perseverance by coal's opponents and subsequent manipulation what it has come to? As any truly informed person knows, an industry that is accused of covering streams that are not streams, with waste that is not waste, in valleys that are not valleys, with bugs having the moral equivalency of human beings in our court system, is distressing and disappointing. It appears that coal's opponents don't really want the public to know they have placed "bug" welfare above that of working West Virginians in Judge Chambers' court, just to stop mining and perpetuate an anti-corporate agenda. Amazingly, the judge agreed with coal's opponents. Sometimes it must be difficult to separate the twists and turns of flawed logic or judicial eloquence from just good common sense. It further makes no sense whatsoever to repeat this judicial "Groundhog Day" movie on mining over and over and over.
That's why the Walker Machinery "bug" ads are causing such stir among the anti-coal crowd. It's so ridiculous that it required a "bug character" to do so. Hopefully, a curious public will search beyond the bug character to find out the truth, which has not been fully vetted in the media or by our silent government. The grim consequences and full gravity of this situation has yet to play out. If this case is not overturned on appeal, this state hasn't really seen hard times yet. It's a cruel blow to good people just wishing to WORK ... feeding their families, providing electricity, and national security for our country. Attacking the workers or their employers as enemies of the planet makes no sense at all. Anti-coal forces don't really care. Do you think coal's opponents will support clean carbon neutral coal? No, the anti-coal, anti-growth, anti-business, anti-work crowd won't do that either. They simply ask us to forfeit our paychecks.
The coal industry seemingly gets no credit at all for the beautiful reclamation and the truly small footprint of mining across West Virginia's 15 million acres. Reclaiming the land with bushes, grasses, and now hardwood seedlings that will gobble up more carbon dioxide is actually a step toward becoming carbon neutral. Again, no credit. To learn more watch the History Channel's, "Life After People" or search www.history.com http://www.history.com/ to get a sense of how nature rapidly reclaims her own. Though not meant to trivialize the industry's need for stewardship in any way, this media shows that man's activities are but a blip on a dynamic and ever-changing planet. Our mining activities and all other may become indistinguishable one day. But for now ... coal ... YES, COAL ...clean carbon neutral coal will WORK for West Virginia. Please support this meaningful and purposeful WORK as if our state depended on it ... because it does.
Comments may be sent to: comments@walker-cat.com