local barbaric extraction

I am just finding out about a local barbaric extraction scheme trying to happen on Lummi Island. When you look at the video of what has already happened it's enough to break your heart. For the life of me, I cannot imagine how anyone could think it was a good idea to scrape away any part of a small island. In my book, this falls in with other insanity I call barbaric extraction.

This practice is going on steroids now that we have extracted all the easy stuff. We see it inAppalachia, the 2nd most diverse forest on planet Earth, where mountaintops are being blown off to strip mine the coal. And how did we get to a place where anyone thinks it's ok to destroy the Powder River Basin to extract the coal and ship it by rail across several states, the pacific ocean and then burned for energy. We are long past peak atmosphere. Coal, as a source of producing energy, should have long ago gone the way of whale oil.

We see it in at least 37 states(old numbers....2007) where undisclosed chemicals are blasted thousands of feet vertically and then horizontally to open seams to suck out the natural gas. As my sister said, "oh great, I never even heard of hydraulic fracturing and now I'm going to hear about it everywhere!" In all of these cases, including the proposed expansion on Lummi Island, externalities be damned. These industries put lipstick on the pig and sell these endeavors as assets to the communities. They promise revenues and jobs. They hire slick market-sters to bring the glossy Ads and paint a rosy picture. What isn't talked about is who pays for the unintended consequences and externalities. Fouled water, land and air will be put on our descendents credit cards and some of them haven't even been born yet. We will be dithering around for years to come trying figure out what to do in Bellingham bay and GP is long gone. Yes, there was money and jobs and they put the externalities on the kid's credit cards and moved on.

It's time to wake up! The natural resource orgy is over. We need to use the remaining resources to build infrastructure for local grids using local renewable resources. We need to quit devastating ecosystems to gorge on fossil fuels, gravel, water, wood and every other finite resource this Earth provides. We need to proceed as if our children and grand children's lives depended on our actions now.

I hope we will wake up and stop this devastating destruction on this small island in our county.