I've heard too many Chicken Littles' running around screaming,

Environmentalists are too pathological, too idealogical to deal with this energy crisis. If not coal, then what? they say.

How will your local community run without us? The coal developers say that.

There's a basic economical rebuttal to this.

In Montana, coal-fired power plants generate two-thirds of the total electricity produced in the state but the Energy Information Adminstration reports that "Just over one-fourth of Montana's coal production is used for state electricity generation; Montana delivers the remainder to more than 15 states."

With this in mind, does it make any sense for our state government to claim eminent domain of our coal? Why do officials list reasons for sustaining our dependency on such a fossil fuel when there's no need to produce the amount we're producing for other communities in other states?

And if we do decide to make a killing in the marketplace, shouldn't we focus our energy on assuring Montanans and our neighbors that what electicity we're sending out is something we can be proud of- something that is produced ethically? Or to put it simply- why in the hell wouldn't we take action to create enough renewable energy to fuel our body politic before making enough to line our pockets with the dusty, dirty, old news stuff?


The question is not, 'Do we give each type of energy producer an equal chance to compete in our eventual energy policy?' because this framing assumes that

A) people are taking into account energy production vs. environmental cost

and

B) all forms of energy generation emit the same cloud (or no cloud) of CO2 into our atmosphere

And if you were to consider this first question and assume the risk we put to our state's environment (and in fact the very Earth we live and recreate with) you put a dollar amount on our Mountains, our Parks, our Rivers and our Streams.

The thing that scares me the most is his upfront assertion that private industries have even the slightest responsibility to public wellfare. He defended this assertion in May of 2005 when he said the following about state-owned coal reserves in Otter Creek, Montana- "So clearly we can move mountains in terms of bringing private resources to bear here. The state can help in training people to run it, siting pipeline and bringing financial instruments to bear.''

I take this to mean that with oversight provided by residents of Montana, we can ensure the ethical treatment of our creeks.

Something tells me there's nothing new about this. From about the mid-ninetienth century up until 1900 this state saw the rapid extractions of every piece of gold, copper, silver, etc. the Robber Barons could find. These bastards left numerous calamities for the public, some of which (ie. the Milltown Dam) are en-route to being solved today in 2007! Historian K. Ross Toole uncovered this- it is no secret!

So why, with this expansive history dictating time and again that out-of-state interests bamboozle the public with claims of employment and quick profits, would we subject our environment to more of the same?

Is one governor going to come along and change things by offering in one hand a promise of good land stewardship while picking away at our coal reserves with the other?

Climatologist Steve Running once told me that just because the black rock is there does not mean we have to exploit it. There was a fantastic song that i've heard Pete Seeger sing called "Don't Ask What a River is for."

The Chorus goes like this-

Come a rink-a-tink a-tink-tink bubbling on

Don't ask what a river is for

Come a rink-a-tink I think for a million years

Let's ask for a million more

On the Oregon-Idaho border

You can find a big trickling stream

They call her "Old Hell's Canyon"

But to me she's a heavenly dream

Chorus)

Oh, the farmers down about Lewiston

They say, "What a terrible waste

That water sure could grow good crops"

We say "Don't be in such haste"

(Chorus)

And the power boys over in Portland Town say

"We need electricity"

But you damned the Snake ten times already

Why don't you let the rest stay free?

(Chorus)

And the power boys over in Idaho say

"Oh, what a terrible waste"

We say "Take a trip to the Pentagon

If you like to do somethin' 'bout waste"

(Chorus)

So come along to the Idaho border

Be you black or brown or just tanned

Take a trip on the old white water

And be glad for a beautiful land

Come a rink-a-tink a-tink-tink bubbling on

Don't ask what a river is for
Come a rink-a-tink I think for a million years
Let's ask for a million more

What Governor Schweitzer is truly asking the citizens of Montana to do is to regress into the times of the Anaconda Copper Mine when we left our future to non-Montanans. Thanks, but no thanks governor.

Let's take the additional costs and look at them from the perspective of investments for the day when fossil fuels will seem as unneccesary to Montanans as subway fare.