Opinion: Perspectives from readers

I wonder if the benefits of typing this article outweigh the costs, because in doing so I pollute drinking water, destroy homes and spew greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

I am cutting down forests, filling in valleys and leveling mountains. I am destroying the homes of wildlife and people and introducing nonnative species to a wasteland I help create.

How? My computer cord plugs into an outlet that connects to power lines strung to the nearest power plant, where electricity is generated from coal. Nearly half the United States’ electricity comes from coal, about one-third of which comes from the Appalachian Mountains.

And the easiest way to extract coal from inside a mountain is to blast the top off. Literally. Of course the mountaintop has to go somewhere, so it slides down into the valleys, polluting water sources for local communities and causing coal dust to coat everything in sight.

Thus I act out injustice toward my neighbors while simultaneously preaching a gospel of sustainability.

God is a farmer who created humans in his image, to be caretakers for his garden. God lovingly planted each Appalachian tree and formed each chipmunk, trout and finch that resides there, finally adding humans to “work it and take care of it” (Genesis 2:15b). We clearly know how to work the land; it’s the taking care part we don’t seem to understand.

After blasting, digging and carting away, coal companies cover the wound with a scar, plant nonnative grasses and claim they have restored the natural habitat—perhaps they even improved it. However, God weeps over his uprooted gardens and devastated communities.

What happened to the caretakers he created? When did they become thieves? But I do not wish to place full blame on the coal companies, for in using electricity I am just as guilty as they are.

The passage “love your neighbor as yourself” appears seven times in the Bible. According to 1 Corinthians 13, love “is not self-seeking” and “it always protects.” The use of coal depends on selfish desires and protecting the right (or is it an undeserved privilege?) to cheap energy.

If my family switched to solar power, it would take 21 years for the solar panels to pay for themselves, and a wind turbine’s lifespan is too short for economic sustainability. Our electric cooperative provides a much cheaper option in the form of coal. However, it also exploits our neighbors and destroys the home we share.

My hometown in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia lies a half hour from West Virginia—the second-largest coal-producing state in the country. The people who pay for my electricity are my neighbors in more than one sense, as we both call the Appalachians our home.

When I think of loving these neighbors as myself, I imagine returning to the Shenandoah Valley to find trees felled and burned to make way for pits dug into a charred landscape, as if I’d wandered onto the set of The Lord of the Rings. I put myself on the hill where I live and turn to look at the mountains that encircle me, mentally dotting them with bare, jagged sores and constant explosions; the creek in our woods flows orange.

I do not wish this curse upon anyone, though nearly everything I do adds a pebble to the burden my neighbor carries. Even as I scan the Internet for ways to remove those pebbles, I pile them up, sucking coal through the cord that powers my computer.

I see hope in solar, wind, geothermal and other alternative energy sources that lie just beyond my grasp, but that perhaps will inch closer as time goes on. For now, I try to reduce my energy consumption by using lights only when necessary, unplugging small appliances when not in use and deciding what I want to eat before opening the fridge door. So here I sit, in my dark bedroom with blinds open to a cloudy sky, doing what I can to hold back the pebbles.

Serena Townsend is an intern for The Mennonite this spring.