300 million people cannot exist without impacting the environment

Reading the above comments, (re: coalmining contaminating water in Pennsylvania, Dec, 2010, CARE2.com)  with all the finger-pointing and cries of "Greed!" makes me suppose that all readers of this thread must wear homespun clothes, grow all their own food and power their homes with windmill generated electricity, re-cycle everything, compost all food waste, use only their own septic field, own their property, have no debt, nor own any corporate stocks, in short have a negligible footprint on the world.

The sad truth is that coal is mined not merely for the greed (if it is greed) of the corporations but to sustain the developed nation in which we live, with its highways, lawful communities, national telecommunications system, universities, libraries, recreational facilities, medical institutions, and so on, all of which were built with the EXCESS wealth made possible by such industries as coal mining, mass production factories, and technology in general , none of which would exist if no fish died, no forests were harvested, no owls nor deer were displaced.

A developed nation of 300 MILLION people cannot exist as harmlessly as the nomadic plains indians did before the Europeans arrived 500 years ago.

Get real people. Wake up and smell the coffee.
btw, that too was imported from environment-exploiting nations for our enjoyment.

New Year's Thoughts 2011

New Year Thoughts

Cats on a window ledge;

death by degrees.

A Murder of Crows

Desperate, disparate, perched in a rough crowd;

redemptive souls, Buddha-like in new costumes.

Shiny feathers, slickered by sleet, sheathe them

against the cold, unfettered irony - their gang

self-deluded, Lords of the Road below

know nothing of their world beyond

a day’s flight. Bordered by night, the copse

is all their universe. Mighty crows -

pathetic carrion-eaters. Our brothers.

Xmas Afternoon

The cardboard box,

its sheer, echoing walls

once harboured owls

and, below, shaded among the boles,

furred, dappled trout, their ears-aprick,

maneuvered on tiny, cloven hooves

dodging wild, green-eyed death.

Now, it grows a cat.

New Year's Day

The polar bear club gathers.

Blue-lipped, red shoulders steaming,

they flounder loudly, no fur.

With scarcely enough blubber,

they plunge, wannabe seals

out of their element, daring death

to feel alive. They beckon me

to experience the gradient.

I jump in by degrees.