Return power to the people

Without question, we are all hooked on electricity, inexorably drawn to the switch.  Now, you can literally walk into your house and say "let there be light" and some gadget will recognize your voice and turn on the light. We rush headlong into the man-made light of convenience knowing full well that the creation of all this temporary convenience requires the destruction of what God has given us.

As a nation with our total dependence on fossil fuel, we compromise our God-given resources and prostitute ourselves to our enemies to feed our energy habit. The affliction of excessive consumption is worldwide and it’s local. We are all part of the problem.

So let’s begin to clean up our own house first. Here in the Southern Appalachians, we have a more foreboding concern. We sit atop this "black gold" that all these people from here and from other places are so anxious to dig up, haul away and burn up! And now those whom we have placed in positions of trust are welcoming into our already ravaged mountains; the most despicable monster of all – a coal-fired power plant.

Sadly it comes to our midst, having been rejected by the rest of Virginia, yet welcomed here by ill-informed and shallow public officials. We need to be more aware of the impending problems we face as result of our Board of Supervisors’ actions. We need to hold their noses to the grindstone as the results of their decisions play out.

We, the members of Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards, encourage all to join us Feb. 11 and Feb. 12 at St. Paul High School. Discussion will begin at 7 p.m. This two-day event will afford the time for many to stand and be heard.

No one has all the answers, but if the conversation reaches far enough we will have a chance to do what is really best for the future of our mountain home.

It’s your home, it’s ours; and surely the most urgent task of mountain folk is to save the mountains. The destruction has gone on long enough. It is time for the healing to begin!

John Messer
Big Stone Gap, Va.