Note: This post was written before the coal mine explosion in West Virginia. 25 coal miners have died after a huge explosion at a Massey Energy mine in Raleigh County in the worst mining disaster in the US in over 25 years. Read more about that at democracynow.org

The African American Environmentalist Association was asked in a letter should Black people own coal mines in a global warming world? The face of this request was Shane Evans, a mine dispatcher at Arch Coal’s Thunder Basin Coal Company.

Evans even throws in information in the brief video below about his brother fighting for our country in Afghanistan while he tries to do his part here in the states by providing “clean, efficient, low priced energy”. Coal puts out temperature-raising carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, furthering the global warming and climate change that fancy light bulbs won’t be able to save us from.

I wonder how this would be received if his brother was in Iraq, the bad war instead of in Afghanistan fighting the good war aka Obama’s favorite.

A lot of focus has been put on US foreign oil dependence and this conjures up images of brown boogiemen who hate your freedom, whatever that means. The fact is Canada is the largest supplier of petroleum and crude oil to the US. Brown people don’t show up on the list until you hit slot number, but those brown folks giving us oil are Mexican. Third is Nigeria with Saudi Arabia then Venezuela coming in at fourth and fifth respectively.

Our president has recently decided to reverse a decades old ban on oil drilling off much of the Atlantic coast. Alaska is also in the cross-hairs as if this never happened. He’s been looking to gain Republican support for the climate change bill and gain national security points. I think that’s a fail Mr. President. I think these folks would think so too.

The African American Environmentalist Association gave ownership of coal mines the thumbs up. I can’t help but to wonder why is the focus is on our foreign oil dependence instead of just our oil dependence?

Do you think Black people should own coal mines?

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