We are more than ‘uninformed sheep’

This letter is in response to your article on Alaska Department of Natural Resources’ decade-long renewal of Usibelli Coal mine’s Wishbone Hill Permit.

As the state and nation look to the not-so-distant future, we seem to be struggling on how to redefine our nation as a continuing economic superpower.

Financial powerhouses, while still making capital gains, are definitely not the answer. Their intangible, and arguably offensive, market exaggerations led our nation down a path to economic dependence on consumption of useless consumer products — products designed by market ideologies based on forced product obsolescence. Our houses were built shoddily, our cars couldn’t compete with foreign products and our manufacturing sector plummeted to dismal levels of domestic output. Except for the banking and investment industry, any informed citizen should have seen the reality of the U.S. economic bubble leading up to our multi-year recession.

Now as we listen to media pundits on both sides of the political scale, aspiring politicians and local government officials, it would seem that the answer to our economic woes lies in the development of our nation’s vast coal, oil and gas resources. The Alaska Department of Natural Resources just granted Usibelli Coal Mine a 10-year lease renewal on the Wishbone Hill area. They did so without even mentioning public input beforehand. DNR has once again showed that it does not believe in public process, but instead relies on reactionary political rhetoric to settle the issue out of their hands.

Unfortunately, the state of Alaska sees being pro-business as being at odds with the social, physical and environmental health of most Alaska residents. What’s more, even intelligent and politically informed Alaskans seem duped by the state’s “pro-business” tactics. I believe in research, public input and sound science, not religious or political rhetoric.

Wishbone Hill coal mine will be not good for our community. The suggested positive economic impacts linked to job creation are marginal at best, if not a futile attempt to hide the science showcasing coal mining’s devastating effects on communities close to mines. I am not against development, and for anyone to think the United States can continue without expansion of our oil, gas and mining infrastructure is ridiculous. But we risk setting a precedent with a coal mine like Wishbone Hill.

We don’t have to develop our resources at such a high cost to local communities. The science shows it’s simply not worth it. And, to be frank, no coal, ever, is clean coal. So, let’s look beyond the rhetoric, and for that matter, beyond the empirical social, climatological and biological health studies that directly show coal development in close proximity to communities is bad.

Let’s look to the future of our great nation. Let’s develop Wishbone Hill and the rest of Alaska’s coal. Furthermore, let’s develop all the coal in the U.S. Coal use is steady in the United States, but growing. New development of coal will quickly surpass North America’s demand and will create a glut of new coal, especially at the desired pace our political and business leaders are seeking.

Most coal will go overseas to Asian markets. More will be used as a shortsighted and cheap reason to continue delaying investment and research into renewable energy technology and transportation infrastructure. Infrastructure that would, at a minimum, diminish our reliance on foreign energy resources and increase energy efficiency nationwide.

This new glut of “cheap” coal supplies will also conveniently ignore the massive health and environmental costs that continue to push our country into a sickening level of debt we can hardly even contemplate repaying. Did I mention that all, not some, but all of the coal at Wishbone hill is already slated for Eastern Asia? South Korea, Japan and China do not care about the health of American citizens. Or do they?

Our new development and production not only causes increased local and global environmental issues, but goes further by creating new and more dangerous forms of economic dependence on foreign markets to need our labor. We worry about owing monetary debts to China, but not about providing it with coal and labor?

This coal inexorably creates wage slaves to supply energy to foreign economic powers. Is it our goal as a nation to allow China to do to the United States what we’ve done to Central America, sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian subcontinent?

The reality of this is sickening. I will not stand for outsourcing our energy and natural resources simply so a few corporate leaders can make a profit off hard working and unassuming Americans. I want real answers from the Alaska Department of Natural Resources.

I want real leaders in our state and federal government.

And most of all, I yearn deeply for a leaders who can actually provide tangible and constructive responses to the concerns their constituency.

I know this strays far from simply saying no to Wishbone Hill coal, but our government and supposed leaders treat us like uniformed sheep, perpetuate a state of economic fear and refuses to compromise and invest in the true human resources of our community.

Ed Kessler is a disgruntled resident living in Palmer.