Mining with prayer & prejudice: West Virginia, evangelicals, and McCain unite to halt global warming

I THINK MINING is a blog about mining, not politics.  Fact is, however, that politics is a major factor in mining:  get the politics right, and you mine; get the politics wrong and you are undermined.   It is inevitable, in this season of high politics, that politics creeps into thinking.  Now let it burst into this blog.

I am delighted to see a Libertarian running for president:  Bob Barr who says: 

“The government has run amok fiscally.  During the first quarter of this year, the private sector lost millions of jobs while the federal government was hiring with enthusiasm.”

Give ‘em hell Bob.  We need less nonsense about gas tax holidays and more about the inordinate power that governments are gathering unto themselves.  Regulators may be good for consultants to the mining industry (more work) but they are a distinct drain on energy and progress.

In this regard, I notice that John McCain is uniting with evangelicals to support global warming initiatives.  Now see the Colorado Mining Association and Al Gore quake at the approach of the global-warming-initiative evangelicals. 

For one of the most extraordinary site I have chanced on in recent days, take a look at Evangelical Climate Initiative.  Their Prayer Guide for Global Warming, which reads in part, as follows, would get hearty support from Bob Lovelace as he sits in an Ontario jail for trying to halt mining in the name of the law of Algonquin Creation.

The earth is Yours and we are in Your hands.  You are the Creator and the Sustainer of all things…..We pray that You in Your grace grant us the wisdom to act with prudence and foresight, to protect the earth and Your children for generations to come.  We pray for those who are likely to be most hurt by climate change, both now and in the future.  God, grant that we might love our neighbors by controlling our global warming pollution and by generously aiding those who will need to adapt to a changing climate. 

As if miners did not already have enough on their hands: now they have to deal with religious philosophies ranging from eastern mysticism through Algonquin tribal to American evangelical.   Religion is a pretty personal thing and a terribly slipper slope on which to base mining policy.  See the following on the secular religion of the Greatest Good: 

Roger Lilly of Walker Machinery (supplies huge machines to coal industry) openly admits what the coal industry thinks of Southern West Virginia – that it should be a national energy sacrifice zone. Lilly says “…my daughter lived in Manhattan in New York. Manhattan is an area of 22 square miles. It has 68 thousand people per square mile. Boone County is 500 square miles. It has 50 people per square mile. We, we have an obligation to the greater good for the people. We export 70 percent of our coal. We have to, we have to provide electricity and power for this country for our urban brothers and sisters. We, we have a great responsibility here in West Virginia, and we can’t let that go.”  Note that in Lilly’s mind, coal is the solution to global warming.

Still, it is going to be fascinating to see how mining country, West Virginia votes in the primaries: a true bellwether of politics, mining, religion, race, and sacrifice [zones.]