Thanks to the constant updates via my Twitter feed, this week I discovered NASA’s Earth Observatory website. This website shows satellite images of the Earth — many tragic (arctic sea ice), some providing glimpses of hope (burn recovery in Yellowstone) and some simply bizarre (the growth of Dubai.) Perusing the images and attempting to interpret the changes from image to image was intriguing until the time lapse of mountaintop removal stopped me completely. I no longer marveled at the ability to capture such images, I was sickened at what we are doing to our mountains in Appalachia. I’ve seen mountaintop removal sites in person, but these images clearly show the scale and the permanence of the destruction.

According to the website:
“Below the densely forested slopes of southern West Virginia’s Appalachian Mountains is a layer cake of thin coal seams. To uncover this coal profitably, mining companies engineer large