Thom actually posted this a while back. Sorry it took me so long to putting it up here. This is the fifth lie used to support the mountaintop mining industry, that we need to blow up our Appalachian mountains for what is called “energy security.”
Thom Kay, Legislative Analyst for Appalachian Voices, explains how mountaintop removal provides such a small amount of the fossil fuel used for electricity production and how hollow this argument is. One thing that Thom could have mentioned is that ever since the original OPEC oil embargo the phrase “energy security” has been used by the fossil fuel industry as a rhetorical device anytime that the industry wants to loosen regulations on drilling and mining or when they are trying to pave the way for an additional pipeline.
Once you couch your argument for more drilling or mining in terms of “security” you’re no longer talking about profits for your company or dividends for your investors, your talking about winning the war, Old Glory, mom, and apple pie. Industry knows how useful this rhetorical device is. Use it and those who oppose your efforts to loosen fracking restrictions, eliminate CO2 regulations, or get in the way of your mountaintop mine wind up looking like unpatriotic tree huggers.
A brief Proquest search on “energy security” in the New York Times shows the term taking off in 1979, in the wake of the energy crisis, then gaining some currency during the eighties. It began to die off in the nineties but experienced a resurgence after 2000, perhaps due to the rise of more neocon rhetoric floating around during the second Bush administration.
