This is impressive yet saddening. You can use Google Earth now to see the environmental destruction caused by mountaintop removal coal mining. It’s pretty shocking.
Google partnered with Appalachian Voices for this project. I’ve taken this description from Google’s blog about how you can see the destruction:
Look for “Appalachian Mountaintop Removal” under the “Global Awareness” folder of the “Layers” sidebar. You can take the site tour of a mountaintop removal operation, explore the featured mountains and affected communities marked with blue flag buttons, and use the slider bar to see high resolution images of these mountains before and after mountaintop removal.
If you’ve never downloaded Google Earth, I really suggest you do so. Not only can you use it for this, it has a lot of more fun applications as well. It really is an overall impressive program, and free to use. It’s free as a part of Google Pack, and you do not have to download the entire Pack if you just want Google Earth. For example, I don’t like the Google Desktop software, so I refuse to download that part.
Make sure you share this information with people you know who will care. You can make a difference.
Technorati Tags: mountaintop removal coal mining, google earth, environmental destruction, environment