The above represents assorted POV's. I screwed up some of the links.

It clearly comes down to 'what do you value.'

I looked only at WV related sites, but Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania all have MTRS.

The 'for' links are all industry sponsored sites. Consider the WVGS site an industry sponsored site. The 'agin' sites are all environmental sites, some grassroots and some not.

I look squarely from the POV of envirnmental protection, not only because I ascribe to the view that all creation has equal intrinsic value, but also because long term, it is best for the survival of the human species. However, environmentalists must start giving serious attention to the short term (meaning two, or even three generations) economic impact on the people who mine the coal, fish the sea, pump the oil, cut the trees or grow the veggies. These are mostly one engine economies with few possibilities for significant development of alternative or more diverse economies. At least not 'greener' economies.

As you sit at your computer with your AC running, the stereo and television blaring, the freezer humming, the dishwasher swishing, complaining about your electric bill, ask yourself what you are truly willing to sacrifice to reduce the demand for electricity, or how much you are willing to pay for electricity so that is extracted or generated at a much higher price.

How many of us are willing to consciously embrace a much lower 'standard of living' so that future generations, and the other creatures of the earth might have a longer term chance of survival. Will you knowingly and willingly give up the hope that you can help your child finance a college education? Hell, how many of us would gladly give up DSL?

How many of us are willing to really and significantly reduce our demands on the environment? How many of us are willing to sacrifice our jobs, our roots, to risk our homes to foreclosure, our ability to feed our families tommorrow for the sake of the environment?

To the extent we are unwilling to make sacrifices in the same measure as we expect of those we call 'idiots' for not making those choices, we are nothing but hypocrites.

In this post-modern age, it is the consumer who ultimately fuels the 'self-will run riot' engine of completely amoral American capitalism.

Bush hasn't declared war. We have. Handled by the entrenched power of not just big, huge money, he is simply an opportunist.

Janie