Conservation Thought: GEOG 3422, Fall 2007
Elizabeth Pike and Joni Palmer
December 5, 2007
Exercise #3
Mountaintop Removal: Utilitarianism
“Concentrated Wealth attributes the prosperity and progress of the United States to what
it calls free enterprise. To it free enterprise means freedom to take, keep, and control all the
resources, services, and opportunities it can, and charge for them the last possible cent,” (Pinchot
257). Mountaintop removal a newly developed technology of surface mining is destroying West
Virginia’s economy and ecosystem. The large corporations and government that back this new
form of natural resource extraction seek concentrated wealth and a maximum profit. As the
government and corporations gain and use power in the Appalachian region of West Virginia to
make a profit; the local people, exploited coal workers, and countless environmentalists disagree
with the practice of coal mining.
Many people agree that our country can’t survive and hold its
current lifestyle status without the extraction and manufacturing of natural resources such as
coal, but do they know the consequences that take place? If people were educated about the
practices that corporations use on the environment they may find themselves leaning towards a
conservation philosophy rather than utilitarianism.
The main utilitarian actor behind the destruction of the Appalachian Mountains and its
ecosystem in West Virginia is the Massey Energy Company. The Massey Energy Company is
the fourth largest coal producer in the United States. The man behind the company’s production
of 40 million tons of coal annually is CEO and President Don Blankenship. This corporation has
strong personal political ties and uses them to advocate Mountaintop removal.
Gifford Pinchot a
progressive conservationist of the 1900’s would find some compatibility with the Massey Energy
Company. Pinchot a man that holds utilitarian and anthropocentric values would agree with the
This
preview
has intentionally blurred sections.
Sign up to view the full version.
Massey Energy Company’s use of nature as a benefit to humans. Coal, the number one

This is the end of the preview.
Sign up
to
access the rest of the document.
- Spring '08
- PIKE,E
- Geography, Gifford Pinchot, Massey Energy, Massey Energy Company
-
Click to edit the document details