Out Loud Blog

I’d like to say that I made an honest attempt to ride my bike to work today in honor of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, but that would be a lie. Sometime last night, after a quick calculation of what I had to do before finally going to sleep and how many hours remained until morning, I knew I wouldn’t be awake early enough to commute via bike.

Instead, I took public transportation and made a vow to not use my car at all today. After work, I’ll spend some time in the park near my home. This evening, I’ll meet a friend at the coffee shop that’s within walking distance, where I’ll bring my own travel mug instead of using a disposable cup.

These are all small things, for sure. If you argued that I’m not doing anything that will make a noticeable impact on the environment, or lead to a drastic change in my own behavior going forward, you’d probably be right. (Let’s be honest. I usually take public transportation to work; it wasn’t exactly a sacrifice.) I won’t be saving the world by bringing my own mug to the coffee shop tonight, even if I choose shade-grown, organic, fair trade coffee beans.

But making a conscious effort to be aware of our actions can be a good first step, particularly on the 40th anniversary of an environmental holiday that, according to the Earth Day Network, “can be a turning point to advance climate policy, energy efficiency, renewable energy and green jobs … Earth Day 2010 is a pivotal opportunity for individuals, corporations and governments to join together and create a global green economy.”

I’ll keep taking my small steps, doing what I can in the moment, and hoping that others will, too. In the meantime, I’m going to dust off my bike, pump some air into the tires and give it a quick safety check. One of these days, I’ll wake up early, the sun will shine, and I’ll ride that bike all the way to work.

What about you – how are you celebrating Earth Day?

The Massey Energy Co., its CEO Don Blankenship and its board of directors have a lot of explaining to do.

Massey Energy operates the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia where 25 workers were killed and four are missing following an explosion on April 5. The mine, one of many operated by Massey Energy, received 53 citations from MSHA in March, many related to ventilation and build up of methane. In 2009, the mine received over 500 citations and was issued nearly $900,000 in penalties. These fines appear to be part of the cost of doing business for Blankenship and Massey Energy.

“Violations are unfortunately a normal part of the mining process,” Blankenship said during an interview with the Metronews radio network in West Virginia. “There are violations at every coal mine in America, and U.B.B. was a mine that had violations,” he added, referring to Upper Big Branch.

Despite its reputation as a dirty, dangerous occupation, mining can be a safe industry; just ask the dozens of companies that operate hundreds of mines where no workers have been killed or seriously injured. These owners and operators do not consider violations to be a part of doing business, nor do they consider safety as something that only should be addressed when production quotas are met.

That can’t be said of Blankenship. A memo sent by him to his deep mine superintendents in 2005 indicated the value safety holds for him.

In the memo, Blankenship stated, “If any of you have been asked by your group presidents, your supervisors, engineers or anyone else to do anything other than run coal (i.e., build overcasts, do construction jobs, or whatever), you need to ignore them and run coal. This memo is necessary only because we seem not to understand that coal pays the bills.”

Spoken like a man who would do anything – including knowingly operating an unsafe mine that had been evacuated three times in the past 2 months because of unsafe methane levels – to make a buck.

Criminal prosecutions of employers for negligently harming or killing workers are few and far between because overt negligence often is hard to prove. In this case, his own damning words might be just the evidence prosecutors need to make an example out of Blankenship, West Virginia’s own Nero, who fiddles while mines and miners burn.