long time no speaky- i have been traveling & playing music, from sea to shining - some with robert plant & band of joy; some doing my own shows - busier than ever...taking music to the people, i say

even as i write i am on a plane from bna (nashville) to ewr (newark) then to lhr (london) - i am burning the candle & burning fossil fuels

i must report that having passed over w.va (west virginia) i have just flown over mountain-top removal alley for the last 30 minutes (@500 mph, that be a lotta bigga mountains topped)

i have never seen w my own eyes what level of obliteration this is...mountain after mountain is scraped bald with only tracks of the same scrapings leading off the mountain - some mountains look to be at least 2 miles square of dirt & debris

...wondering: what happens to the watershed & quality o' the water to life below? animal, human, plant -

wondering from 30,000 feet high: water still runs down hill, don't it?

i get the irony- i sit on a jet plane looking out a tiny window on my way to play music & musing - yet, folks, i count 14 mountain tops removed in one view at one time on one side of an aereoplane- and i am shocked - i never saw THIS before

i have seen the documentaries of the sick children & people; life down below the topped hills - i know that our govt. sanctions & funds this for the energy we all over-use stoking the electric plants that burn the coal so we can light up- like there's no tomorrow

and i know we have wars for petroleum & oil spilling in the gulf & obliterating mountains for coal

and i know there is brilliant forward thinking tech & science busting to get out into our daily lives (why does good change take so long?)

and i know i am burning jet fuel right now & my electricity at home is coal fire fed

i never saw it like this before

& i had to tell you of the view

darrell @ 30,000