Outrage at environmentalists

By JOHN L. ANDERSON Salt Lake City

Editor,
As a 70 year old uranium miner, and a descendant of a coal miner, I was absolutely outraged at the attitude of B.J. Sharp-Gudmundson in a recent paper.
Her environmentalist attitude has caused untold misery, sorrow, and damage to this nation. Being a coal miner is an honest, honorable occupation, whether she thinks so or not.
I lost my job in the uranium mines, when her hero, Jimmy Carter, destroyed the nuclear industry 30 years ago. I am sure that this elitist has never been out west, but knows all about our mountain tops being destroyed and all the other things we are accused of including “mucking up the drinking water.”
It would be nice to be an Alice in Wonderland, like the environmentalists, who don’t need to work in the mines, or livestock industry, or cut down the beautiful forests for lumber and exist on nothing.
We could just live off welfare that is funded by hard working miners, lumberjacks, and ranchers, and we would not need to work anymore as our homes would be automatically heated by clean, sun-powered energy for free and we would no longer need polluting vehicles to get around and no longer need to eat meat that was raised on some horrible, polluting, ranch or farm.
All existing farms and ranches could be shut-down and the land reclaimed into beautiful weeds and grass. It could become future wilderness areas. How wonderful.
I wonder how they would get around? If they lived in their non-polluting caves like cavemen and minded their own business they could have the perfect non-polluting world, except they would have to replace fire to heat their tofu, granola, or whatever, as fire produces smoke, which causes pollution.
It is a national shame and disgrace that someone who enjoys all the benefits of our country, wants to destroy the very industries that made our great standard of living possible. I am also outraged that this elitist would call coal mining a “ruthless industry.”
I would be most happy if this person would catch the next moon rocket and live on an orbiting, non-polluting, space station somewhere, and live a perfect, non-polluting existence far, far, away from us terrible people who enjoy our standard of living and working in the coal and uranium mines.
Maybe this elitist could come out west and get a good, healthy, non-polluted, drink of water from the Great Salt Lake. There are no coal mines anywhere near the lake to “muck up the water.”