Hundreds of Appalachian residents rallied on the steps of Kentucky's State Capitol on Wednesday (Feb. 12) for "I Love Mountains Day."
As always, much attention during the annual mid-winter event was given to environmental concerns. But, the December “Shaping Our Appalachian Region” summit brought renewed interest in tackling a variety of nagging economic and social issues.
Carl Shoupe of Harlan County says laying more broadband fiber for internet access could bring in needed industry.
“And the way the beautiful terrain mountains and stuff, this could interest some industries in that line of work to come to our area and create jobs in the, I’ll just say, internet field.” –Carl Shoupe
Kentucky author Wendell Berry believes there’s been a degrading of the land since the birth of America.
“And if you subtract what we’ve got now from what we had then, it would be alarming. We haven’t taken care of what we’ve got, so far, and I don’t see any indication from these officials that they’re going to or that they’re interested in it.” –Wendall Berry
Berry believes energy diversification is also needed to move forward. He says his family has three solar panels in place at his eastern Kentucky home.
