Native Kentuckian and actress Ashley Judd is one of the latest celebrities to join the fight against mountaintop removal mining. In a recent press tour that’s found Judd speaking out against the destructive practice, she did an interview with readers of the Daily Kos. In it she revealed that Oprah Winfrey is considering doing a show that is devoted to MTR. For anyone that wants to see an end to mountain ranges being blown up with dynamite while valleys and streams are filled with the resulting waste, this little nugget of info is huge. Sure, it’s great that Judd is getting the word out, but Oprah’s level of celebrity is meteoric in comparison. Her daily talk show reaches over 30 million people a week, and she is broadcast in over 100 countries. Just picture a desperate Appalachian family sitting in the studio talking about the cancer clusters in their holler or the black murky water coming out of their faucet in front of a sympathetic audience with tears running down their faces. It might be the only way the message that environmentalists, scientists, and journalists have been trying to send finally resonates.
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