I consider myself a conservationist, but not an environmentalist. What's the difference? For me, it's subtle shift in emphasis between taking care of the environment for the sake of humans ("conservation") and the elevation of nature and animals over humans ("environmentalism"). And when I talk about human needs, that involves a balance between the need to use natural resources, and the need to keep the place pretty and biologically diverse.

If I have to choose between a person and lizard, the person wins. Sorry, Greenpeace. (Not that they truly care about the lizard, either. But it helps them rake in the cash -- even moreso with the "cuter" species.)

So I've been in favor of drilling ANWR (the area in question is unremarkable, remote, and smaller than St. Louis's Lambert field airport before it's recent expansion), am fine with off-coast drilling (provided hefty fines are levied for spills), and have defended the administration on a number of absurd charges.

But I'm entirely against this. Mountaintop strip mining is ugly as sin, and, although the plants will eventually return, you sure can't put the mountains back once they're gone.

The Bush administration is set to issue a regulation on Friday that would enshrine the coal mining practice of mountaintop removal. The technique involves blasting off the tops of mountains and dumping the rubble into valleys and streams.

It has been used in Appalachian coal country for 20 years under a cloud of legal and regulatory confusion.

The new rule would allow the practice to continue and expand, providing only that mine operators minimize the debris and cause the least environmental harm, although those terms are not clearly defined and to some extent merely restate existing law.

I plan to call and leave a message indicating my opposition.