In the last ten years, as cases of black lung among American coal miners doubled — hitting “epidemic” scale — the coal industry and anti-regulatory politicians have fought to prevent federal agencies from creating new standards that would improve miner safety. That’s according to an investigation from National Public Radio, The Center for … [continued]
According to an analysis, MTR coal mining results in a net loss of jobs.
Coal provides jobs. The jobs are dirty, they produce a product that’s harmful to the planet, hazardous to the health and welfare of the workers and their neighbors, but… hey, they’re jobs.
Besides, some of those jobs involve improving our mountains. They blow the tops off them, and haul away the coal, leaving flat tops, suitable for landing pads, parking lots, Nascar racing, or Appalachian soccer matches.
We focus on clean tech here on Cleantechnica (makes sense to, eh?), but sometimes we have to pause to take a look at the alternative and remember why clean tech is so important. There are a lot of public health, national security, environmental, and economic issues we can and do … [continued]
By now the name Don Blankenship is practically a household word all across the U.S. following the death of 29 miners at a Massey Energy coal mine, but Blankenship — the company’s CEO — has been well known in West Virgina and throughout Appalachia for some time now. Perhaps equally … [continued]
Mountaintop removal, the hyper-destructive practice of blowing up entire mountains to get at coal near the surface, is in for a rough ride. Though in technological terms mountaintop removal is downright third-world compared to the high tech sustainable energy industry, it’s still been going nonstop right here in the Appalachian … [continued]
