Excellent post as always.

Growing up in a coal mining town in the Appalachians and loving the environment as much as I do was a huge conflict for me... Coal mining was the economy and I kind of wanted the whole area to move towards a better solution for energy (solar or wind) as it would have been possible.

When the coal miners started losing their jobs, my whole area was hit hard and hardly anyone had money for anything. But that's neither here nor there.

Coal has been in the news a lot lately, what with climate change and Donald Trump's promise to restore coal mining jobs.

Jobs are coming back, but, not as much as Trump promises. Need buyers of coal or mining coal is useless so until Trump or whoever can convince countries they need coal from the US people should not get their hopes up.

Also, coal is absolute shit to peoples' lungs. Some of my family members have it, it sucks.

As the grades get higher, the coal produces fewer harmful toxins- though it's never free of them- and more greenhouse gases.

This is the "clean coal" people are trying to push. They say they can process any coal through treatments to make it less harmful... hogwash.

Sorry for ranting.