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Also known as Mountain Top Removal, this is an emerging environmental concern out there. According to http://www.ilovemountains.org/science/ this scientific study 'confirms what coalfield residents have been saying for years: mountaintop removal's impacts are "pervasive and irreversible," "attempts to regulate [mountaintop removal] practices are inadequate," and that "regulators should no longer ignore rigorous science." '

Zach Holz recommended this book to me before the break, and I heartily pass on his recommendation now that I've finished it.  There is a great deal of ecological relevance -- overpopulation, mountaintop removal mining, songbird protection -- in the storyline, but ultimately it is about a family, dysfunctional in basically all ways. Just now mulling over the ending (which I won't spoil), I wonder whether it takes someone as utterly disconnected from humanity as Walter (the dad) was to see the ecological truth of our trivial actions, such as letting cats outdoors?  And so, what does this mean for those of us who don't qualify as misanthropes?

So, we can (and should) address domestic poster-child coal issues such as mountaintop removal, but let's not get complacent about the larger coal market: this article talks about the role China will play as a huge source of consumption.  What to do?

I'm not going to lie, I didn't see this coming. I'm sure many analysts did -- the U.S. makes tighter coal related regulations, but there is still tons of coal under the ground to be mined. Consequently, it should only make sense to the king of market economy countries that we would export the resource we can't use to a country that can. For all members of groups that have been working against coal domestically, this represents one of the biggest losses they can imagine. After making strides on regulation, one person quoted in this article said that it was one step forward (at home), but ten back (for the world). I've at least operated under the idea that if we can make coal unpalatable enough, we would stop burning it. We're working towards that, as is Europe. But the fact remains that there are "jobs" to be had mining, money to be made exporting, and so the story goes. And even if the U.S. were to regulate coal exports (which is something the free trade maniacs of the new Congress will never, ever let happen), China would turn to Australia, or Canada, or Brazil. This dilemma is crying out for a comprehensive strategy of global cooperation on climate change. But, as is most likely the case, Cancun will slide by, no new agreements will come out of it, and this new coal challenge will become just another part of the mired story of the inability of the world to stop burning all that it is burning. One of those rare and terrifying articles that asks serious questions about how we are to subvert a framework that encourages coal burning and other major externalities.