To end coal strip mining, it is also necessary to reduce and eventually eliminate dependence on coal for energy.

The stone age didn’t end due to a shortage of stone, but due to new and better technology. The same path needs taken for the coal age, and we do have new, cleaner, cheaper and better technology.

One of our answers is blowin’ in the wind. Wind power is now cheaper than coal power despite the hidden subsidies that coal receives.

Would you prefer to live
~ downwind of a coal fired generating plant?
~ downstream or downwind from a coal mine?
~ downwind of a wind farm?

We don’t need to take coal out of the ground, destroy the land, pollute the air, make the rain acid, and cause global warming.

Wind power is intermittent, but all power sources are intermittent to some extent and need backup. We can make hydrogen with excess wind power to burn in old coal power plants in times of power shortages.

We will run out of coal, but the wind isn’t going to stop blowing. Other renewable energy technologies are also becoming competitive, and deserve governments to encourage their development. We need to switch someday. Why not make the change sooner before the environmental damage is worse?

The USA needs a government that is willing to change how things are done, to change the system of allocating resources to make the big switch to renewable energy happen faster.

We owe it to our children to think for the future, and act. Complaining is not enough.