The nation — in fact, the world — needs to wean itself from fossil fuels if it is to have any hope of managing climate change. Burning coal is particularly bad for the environment, pumping far higher quantities of global-warming compounds into the atmosphere than natural gas, oil or other carbon-based products do.
So it’s heartening that the U.S. has been using less coal to generate electricity in recent years. An unrelated drop in coal-fired steel production in China has also reduced the amount of coal U.S. firms have scratched out of the ground and shipped overseas. Yet more needs to be done to speed up the shift to cleaner, more sustainable energy sources.
Though transitioning away from fossil fuels is absolutely necessary, it’s also vitally important to recognize the human and economic cost that such a change entails. That includes a significant number of jobs lost in northern Appalachia, Indiana and Illinois, and Wyoming, where the vast majority of the nation’s existing coal mines are found.