The Problem With Coal

"GLBNews Service: In all your research for this book, what stands out the most regarding the coal industry’s impact on our quality of life?

Jeff Goodell: I'm tempted to say the destruction of Appalachia by mountaintop removal mining, the health impacts of air pollution from coal plants—24,000 premature deaths a year, according to the American Lung Association—the presence of toxic mercury in our lakes and streams, and, most alarming of all, the fact that coal plants contribute more than one third of all man-made global warming pollution.

But I really think the thing that stands out most, in retrospect, is the degree to which the coal industry has convinced America that modern life is dependent on burning coal—that any attempt to wean ourselves off coal will mean lost jobs and rolling blackouts."