A coal plant and playground

The conversation about climate change revolves to a great extent around coal-fired power plants in the U.S., China, and around the world because of their enormous emissions of carbon dioxide and the alarming rate at which new plants are being proposed and constructed. Today was a day for absorbing many of the other ugly truths about coal. Some students and I toured coal country in Western Pennsylvania with the help of community activists fighting bravely against entrenched adversaries. We watched in horror as an arsenic-laden mist rained down on our car while we drove past an enormous coal plant in a small rural town. Our jaws dropped even further as we drove for miles around a 1,300-acre toxic fly ash dump that loomed behind soft earthen dams and threatened to bury entire neighborhoods with toxic sludge when heavy rains come. Continue reading →