Cautionary tales amid the latest coal revival

Two views about bituminous and anthracite energy sources explore the deep costs to humans and the environment.

The United States may be, as energy lobbyists and Mountain State governors like to say, “the Saudi Arabia of coal.”

But who wants to live in a desert?

Jeff Goodell sketches the economic and social costs of coal mining and coal burning, as the industry enjoys one of its periodic revivals thanks to record oil prices.

In The Face of Decline, two labor historians, State University of New York-Binghamton’s Thomas Dublin and the University of Pennsylvania’s Walter Licht, write of the failure of Pennsylvania leaders and communities to cope with the collapse of a rich, productive, once-ubiquitous energy source – anthracite, or hard coal, found only under the ancient mountain ridges that stretch from north of Harrisburg past Scranton.

Extended review at Centre Daily