This
is an interesting article, confirming what I've long thought.
That it may have been industrialization that got us in a climatic pickle, but
that's it's also technology that can save us.
/snip
Market forces have accomplished in just a few years what environmentalists
and social advocates have struggled for decades to achieve. Coal prices have
plunged about 70 percent in the last four years. This year the number of
underground and surface coal miners in the United States dropped more than 10
percent, to just over
80,000 workers. There are now more than twice as many workers
in the fast-growing solar power industry
than there are coal miners.
Mountaintop removal, the poster child for environmental destruction,
has all but ground to a halt as coal companies continue to close mines, lay off
workers and slash capital spending on expensive new mining operations.
Meantime, natural gas production has soared and electric utilities have built
up gas-fired generation to replace aging coal-fired power plants.
