Let Coal Die. Save Coal Country.

The decline of coal as a source of electric power is inevitable and well under way. This is a good thing, because whether measured by its effect on public health or its contribution to global warming, coal is more harmful than any other widely used source of electricity.

But there's a human cost to this transition: unemployment in coal country. Over the past five years, as the U.S. coal mining industry has lost 94 percent of its market value, some 15,000 jobs have disappeared in West Virginia and Kentucky alone. West Virginia's Boone County and Kentucky's Union County have lost roughly one job for every 24 residents.