The Casualties In Coal's War on Us.

Rand Paul is keeping the “war on coal” meme alive. Meanwhile, increased use of coal in northern China is robbing millions of their lives. On average northern Chinese residents lifespan has been shortened by five and a half years, due to breathing the particulate laden air of that region.

            Published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study focused on deaths during the 1990s that were caused by heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, and respiratory illnesses.  The study compared deaths from these illnesses south of the Huai River with similar data north of the river, where the Chinese government has been providing residents with free coal since the 1950s.

            Despite Rand Paul, who once dismissed concern over mountaintop removal as “missing a few hills here and there,” it seems that our use of coal extracts a heavy price. Men die in coal mining accidents, where they also risk getting black lung disease, which has been increasing in recent years. A geography of increased disease and death encircles mountaintop removal mines, and the heartland of this country is hot and possibly going dry from global warming, caused by our throwing tons of CO2 in the air, most of which comes from coal.

            Maybe somebody should tell Rand Paul that it looks like coal has a war on us.