[thecavemaster]

Could you elaborate more on the long-term suffering and loss, let's hear your thoughts you ask at what cost there has been and you seem to think there will be more, apparently you have something on you mind. You also mentioned sludge ponds, black lung, trapped miners and environmental degradation, would you care to elaborate on these issues.

I am suggesting that things like coal mining and clear
cutting the rain forests and over ranching grasslands
provide short term economic benefits. These activities
provide jobs and energy and function in our current
economic system. However, each of these things, individually
and collectively, come with a cost. They come with a
human and environmental toll. I am not seeking to
say that a tobacco farmer causes lung cancer; however,
burning tobacco in a cigarette loaded with chemicals
does. Mountain top removal, and other such practices,
produces jobs, produces coal, which benefits the
current economy, BUT MTR comes at a cost, which, unless
one is in real denial, must be conceded without need
for "let's hear your thoughts."