Opinion piece - Hanrahan: Coal is a dead end for Appalachia

http://www.roanoke.com/opinion/hanrahan-coal-is-a-dead-end-for-appalachia/article_42dc0a11-f341-5c9d-b7fd-ddc3881c980c.html
The Roanoke Times
Roanoke, VA
November 12, 2014
Hanrahan: Coal is a dead end for Appalachia

(excerpt)
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We continue to underappreciate our full Appalachian culture, the incredible biodiversity of our coalfield region. We are more than the coal in the coalfields. We have survived a climatic extinction twice; yet, we continue to be led in a cycle of singular, over-reliance on coal as the solution to our economic and cultural survival.

This is a dead end and much of the reason we are facing the current and future losses named in the energy magnates’ letter and blamed on the EPA. We need a new landscape and business leaders with broader vision. Decisions today cannot be taken solely from geological perspectives or the possible economic benefits for investors and for the states in which the companies are based.

A new and more profound decision-making process is indispensable and inescapable. It must take into consideration the complexity of the problems involved, in a context of solidarity.

We need an honest acknowledgment, by business and local political leaders and ourselves, of what we far Southwest Virginians know, deep down, to be true. It will only be in restoring the land that we will restore the people and the economy of our area, and our state. A restoring the land, restoring the people initiative happens when we advance practical solutions that integrate simultaneously both ecologically sustainable and economically viable practices. These practices require giving priority to ecological economics as the means to creating a culture of sustainability.... MORE at link provided above.