This following article which appeared in the Sept-Oct issue of World Watch is a bombshell to coal producing regions. Since it has special relevance to West Virginia, I am including the entire text of the article to be published in two installments, the first of which is below. Many thanks to the Worldwatch Institute for permission to use this article, and to Vivian Stockman for first alerting me to it. Editor.

by Seth Dunn

Revolution was literally in the air on February 28, 1998, when officials in Beijing and 32 other Chinese cities – under pressure from the national environmental protection agency – began releasing pollution records that had been suppressed for 20 years. The weekly reports – intended to "enable the public to supervise the government’s anti-pollution efforts" – revealed that the air outside Beijing’s Gate of Heavenly Peace had become hellish. Prolonged exposure to the air posed serious health risks and had increased the city’s death rate by 4 percent, according to research from Harvard and Beijing Medical Universities.

The news rocked Beijing, and media reports generated angry outcries from citizens who discovered that the haze hovering over their city – and its related health problems – were almost entirely the result of coal, which supplies 80 percent of the city’s energy use for factories, power plants, ovens, and stoves. A few months later, in response to public pressure, city authorities announced a crackdown on coal burning, with the aim of banning it by the end of the century. Beginning with the city’s 42-square-mile central limits, the government plans to establish coal-free zones, with local authorities helping residents switch from coal to cleaner-burning natural gas.

Beijing’s move to banish what was known as "King Coal" in the nineteenth century in the United States and Europe illustrates how perceptions of this fossilized substance have changed over time. A thousand years ago, China fired coal in blast furnaces to produce the armor and arrowheads that defended its dynasties against outside invaders. But it was in the West that coal was first burned in massive amounts, beginning in the eighteenth century. If the Industrial Revolution was "Prometheus unbound," coal was the fire stolen from the gods that made it possible. With its production paralleling the rise of national powers, this fossil fuel became synonymous with wealth and modernity in the nineteenth century. In his classic 1865 work, The Coal Question, economist William Jevons went as far as to predict the collapse of the British Empire as its coal mines approached depletion.

But Prometheus paid dearly for his deed; chained to a mountaintop, he had his liver torn out daily by vultures. Likewise, the reign of King Coal has not been without heavy costs: its use has left a legacy of human and environmental damage that we have only begun to assess. At the close of the twentieth century, coal’s smog-choked cityscapes are no longer the symbol of industrial opportunities and wealth that they were 100 years ago. Instead, coal is increasingly recognized as a leading threat to human health, and one of the most environmentally disruptive human activities.

Indeed, the sun may be setting on the empire of coal. Its share of world energy, which peaked at 62 percent in 1910, is now 23 percent and dropping. Although coal’s market price has fallen 64 percent in the past 20 years to a historical low of $32 per ton, global use is at its lowest in a decade, having fallen 2.1 percent in 1998. One reason for this decline is that the price of dealing with coal’s health and environmental toll – the "hidden cost" – is rising. And now King Coal’s remaining colonies find themselves confronted with a concern of the sort that bedeviled Jevons. This time, however, it is coal dependence – not depletion – that is the potential threat to progress.

Even so, the mirage of coal as a source of cheap energy continues to be a powerful lure, and many countries have gone to great lengths to rationalize their reliance – suppressing information, compartmentalizing problems, or socializing costs. Until now, the problems of coal have been treated with an "emergency room" approach: ecological impacts have been addressed pollutant by pollutant, mine by mine; the health hazards, one urban crisis at a time. This narrow approach has been an expensive one, both economically and environmentally, and has had perverse, unforeseen consequences: each time one of coal’s impacts is "mitigated," a more pervasive and chronic problem is created, exacerbating and spreading the fuel’s negative effects out over space and time. For example, towering smokestacks, built to alleviate local air pollution, created the problem of acid rain. And efforts to curtail acid rain, in turn, are adding to greenhouse-gas emissions.

Increasingly, human health, ecological, climatic, and socioeconomic concerns are pushing us away from this piecemeal regulation – toward an end to the "end-of-pipe" approach. But for the world to judge whether continued dependence on coal is viable, a more comprehensive examination is in order. After centuries of treating coal like a first-time offender, there is a growing consensus that it is time to assess this fossil fuel in terms of its cumulative offenses and to seriously weigh the benefits of replacing it with cleaner, and ultimately cheaper, alternatives.

Exhibit A: Health Hazard

The solid blackish substance called coal is vegetation that has, over millions of years, accumulated in wetlands and been partially decomposed, suffocated, moisturized, compressed, and baked by the Earth’s inner heat underground. During this process, unfathomable quantities of organic matter have been slowly broken down and stored. The act of extracting coal from the Earth’s crust and burning it is an experiment without geological precedent, and it is altering the environment in profound, yet poorly understood, ways.

Coal has long been linked to air pollution and ill effects on health. In medieval London, an official proclamation banned coal burning as early as 1306 A.D. in an unsuccessful effort to curb the smog and sulfurous smell hanging over the city. Even today particulate matter (dust, soot, and other solid airborne pollutants) and sulfur are two of the most unhealthy by-products of coal combustion.

 ... company doctors misdiagnosed or concealed [black lung] for more than 50 years, until medical community mavericks and the largest strike in U.S. history forced lawmakers to enact compensatory and preventive measures. By then, the lives of hundreds of thousands of coal miners had been shortened. U.S. taxpayers have since paid more than $30 billion to compensate mining families... in the United States, 1,500 miners died of black lung in 1994, and under-reporting is still prevalent.

Particulates penetrate deep into lungs. Prolonged inhalation causes a range of respiratory and cardiovascular problems, such as emphysema, asthma, bronchitis, lung cancer, and heart disease. It is also linked to higher infant mortality rates. The smallest particles can stay in an individual’s lungs for a lifetime, potentially increasing the risk of cancer. Sulfur dioxide (SO2) exposure is associated with increased hospitalization and death from pulmonary and heart disease, particularly among asthmatics and those with existing breathing problems.

These pollutants made up the "coal smogs" that killed 2,200 Londoners in 1880; the "killer fog" that caused 50 deaths in Donora, Pennsylvania in 1948; and the "London fog" that took 4,000 lives in 1952. Today, several coal-dependent cities – including Beijing and Delhi – are approaching the pollution levels of the Donora and London disasters, and the world’s ten most air-polluted cities – nine in China, one in India – are all heavy coal users. Worldwide, particulate and SO2 pollution cause at least 500,000 premature deaths, 4 to 5 million new cases of bronchitis, and millions of other respiratory illnesses per year. Such smogs have become transcontinental travelers: large dust clouds of particulates and sulfur from Asian coal now reach the U.S. West Coast.

Coal burning also releases nitrogen oxides, which react in sunlight to form ground-level ozone. In the United States and Europe, more than 100 cities are exposed to unhealthy ozone levels. Beijing, Calcutta, and Shanghai – all heavily coal dependent – expose millions of children to deadly mixes of particulates, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides.

Coal smoke contains potent carcinogens, affecting the more than 1 billion rural poor who rely on the fuel for cooking. Rural indoor air pollution from such cooking accounts for 1.8 of 2.7 million global annual deaths from air pollution, with women and children most at risk. In rural China, exposure to coal smoke increases lung cancer risks by a factor of nine or more.

Coal can also contain arsenic, lead, mercury, and fluorine – toxic heavy metals that can impair the development of fetuses and infants and cause open sores and bone decay. In rural China, where 800 million people use coal in their homes for cooking and heating, thousands of cases of arsenic poisoning, and millions of cases of fluorine poisoning have been reported. Millions of rural poor in other developing countries face similar risks.

Coal mining and extraction pose health hazards, as well. Explosions, falls, and hauling accidents injure or kill several thousand coal miners in China, Russia, and Ukraine each year. In China, more than five miners die for every million tons of coal mined. Perhaps the most serious and chronic threat to miners is pneumoconiosis, or "black lung" – a condition caused by continued inhalation of coal dust, which inflames, scars, and discolors lungs, and leads to a debilitating decline in lung function. In the United States, enough was known at the turn of the twentieth century about black lung to have spurred preventive action to remove or lessen the effects of the disorder, writes Alan Derickson, author of Black Lung: Anatomy of a Public Health Disaster. But company doctors misdiagnosed or concealed the illness for more than 50 years, until medical community mavericks and the largest strike in U.S. history forced lawmakers to enact compensatory and preventive measures. By then, the lives of hundreds of thousands of coal miners had been shortened. U.S. taxpayers have since paid more than $30 billion to compensate mining families.

Despite these advances, coal dust continues to plague miners. In Russia and Ukraine, official estimates range from 200 to 500 deaths per year. In China, where 2.5 million coal miners are exposed to dust diseases, the current annual death toll of 2,500 is expected to increase by 10 percent each year. Even in the United States, 1,500 miners died of black lung in 1994, and under-reporting is still prevalent.

Exhibit B: Environmental Damage

The coal smogs in Donora and London sparked public outrage, leading to the enactment of the first major clean-air laws. Setting local air quality standards, these acts prompted industries to install high smokestacks that would spread the pollutants over larger areas and to more distant regions. In parts of the United States, some smokestacks shot up higher than the top floor of the Empire State Building.

But this simple solution for local pollution had an unintended consequence. Carried aloft, nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide react in the atmosphere to form acids that fall as rain, snow, or fog or turn to acid on direct contact – corroding buildings and monuments and damaging vegetation, soils, rivers, lakes, and crops. The problems of acid rain and deposition surfaced first in Norwegian fish kills in the 1960s, and later in the "forest death" of Germany, the "Black Triangle" of dead trees in Central Europe, and the dying lakes and streams of the U.S. Adirondacks – all traced to coal burning hundreds of miles away.

Under pressure from environmental groups, industrial nations have addressed acid rain through an array of agreements focusing on sulfur emissions, which have been significantly reduced. But nitrogen emissions, which initially escaped regulation, have been slower to drop. In fact, in many regions they have risen, offsetting reductions made in sulfur emissions. In Europe, forest decline continues and hundreds of acid-stressed lakes face a long recovery time, as nitrogen persists well above tolerable levels. High-elevation forests in West Virginia, Tennessee, and Southern California are near saturation level for nitrogen, and high-elevation lakes in the Rocky Mountain, Cascade, and Sierra Nevada mountain ranges are on the verge of chronic acidity. In the Adirondacks, many waterways are becoming more acid even as sulfur deposits drop: by 2040, as many as half the region’s 2,800 lakes and ponds may be too acid to support much life.

The West’s acid deposition debacle is now replicating with potentially greater repercussions in Asia. A haze the size of the United States covers the Indian Ocean in winter, and in summer is blown inland and falls as acid rain, reportedly reducing Indian wheat yields. Acid rain falls on over 40 percent of China, and in 1995 caused $13 billion in damage to its forests and crops. Widening areas of China, India, South Korea, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam are above critical levels of sulfur. Buildings, forests, and farmland close to or downwind from large urban and industrial centers are being hardest hit. Thousand-year-old sculptures from China’s Song Dynasty have been corroded. And some scientists believe the Taj Mahal is in similar danger. A fifth of India’s farmland faces acidification. China’s sulfur emissions may overwhelm fertile soils across China, Japan, and South Korea by 2020.

Other types of ecosystem overload, too, are linked to coal. Nitrogen overfertilizes waterways, causing deadly algal blooms. Ground-level ozone damages forests and crops. Each year, ozone costs the United States between $5 and 10 billion in crop losses alone, and cuts wheat yields in parts of China by 10 percent. The formation and burning of massive slag heaps – piles of cinder left over from combustion – degrades land and emits carbon monoxide. Acidic or highly saline runoff from mines contaminate ground and surface water.

Air pollution regulations have prompted a hunt for low-sulfur coal, with companies turning from underground to surface – also known as strip, or open-pit – mining. In Canada, open-pit mines lie at the foot of Alberta’s Jasper National Park, a World Heritage Site; in India’s Bihar province, they endanger huge tracts of forest. These mines have uprooted hundreds of thousands of indigenous and poor people – aborigines in Australia, Native Americans in Arizona, villagers in northern Germany, tribals in Raniganj, India – from land they have inhabited for centuries, often with little advance notice or compensation. In West Virginia, huge machines engage in "mountain-top removal" – stripping away dozens of rolling hills, burying streams, and bulldozing mining communities.

As many developing countries follow the path of industrial nations, they too seem unable to steer clear of the pitfalls of a simplistic response to coal pollution. But the folly of focusing solely on coal’s air pollutants proves most perverse in the developing world, where the added mining and processing requirements exacerbate severe land and water constraints. Chinese enterprises commonly violate emissions standards and burn high-sulfur coal rather than pay for precious water use to wash coal. In India, citizens’ groups criticize the government’s coal-washing mandate, arguing that it will waste energy, use up large quantities of scarce water and land, and increase pollution at mines.