Creation groans and so do we
Over the last few months, I’ve often traveled north on I-26/U.S. 23 into the broken heart of eastern Kentucky’s coal country.
The land looks weary. There are gashes in the hillsides which huge machines have stripped bare not only of coal but of topsoil; peaks blasted away from once-majestic mountains, now flattened and scoured of life; and scraggly but tenacious trees struggle to make a stand where giant hardwoods once towered.
More than 10,000 coal-related jobs have disappeared from Kentucky in recent years, and the reasons are complex. They include environmental concerns, prices of other forms of energy, dangerous working conditions, and policy decisions by both coal-company leaders and government officials.
