As Marc Anthony observed about Julius Caesar in Shakespeare’s play:
The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.
But those jobs won’t be coming back. Cheap natural gas and the development of clean-energy technology have made coal too expensive, anyway.
So it won’t matter that Trump has turned coal burners loose to pollute the air we breathe. It won’t matter that he has opened federal lands to coal mining leases. It won’t matter that he will allow coal mines to dump waste in our drinking water.
At least, it won’t matter as far as jobs are concerned.
But it will matter to the people who must breathe the air on this planet.
When America burns coal, the air is polluted not only in this country but globally. Remember the acid rain that plagued Canada a half century or so ago?
Obama wisely led a global effort to curb the atmospheric pollution that contributes to global warming, triggering hazardous climate change and flooding coastal communities.
Trump has set out to undo Obama’s work. The consequences of this evil agenda will ravage the earth long after Trump is gone.
