Quote of the day:

I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.
—Bertrand Russell

Coal’s days are behind us. That’s a simple fact of life. It’s no longer economically viable.

As part of the Biden era Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), billions of dollars were set to help the struggling coal regions to transition to clean energy based solutions. 

But on his first day in office the current inhabitant of the Oval Office killed all the Biden clean energy initiatives.

For a moment, Jacob Hannah saw an unprecedented opportunity to make Appalachia great again.

In 2022, the Biden administration earmarked billions of dollars to help revitalize and strengthen former coal communities. The objective was to lay down building blocks for the region to transition from extractive industries like coal and timber to a hub for solar and other advanced energy technologies, with a view to long-term economic, climate and social resilience.

But on his first day in office, Donald Trump scrapped Biden’s clean energy and environmental programs, which he lambasted as woke, anti-American, liberal hoaxes.

“We knew we were living in a historic moment, not just because of the amount of funding, but because the whole region mobilized to meet the moment,” said Hannah, 33. “It was a once-in-a-generation cash injection designed to prioritize extraction-based communities as part of the energy transition, which for the first time in almost a century made Appalachia very competitive. So to have it all taken away is deeply damaging and demoralizing.”

Hannah, a fifth-generation Appalachian with a bushy beard and signature wide-brimmed hat, has been crisscrossing the country on a mission to raise philanthropic capital to limit the economic damage caused by the Trump administration taking a chainsaw to Biden-era grants.

Hannah runs Coalfield Development, a nonprofit organization headquartered in Huntington, focused on rebuilding Southwest Virginia’s economy and social fabric through workforce training, job creation, and revitalizing abandoned buildings and mines in some of the most forgotten corners of coal country.

Coalfield Development has trained more than 4,000 people—including many formerly incarcerated and/or in addiction recovery—over the past 15 years in everything from solar installation to drywalling and first aid. Yet, historically, federal grants for community regeneration efforts in Appalachia have been mostly top-down, project-based and short-lived.

The 2022 cash injection came through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Biden’s landmark climate and infrastructure legislation, and was designed to help revitalize and strengthen former coal communities over the long haul.

It was the largest investment in Appalachia since the 1960s’ “war on poverty” under Lyndon Johnson.

And who are the people blaming? “The cuts have deepened existing mistrust in government, known colloquially as Appalachian fatalism, yet many of those interviewed by the Guardian blame Washington politics generally rather than Trump.”

Is it stupidity or willful ignorance?

You can read the whole article: “Demoralizing”: How Donald Trump Undermined Coal Country’s Comeback