No good alternative
(Book)

Includes bibliographical references.

The second volume of William T. Vollmann's epic investigation into the factors and human actions that have led to global warming begins in the coalfields of West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky, where "America's best friend" is not merely a fuel but a "heritage." Over the course of four years, Vollmann finds hollowed-out towns with coal-polluted streams and acidified drinking water, makes covert tours of mountaintop removal mines, gathers accounts of horrific, unnecessary accidents and collects sweet memories of the good old days when coal was king. Vollmann then visits Bangladesh, where rural activists battle against the open-pit aspirations of a multinational, and labor union members tell grim tales of the mining life -- even as they all insist that "the coal must come out." As with its predecessor, No Immediate Danger, this volume seeks to understand and listen, not to lay blame -- except in a few corporate and political cases wehre outrage is clearly due. Vollmann is a carbon burner just like the rest of us; he describes and quantifies his own power use, then looks around him, trying to explain to the future why it was that we went against scientific consensus, continually increasing the demand for electric power and insisting that we had no good alternative. --Provided by publisher.