Coal country digs in as US Supreme Court weighs EPA climate power [View all]
A historic flood from sudden torrential rain nearly wiped out entire towns in West Virginia's mountainous coal country, killing 23 and inflicting $1 billion in damage. Six years later, many survivors remain unmoved by the growing threat of climate change and urgent calls to curb greenhouse gasses from burning coal.
"It's weather all over, you know what I mean. I'm not a scientist, but I just don't believe it," said Mayor Kay Summers of Clendenin, a Republican elected two years ago to champion the rebuilding. "Every time it rains and storms, I'm lying awake at night. I know it can happen, but I just don't think it will happen again."
Communities in the heart of Appalachia are some of the most vulnerable in the country to the impacts of a warming global climate, according to government scientists, and among the most resistant to government-led efforts to blunt the impacts.
They are also the front line in a landmark environmental case before the U.S. Supreme Court, which will decide this spring how much authority the Environmental Protection Agency has to regulate earth-warming emissions from coal-fired power plants.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/coal-country-digs-in-as-us-supreme-court-weighs-epa-climate-power/ar-AAWdhgV
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