Caring about the environment was an American thing back in the 1960s and ’70s, when pollution clogged our rivers and streams and litter piled up on our highways and streets; you felt patriotic about it.

Today’s environmentalists — the kind who look at “climate change” as a religion preaching that non-believers will burn in hell — have won; Appalachian jobs, people, communities and families have lost.

We all used to be in this together, cleaning up pollution and litter, punishing companies that did bad things in the night — but retaining the industries that provided jobs that kept generations of families together in the communities where they lived.