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Each time a new disaster puts miners in the news, the press tries to make them into heroes, but they don't quite fit the bill. They don't march off to war or rush into burning buildings or rid our streets of crime.

Coal companies have a lot of power in the media, and unfortunately a lot of information doesn't get out.

I'm kind of a gossip hound, but watching the media whip the small fires into giant forest fires so that they can cover the result is infuriating.

In the world of energy politics, the sudden vanishing of the word 'coal' is a remarkable and unprecedented event.

From the industry's point of view, the problem is not that coal companies blast the top off mountains, turning the area into a moonscape and polluting the air and releasing toxic chemical into what's left of the local streams and aquifers. It's that the people who live near the mines are too cozy with their cousins.

In most cases, the news is not really news. But in some cases, discoveries are made and should be listened to.

Being in a Chinese coal mine for 30 years is like an epic novel. It's tragic.

The story of mountaintop mining - why it happens, and what its consequences are - is still new to most Americans. They have no idea that their country's physical legacy - the purple mountain majesties that are America - is being destroyed at the rate of several ridgetops a week, by three million pounds of explosives every day.

People can get their news any way they want. What I love about what's happened is that there are so many different avenues, there are so many different outlets, so many different ways to debate and discuss and to inquire about any given news story.

It is incredible to me that my Twitter feed is a source of 'news' for every rock news outlet around the world.