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Coal, however, is not a problem for anybody but environmental religionists who believe all fossil fuels to be evil. To promote development of cleaner ways to use coal while working on making other forms of energy more viable would be a worthy goal. To shut down our most plentiful and cheapest form of energy to chase a hypothetical future that is yet unproven and not viable is not justifiable.
That is not what Thatcher did. She cut out a malignancy in the U.K. that was threatening to bring the entire nation down. That would have hurt everybody, including the coal miners. All she did was sell off the mines that her predecessors had imprudently and destructively nationalized to create the unsustainable situation that existed. Had the unions been willing to work out a compromise to have made that unnecessary, I have every reason to believe Thatcher would have chosen that better situation. It was the unions who refused to compromise that created the draconian soluton that was all that was left to her.
I don't know that I would call environmentalists in favor of shutting down fossil fuels religionists. Some countries have really worked to cut out fossil fuel power stations. That's not extremist, just not everyone is going to agree with it.
I would have been more impressed by a Leader that could have taken on the Unions without shutting down all the mines. She picked the lesser of two evils. But there were other options.