In a state like West Virginia, where the economy is so deeply connected with the ebb and flow of the coal industry, discussions about climate change are often avoided.
In a recent episode of West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Us & Them podcast, host Trey Kay speaks with Katharine Hayhoe. In 2014, Time magazine named Hayhoe one of the 100 Most Influential People because she’s one of the world’s leading climate scientists and a life-long evangelical Christian who’s willing to tackle the hot button topic of climate change.
We hear an excerpt from the latest Us & Them episode: Touching the Third Rail with Katharine Hayhoe.
Also on today's show, the Appalachian coalfields are in the midst of an epidemic of severe black lung disease. Now a study in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine finds there’s also a dramatic increase in lung transplants for affected miners. As Benny Becker reports, the study suggests taxpayer funds are most often covering the cost for the surgeries.