Again, you're arguing that since [bad thing] happens, [more bad things] are justified. Stopping coal mining today isn't going to undo all of that progress you talked about. It already happened. And the progress only required energy, not coal. Coal was just the energy source that was available at the time. We have other energy sources.

Changing the argument to the damage caused by lithium mines is just a distraction. My argument isn't against coal, it's against unnecessary evils. It would take a mighty strong mind to honestly argue that solar and wind power is more evil than coal.

I'm going to bow out of this argument now as I'm not actually looking to have my opinion changed to a more pro-coal stance in 2018.