The art of the green deal
IT’S WINTER IN THE SOUTH OF POLAND, BUT THE ground is clear of any snow, and the thick clouds don’t carry any precipitation. Instead, the skies have been darkened by a layer of smog. The culprit is coal, and if there was any doubt, it would be dispelled by the 50-mile drive across the countryside from historic Krakow to the industrial city of Katowice. Lining the highway, there are the coal-processing facilities, where the rock is cleaned and prepared for use. Smokestacks jut into the sky, marking the country’s coal-fired power plants. Even the homes, visible from the highway, have a faint gray-colored exhaust, the result of the coal being used for heat.
The pollution is a blight; Katowice ranks among the most polluted cities in Europe, and locals complain about the low air quality. But even so, many here aren’t ready to let go of the natural resource that has powered the nation’s economy since the Industrial Revolution. Culture in Katowice—and in smaller cities and towns in the surrounding province of Silesia—developed around the mines, from the soccer clubs sponsored by the mining companies to the local festivals they supported. Strikes at Silesian coal mines played a key role in the uprising that brought democracy to Poland in the 1980s. Today, the mines still occupy a place of reverence to many of the region’s residents. A 131-ft. former mine-shaft tower sits near the city center, and at the adjacent Silesian Museum, visitors can walk away with souvenir coal paraphernalia. “People may not like it, but they also need to acknowledge the good side,” says former underground coal miner Marek Wystyrk over coffee in Katowice when TIME visited in December 2018. “It’s not all evil.”
Katowice, with a population around 300,000, may seem like an odd place
