Maybe, just maybe, we should be considering the impacts of increased natural gas consumption on climate change? Although direct CO2 emissions from burning are about half that of coal, natural gas (i.e., methane) is a GHG that's 80x more potent than CO2 over 20 years and about 30x more potent over 100 years.

Meanwhile, a significant proportion of natural gas is lost during transmission due to leakage... Figures, then, that the symptoms of climate change seem to be escalating just as natural gas is being used to replace coal.

Burning natural gas does have an important benefit: it burns much cleaner, which reduces particulate emissions.