There is a saying in the swath of eastern Germany known as the Lausitz that captures both the beauty of the region and the curse of its geology. “God created the Lausitz,” goes the expression. “But Satan put coal underneath.”
Local people did a deal with the devil over the past 100 years: they let mining machines carve chunks from the lush green forests, destroyed centuries-old villages to dig up millions of tonnes of the dirty lignite that lies under them and polluted the planet in the process. In exchange came thousands of jobs and the pride found in powering the German economic juggernaut.
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