Blankenship “has pioneered ‘mountaintop removal’, or MTR. This means blowing off mountain tops with the equivalent of 4,636 ‘bunker buster’ bombs exploding daily, exposing coal seams which are then scooped up by the biggest diggers, cranes and trucks ever built.

Quite apart from its effect on climate change, the result is a moonscape. Whole villages have disappeared. The mountain tops are dumped in the rivers, killing them too. So far, half a million acres have been destroyed as Blankenship (left) does his best to consign to history the official state slogan – Wild Wonderful West Virginia.