Brown coal mining limits in North Bohemia of mining operations whole villages, towns and even cities (Most) were demolished to extract the coal that lay beneath; their inhabitants were rehoused in large-scale new prefabricated panelled apartment buildings. The low quality technology used for large-scale burning of brown coal led to a sharp increase in the content of harmful sulfur dioxide and aerosols in the atmosphere. The result was wholesale damage to the environment (such as the die-back of the forests in the Ore Mountains from acid rain) and human health. In view of the unsustainable situation, the first post-communist Czechoslovak government decided to resolve the situation by
What Cheer, Iowa What Cheer, Iowa What Cheer (pronounced 'WOT-cheer') is a city in Keokuk County, Iowa, United States. It is a former coal town, and from the 1870s to the early 1900s was one of the major coal-producing centers of Iowa. Its greatest recorded population was 3,246, in the 1890 census. Since the 1910s, the population has fallen to 646 in the 2010 census. What Cheer was founded in 1865 as Petersburg, named after Peter Britton, its founder. This name was rejected by the Post Office, forcing a change of name. Joseph Andrews, a major and veteran of the American Civil War,