While I disagree with some of your premises, I'll leave those and address others.
Many of our mines have recently closed, but there are others that will remain open. There are metallugical coal, and a few thermal coal reserves in Appalachia that haven't seen much of a decline and the Powder River Basin operators in Wyoming and elsewhere here in the US are still pulling coal out of the ground and sending it overseas. A big part of the reason for Appalachian mines closing, is because the easy coal is gone... largely mined out over the past 100 years. It's now "less expensive" to mine coal elsewhere. Even if we mined here, there is still a carbon footprint for transporting the coal to the generating facilities (trucks or conveyors haul coal to the trains... trains to the barges... then offloading at the facilities). It's just less than ships crossing the oceans.
I agree that other countries should have much more strict mining regulations. I've already agreed with you that outsourcing pollution is bad on a number of fronts.
The goal of environmentalists depends upon the environmentalist. I cannot speak for them all. Some here have mentioned plastic pollution and there are groups working on that. Some environmentalists focus on fish, some on birds, some on native ecosystems... I'd guess that for most, the objective is conservation or restoration. Since you asked about me personally: My goals are restoration and to reduce my ecological footprint, which is why I try to reduce my personal consumption of resources and I'm restoring native forest and prairie on my property, as well as other properties. I've started by killing exotic species and restoring native wildflowers and warm-season grasses and planting native trees, which will eventually have an intact canopy for much of it. I do a lot more professionally, but I'll just leave it at that. I'm also installing rooftop solar and a battery here in a couple of weeks. Initially, it should produce ~60% or more of our electricity consumption and I've got quite a bit of sq. footage to slap more up there if it becomes more economically viable. I'd say that I could overproduce and may in the future. My parents installed theirs years ago and have produced more than 100% of their consumption since the end of 2015.
Your last question is a difficult one to answer and one that would obviously be criticized here... even if tax dollars created a perfectly clean energy source, the Negative Nellies here on TNet would say that it wouldn't exist without subsidies.
Kindest regards,
Kantuck
A complete canopy is the death knell for ground species.
Diverse habitat has savannas or similar spaces for a reduced density of canopy.
Browse tonnage here under mature hardwoods is a fraction of openings where sunlight can reach the ground. And in /on non mast crop years are a type of desert for practical purposes.
I manage for forbs mostly on a small scale.. But what we manage for is diverse as our habitats should be.
I'm tolerating Russian olive , to a point.
It kills easy enough where I don't want it , but meanwhile on my fallow former ag land it is producing some nitrogen.
And yields a very high volume of fruit compared to other species that are lacking on site.
A variety of bees enjoy them. Combined with the abundant goldenrod , bees often number in the many thousands on the right days.
Native pollinators may be expected in the mix.
Compared to the mature hardwoods , much more life.
Deer , fox, coyote, (rivals and enemies of sorts)rabbits, a turkey on occasion , voles , mice , the attendant hawks and owls , muskrats , leopard frogs , moles , snakes ,and who knows what else..
Meanwhile next to my home in the hardwoods , the pileated woodpeckers leave often to visit the more open yard.
A deer or bear is a rare sighting. Squirrel numbers seldom change, and trend few. It's a groceries vs residents thing , with few groceries.
