We hear a lot from politicians and others about coal's role in Australia's economy and in our regions.
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What we don't hear so much about is the serious health impacts from coal pollution - and how they're hitting regional communities hardest.
A new Coal Impacts Index reveals the frightening impacts that coal has on human health, particularly on children.
And it's the communities that live and work close to coal-fired power stations that are the worst affected.
The Coal Impacts Index, an online, searchable database, allows every Australian to see the extent of coal pollution within our communities.
You can search for records of carbon dioxide and harmful substance pollution in your community, as well as the pollution compliance record of local coal-burning power stations.
The impacts of coal pollution are horrifying.
Last year, a nationwide scientific study found that coal pollution caused 800 premature deaths a year across Australia, and the ill health of thousands of others.
The invisible particulates from burning coal can reach into our lungs and our brains, even harming babies who are still in the womb and contributing to low birth weights.
Families in communities near where coal burning takes place experience a higher rate of childhood asthma due to pollution from coal burning power stations.
Unless we take action to limit coal pollution and switch to cleaner, safer renewable energy, this will be the enduring legacy of coal in our regions.
Australia's air pollution laws are hopelessly inadequate.
The European Union, the US and China all have stricter standards for coal burning power stations than in this country.
Even the lax standards we do have are regularly breached.
Australia's coal burning power stations consistently break the conditions of their environmental protection licences.
All but one coal burning power station in NSW and Victoria has reported at least two breaches since 2015.
There are almost no consequences for these potentially deadly failures: out of 145 licence breaches in NSW and Victoria just 14 penalty notices or enforceable undertakings were ever enforced.
For too long communities like the Latrobe and Hunter valleys have been kept in the dark about the health and environmental impacts of their local coal burning power stations.
With advances in solar and wind power rapidly transforming the country, creating jobs and opportunities for our regions, we no longer need polluting and expensive coal.
It is time that coal followed asbestos into the dustbin of history.
David Ritter is chief executive of Greenpeace Australia Pacific.
