When the Wieczorek mine, one of the oldest coal mines in Poland, closed in March, Grzegorz Chudy noticed for the first time the neighborhood was vibrant with trees in the full bloom of spring. The smell was heady. “It was incredible. You never knew all those trees were there,” he told Reuters in his art studio in a housing estate for mining families in the southwestern Polish city of Katowice. “The smell wasn’t there while coal was being transported on trucks. The dust covered it up.” The Wieczorek mine in Katowice, with its towering brick shaft, is among dozens closing down throughout Poland, home to one of the most polluted coal mining regions in Europe. (To see picture […]