Stretching out across an otherwise unassuming corner of Norfolk, Virginia, is the Lambert’s Point coal terminal. It is the largest and fastest-loading facility in the northern hemisphere for handling and transporting this fossil fuel, the combustion of which is a key industrial contributor to climate change.

Lambert’s Point handles a staggering 48 million tonnes of coal a year. It can offload the contents of 1200 rail cars per day onto ships bound for the Atlantic. At its maximum, it can hold 6200 of these trucks, a mere handful of which can be seen here, uniformly snaking along the tracks in a mesmerising display of our influence on, and destruction of, the world.

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Photo by Alex S. MacLean published on his facebook page 15 October 2018
Text from bit.ly/3HzjTt1 and from New Scientist magazine, page 25, issue 2nd September 2023