What do they really want?

My biggest question, as an outsider coming into a region, is what the people who actually live there want for their future.

I, along with many other people, have ideas about the green energy path that America should embark on. At Stanford, it's a basic assumption that people are pro-wind, pro-solar, and pro-.... anything else that happens to be green. As we head off to that region, I think we might need to take a step back, and realize that not everyone is going to be a convert to the norms within the Stanford bubble.

My goal during the trip is to talk to people, just regular people, living in Appalachia and ask them what they think about coal, the environment, and their future economic development. I personally don't know anyone from that region, so I'm interested in hearing what everyday people have to say about the phenomena that we'll be encountering.