--- title: Five Best Ideas of the Day: April 8 description: How mountaintop removal coal mining ruined Appalachia, police and domestic violence, how the Internet of things might end privacy and more. canonical: https://time.com/3780934/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-april-8/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-04-08T16:01:41.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:04:39.375Z article:section: Ideas og:title: These Are Today's Best Ideas og:description: How mountaintop removal coal mining ruined Appalachia, and more og:url: https://time.com/3780934/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-april-8/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: These Are Today's Best Ideas twitter:description: How mountaintop removal coal mining ruined Appalachia, and more twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Five Best Ideas of the Day: April 8 by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Apr 8, 2015 4:01 PM UTC by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Apr 8, 2015 4:01 PM UTC **1\.** [**Mountaintop removal coal mining has made the air and water in Appalachia carcinogenic.**](http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/4/mountaintop-removal-mining-a-crime-against-appalachians-health.html) By Jeff Biggers in Al Jazeera America **2\.** [**Police officers are far more likely to commit intimate partner violence.**](http://fusion.net/story/111413/nowhere-to-run-intimate-violence-and-the-problem-with-police/) By Leigh Goodmark in Fusion **3\.** [**Why the “Internet of Things” might mean the end of privacy.**](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/07/how-can-privacy-survive-the-internet-of-things) By Danny Bradbury in the Guardian **4\.** [**Don’t worry. If we wipe out all of the planet’s crops, we have a backup plan.**](http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/04/06/this-is-the-backup-plan-if-all-our-crops-are-wiped-out/?tid=sm%5Ffb) By Chris Mooney in the Washington Post **5\.** [**Here’s how a slum in Ghana’s capital is preparing young women for careers.**](http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/02/africa/regina-agyare-girls-coding-nima-accra/) By Thomas Page at CNN Voices  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/) _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3780934/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-april-8/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3780934/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-april-8/"},"headline":"Five Best Ideas of the Day: April 8","datePublished":"2015-04-08T16:01:41.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:04:39.375Z","description":"How mountaintop removal coal mining ruined Appalachia, police and domestic violence, how the Internet of things might end privacy and more.","url":"https://time.com/3780934/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-april-8/","keywords":["Innovation","climate change","climate","coal","Education","girls","police","Cancer","domestic violence","Ghana","Mining","seeds"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Aspen Institute","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/innovation/","name":"Innovation"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3780934/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-april-8/","name":"Five Best Ideas of the Day: April 8"}}]}] ```