Breakdown of Der Abbau von Kohle schadet der Umwelt.
von
from, of / by (agent in passive clauses)
die Umwelt
the environment
der
who, which, that (relative pronoun; die, das)
schaden
to harm
Questions & Answers about Der Abbau von Kohle schadet der Umwelt.
Why do we use 'von Kohle' instead of the genitive case here?
In this sentence, Kohle (coal) is a mass noun used without an article or adjective. In German, if a noun lacks an article or an adjective ending to clearly show that it is in the genitive case, you cannot use the genitive. Instead, you must use von + Dative as a replacement.
Could I use the genitive if I added an article, like 'the mining of the coal'?
Umwelt is a feminine noun (die Umwelt). Why does the sentence say der Umwelt?
This is because the verb schaden (to harm or damage) is a dative verb; it always takes a dative object rather than an accusative one. In the dative case, the feminine article die changes to der.
What exactly does Abbau mean? Does it only apply to mining?
Abbau is a very useful noun that means dismantling, reducing, or extracting. While it means mining here, you will also often see it used for reducing things, such as der Abbau von Arbeitsplätzen (the cutting of jobs) or der Abbau von Stress (stress reduction). Notice how both of those examples also use von because they feature bare plurals or mass nouns!