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Trump doesn't necessarily need to believe in climate change; renewables are becoming competitive and make sense from an energy security standpoint. Trump just n

by gns24 10y ago

Trump doesn't necessarily need to believe in climate change; renewables are becoming competitive and make sense from an energy security standpoint. Trump just needs to be convinced that subsidising coal makes no sense. Elon may be able to convince him that the jobs that the renewable energy industry can provide are better than those the coal industry can offer.

tomp 10y ago
China might help here - if they ramp up their subsidies & innovation in the green energy space, US/Trump will have a lot of motivation to follow suit!
- rtx 10y ago
  Or by reducing regulation on lithium mines.
jimbokun 10y ago
Might flip West Virginia back to the Democrats, though. Unless he can find some other way to keep them on board (and I wouldn't put it past him at this point). Don't know if anyone outside of West Virginia really cares about keeping the coal industry going.
- venomsnake 10y ago
  It don't have to be coal - just stable blue collar jobs. Those people that drill in the mines will be as happy building and maintaining wind turbines. Or dams. Or solar. Also we may be able to use coal for other stuff - has anyone tried to make ground coal into soil with bacteria and worms - with growing soil erosion problem that could be a market too.
  - ZeroGravitas 10y ago
    If that is true then they should probably have voted for the candidate that promised $30 billion in tax breaks and re-training to lure green energy jobs to their state.
ZeroGravitas 10y ago
I'm slightly shocked that people talk about this as if he truly believes that it's not real. With most politicians everything makes perfect sense if you assume they know it's real, but they have some narrow selfish reason to pretend otherwise e.g. connections to coal industry. I'm not sure if it's scarier to believe that he's happy to spread propaganda from the fossil fuel industry, or that he's simply stupid enough to believe it. (edit: and now I'm considering the terrifying prospect that he genuinely thinks Barack Obama faked his entire life story up to and past Harvard, and was some kind of muslim secret agent plant, which is much more terrifying than him just pandering to ignorant racists on the same topic for years)
- simonh 10y ago
  You're assuming he either believes a thing (Global Warming, Obama's birth history, etc) is real or believes it is false. He actually doesn't give a single crap either way on anything.
deleted 10y ago
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by gns24 10y ago

tomp 10y ago

China might help here - if they ramp up their subsidies & innovation in the green energy space, US/Trump will have a lot of motivation to follow suit!

rtx 10y ago
Or by reducing regulation on lithium mines.

jimbokun 10y ago

Might flip West Virginia back to the Democrats, though. Unless he can find some other way to keep them on board (and I wouldn't put it past him at this point). Don't know if anyone outside of West Virginia really cares about keeping the coal industry going.

venomsnake 10y ago
It don't have to be coal - just stable blue collar jobs. Those people that drill in the mines will be as happy building and maintaining wind turbines. Or dams. Or solar. Also we may be able to use coal for other stuff - has anyone tried to make ground coal into soil with bacteria and worms - with growing soil erosion problem that could be a market too.
- ZeroGravitas 10y ago
  If that is true then they should probably have voted for the candidate that promised $30 billion in tax breaks and re-training to lure green energy jobs to their state.

ZeroGravitas 10y ago

I'm slightly shocked that people talk about this as if he truly believes that it's not real. With most politicians everything makes perfect sense if you assume they know it's real, but they have some narrow selfish reason to pretend otherwise e.g. connections to coal industry. I'm not sure if it's scarier to believe that he's happy to spread propaganda from the fossil fuel industry, or that he's simply stupid enough to believe it. (edit: and now I'm considering the terrifying prospect that he genuinely thinks Barack Obama faked his entire life story up to and past Harvard, and was some kind of muslim secret agent plant, which is much more terrifying than him just pandering to ignorant racists on the same topic for years)

simonh 10y ago
You're assuming he either believes a thing (Global Warming, Obama's birth history, etc) is real or believes it is false. He actually doesn't give a single crap either way on anything.

deleted 10y ago

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