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Just as a response to some that think this is indications of some conspiracy, or a billionaire president on the take from coal interests or whatever else. - Ig

Just as a response to some that think this is indications of some conspiracy, or a billionaire president on the take from coal interests or whatever else. - Ignore the pros, why shouldn't we have coal? It has negative effects connected with climate change. - Ignoring the cons, why should we have coal? It's represents a good amount of relatively high paying jobs with no barrier to entry. This [1] article gives a fair overview of employment. There's about 174k jobs directly involved in the coal industry. The number of jobs that are indirectly supported by the industry is more open to 'massaging' but ranges from the hundreds of thousands to the coal industry's estimate of > 1 million. It's not a huge number of jobs, but what is unique about these jobs is the compensation and skills requirement. The skill requirements for much of the work are nothing but an able body and ability to learn. And the average earning for non-supervisory roles is about $22/hour. The current president is not so concerned about the consequences of climate change - thus from his worldview he's going to see the argument against coal as being little more than a push to make these jobs just disappear. And this stands to be devastating to some states, and especially to some of the states that helped put him in office. For instance the entire labor force of West Virginia is 785k people, and of those you have 20k in mining alone and some multiple of that in coal dependent jobs. That's a huge part of their entire economy and laborforce. People constantly bemoan the lack of good paying jobs for those without in-demand skills, and this is one of the few industries where people without a strong technical background can get those very jobs. I don't agree with Trump on this, but I also don't see why so many people seem to have difficulty seeing how people can come to different conclusions on things. People have different worldviews, and this is not only okay -- but a very good thing. And when you take even the briefest of moments to try to see things through somebody else's eyes, you'll often find that their actions make perfect sense, even if you might indeed disagree with them. [1] - https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Coal_and_jobs_in_the_United_States https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Coal_and_jobs_in_the_U...

kraigie 8y ago
In that case, biomass is the best renewable fuel source. Why not switch them over to biocoal? You'd probably need a larger workforce as relocating some of the senior people may be required and some more loggers,but that's a selling point.
kthejoker2 8y ago
If we baked the negative externalities of coal directly into the business their profits and wages would disappear in a heartbeat. It is only by destroying my great grand children's enviornment that we can achieve the ends you list here. And we're talking about 10,000 birds dying in windmills. The disconnect and diversion is the real issue. If he got up and said what you said at least that worldview could be confronted with facts.
- kraigie 8y ago
  At that point biomass becomes a better option to fill coals role.
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  He does say these things - time and again! But in less formal speeches he rolls with the audience and often says things that sound pretty dumb when taken out of context. And some things that are pretty dumb even in context. In any case the media has plenty of dumb things to pick from. And they generally choose to spend 100% of their time on the dumb things and 0% on the meat of the issues. And thus when you rely on the media to inform you, it makes it look like his arguments are based on the dumb things, exactly as this article tries to do. Here [1] is the video, from the point his comments from this thread. It was just a hoo-ra speech, not a policy discussion -- just going over his achievements and playing in with the crowd. By contrast here is a transcript from trump signing the executive order on 'energy independence' which he lays out his views and motivations for what he's doing. [2] Here's [3] it in video format if that's your thing. Note how the post you're responding to is downvoted. We're turning into a society where people want to hate the 'other side', and of course this is true to all 'sides.' And the media is feeding into this, and likely hold some responsibility for it. And so it's becoming increasingly difficult to get anything like a meaningful discussion of any issue within the media. Instead, they (and again this holds equally true for both sides) simply try to evangelize as much as they can for one side while demonizing and working to humiliate the other side so much as possible. This is not a good environment for discussion of issues where people may, at some point, be forced to agree to disagree. [1] - https://youtu.be/N-ReqYXmaZo?t=1240 https://youtu.be/N-ReqYXmaZo?t=1240 [2] - https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-signing-executive-order-create-energy-independence/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-pres... [3] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdkThe_O50M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdkThe_O50M

kraigie 8y ago

In that case, biomass is the best renewable fuel source. Why not switch them over to biocoal? You'd probably need a larger workforce as relocating some of the senior people may be required and some more loggers,but that's a selling point.

kthejoker2 8y ago

If we baked the negative externalities of coal directly into the business their profits and wages would disappear in a heartbeat. It is only by destroying my great grand children's enviornment that we can achieve the ends you list here. And we're talking about 10,000 birds dying in windmills. The disconnect and diversion is the real issue. If he got up and said what you said at least that worldview could be confronted with facts.

kraigie 8y ago
At that point biomass becomes a better option to fill coals role.
TangoTrotFox 8y ago
He does say these things - time and again! But in less formal speeches he rolls with the audience and often says things that sound pretty dumb when taken out of context. And some things that are pretty dumb even in context. In any case the media has plenty of dumb things to pick from. And they generally choose to spend 100% of their time on the dumb things and 0% on the meat of the issues. And thus when you rely on the media to inform you, it makes it look like his arguments are based on the dumb things, exactly as this article tries to do. Here [1] is the video, from the point his comments from this thread. It was just a hoo-ra speech, not a policy discussion -- just going over his achievements and playing in with the crowd. By contrast here is a transcript from trump signing the executive order on 'energy independence' which he lays out his views and motivations for what he's doing. [2] Here's [3] it in video format if that's your thing. Note how the post you're responding to is downvoted. We're turning into a society where people want to hate the 'other side', and of course this is true to all 'sides.' And the media is feeding into this, and likely hold some responsibility for it. And so it's becoming increasingly difficult to get anything like a meaningful discussion of any issue within the media. Instead, they (and again this holds equally true for both sides) simply try to evangelize as much as they can for one side while demonizing and working to humiliate the other side so much as possible. This is not a good environment for discussion of issues where people may, at some point, be forced to agree to disagree. [1] - https://youtu.be/N-ReqYXmaZo?t=1240 https://youtu.be/N-ReqYXmaZo?t=1240 [2] - https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-signing-executive-order-create-energy-independence/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-pres... [3] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdkThe_O50M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdkThe_O50M