General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCarbon Limits, especially in Coal States: Why is everyone freaking out?
About a year or so ago, I had looked into the whole green energy thing.
There is a marked trend downward in the amount of coal and oil that is being used to power this country. Solar and wind power are becoming more prevalent in the U.S. while the new LNG and oil paradigm is shifting to offshore deliveries.
Keeping this in mind... the 30% reduction expressed by President Obama seems to follow the projected downward trends that were covered last year at HP and other sites.
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This should serve as an alert to coal states that there will be a gradual decrease of domestic coal use, shifting this demand to second and third world countries. After all, sending coal offshore reduces the domestic use, even though foreign use might increase because of it.
If this is the case, coal states should start to plan for other innovations and education/training of coal staff to other career avenues.
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Politicians in coal states should advise the public that this appears (AFAIK) to be the natural progression of energy in the U.S..
Americans should not be scared to abandon coal, NG, and oil as over this time, more and more vehicles will become electric.
Only those who lack foresight will thing that this is a catastrophic end to their state's revenues. Instead of fighting the natural progression of technology and energy use, they should embrace it and move their state to the forefront of technology.
Oh, that's right. Much of this relies of scientific education and engineering, which is shunned by many of those same states.
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,791 posts)Something to work on.
K&R
theHandpuppet
(19,964 posts)... in the rape of Appalachia. As long as the factories were humming, the homes were warm, there was plenty of timber to contribute towards the housing boom, folks didn't really seem to pay much attention to what was going on with the people of those hills whose toil and sweat was making that happen. The law and the government were on the side of the mine owners. They hid the truth about black lung from the men and boys, who have died slowly and horribly by the thousands. They let owners skirt flimsy safety regulations or paid off inspectors, resulting in the deaths of thousands more from preventable, tragic "accidents". They poisoned the land and the water, leaving its people and their children to suffer from chronic illness. When the miners finally rebelled, the gov't brought in troops who shot them down like dogs.
It was never in the interests of Big Coal and its cohorts, both in government and business, to reinvest the mountains of money they were making back into the mountains of Appalachia. An educated people are dangerous to an economic system that relies on backbreaking labor. A people making a good wage, able to feed their families and with dreams of sending their kids to college, does not provide the labor force necessary to keep that kind of money machine humming. It is poverty that breeds the very kind of desperation they need. It is that cry of desperation you are hearing now. It is the cry of desperation and fear that what little they still have will, too, be taken away.
So let's not be quick to blame the victims of this national disgrace for their own victimization. As I wrote here many years ago, "The poor are not our enemies, the powerless are not our enemies, the hungry or uneducated are not our enemies. The ones pulling the strings in this country can be found among the uber rich and their corporate allies." So the question we should be asking is where were the leaders of government and business who took and took and took from these people and gave nothing in return? And where were we?
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)Part of the equation indeed
theHandpuppet
(19,964 posts)I would extend an invitation to anyone interested in these issues and discussions about Appalachia to drop by Appalachian Group.