Here is Trump rolling back progress in keeping our federal lands protected, our air clean, and our heritage intact. And he is proud of it, telling the coal workers behind him that they’re getting their jobs back. This makes no sense to me whatsoever.
First, as the Washington Post article suggests, the action will not make any difference in the number of coal jobs. Coal production and consumption in the United States has gone from about 820 million tons in 2000 through about 2007, and have steadily declined to below 600 million tons long before Obama’s freeze on federal coal leasing in 2015. Demand has been well below supply for the last 15 years. Trump’s ceremonial undoing of Obama’s regulation will not make any difference in this trend. We’ll burn less coal, and that’s a good thing.
Trump and his cronies paid by the coal industry are reveling in the admiration of the coal workers.
COAL WORKERS, for heaven’s sake! Coal is one of the dirtiest industries. There is no such thing as clean coal. Not only does it pollute the environment, our water, our forests, coal mines are ugly and leave scars upon the land that will be there for millions of years. Coal workers get sick and die years, sometimes decades earlier than their contemporaries. Read Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence and then tell me you want to work in a coal mine! But Trump and his billionaire cronies think they are doing these coal workers a favor by sending them back into mines. And the coal workers seem to be lapping it up. This is so wrong.
The coal workers should be going to school and learn about solar power. That’s where the money is. That’s where the jobs are.
This chart shows there are more than four times as many jobs in the solar industry as there are in the coal industry. Even wind energy jobs are more plentiful than coal.
When coal demand goes down to 400 million tons in the next ten years, those are the skills they will need.
Trump will ride into the sunset of his life then, much richer, living in his golden tower, and the miners will still be unemployed, dreaming about working in coal mines, and admiring their billionaire benefactor.
This makes no sense to me at all.
It’s a damned shame to see this con artist play people like that. We will all pay in the end.
This latest iodocy is driven by his overwhelming greed:
emotional (wants coal miners to love him– from afar; he’d recoil from them face to face);
economic (he’ll do anything legal or illegal to get money to fill his empty heart);
physical (a real man does not have to grab pussies or rape).
He will never be satisfied until he has drained every penny from every person he meets: sycophant or foe. He trusts no one. And he thinks everyone is just like him, so his strikes first before they do. He has no loyalty but expects it unconditionally. His children seem caught in the headlights of his abuse, look afraid of him.
He thought being president would make him powerful and honored and loved. That is hasn’t is further entrenching his default position: vengeance.
He knows coal is dirty, he knows climate change is real, but testing loyalty is more important to his pathological state of mind.
Here endeth the Psych 101 lesson…:D
This is a state of emergency and his Republican congress (for the moment) can’t or won’t see this, but hopefully before it is too late. But we are not alone — progressive world leaders have had his number for a long time and he is subtly and not so subtly being sidelined, behind the scenes and in public. America is already paying; its moral capital now nonexistent.
His presidency is the equivalent of 9/11, morally, and I dread to think what he will do if or when another 9/11 or manufactured attack happens. I really do believe the military is positioning itself to step in.
But for every stupid, regressive, mean thing he and his Dementors do and say only makes our resistance stronger, brings out more first-time protestors into the streets and local elections and town halls, signs up women who want to run for office, wakes people up who have taken democracy for granted … there are as many signs of good happening as bad.
I’m on an intravenous drip of politics, in equal measure — outrage and hope: I can’t disconnect or I’d lose hope.
In the meantime, I have work to do, life to live. Spring is almost here in Ottawa, Canada — shouldn’t be anymore than 6–8 weeks now. Ha!
What is it when I always agree with every word you write. I find myself wanting to underline statements! Thanks for the extensive comments. Re Ottawa, looks like I am visiting Montreal next Friday (4/7). I’ll get a taste of your spring.
We are confirming each other’s prejudices, or as I like to think of them — being right! Have a great time in Montreal — most people speak English, but then you may speak French for all I know (?). The taste of spring is bound to be cold, damp and slushy. Enjoy! (Ottawa is 2 hours from Montreal by car — you’re welcome to come visit!)
benncarlston@sympatico.ca
I probably won’t have time this time to come around, and won’t have a car, but am scheduled to be back for a few days of hanging out with a friend in July. Might visit then. Would be fun.
No plans to go anywhere. You’d be very welcome! July weather: hard-sledding, but good!