Reply #27: You make a false assumption right away...

[Sir Jeffrey]

To you I am just some asshole bleeding heart on a message board talking out of my ass. You are wrong.

I am from Harrisburg so I know what happens when a small town gets destroyed because of mine shutdowns. In junior high I watched friends of mine have parents lose their jobs and some took advantage of the free money the govt made available for them to go back to college, while others sat around on unemployment for years (like my ex-girlfriend's father) before finally getting kicked off and required to find work.

I have friends and family who did and still work in the mines. For example, my grandfather worked for AMAX for 37 years and was lucky to retire before getting laid off. He is now in his early 70's and has had both knees replaced and now cannot travel because he is unable to control his bowels due to all the shit he was exposed to in the mines.

My aunt's husband (who is in his early 30's) works for a small mine in Equality, and he has already had broken bones and coughs up blood every so often.

However, starting my business career in Harrisburg put me into contact with many mine owners and executives. This is the point where my attitudes shifted. I saw how they leech off the public teet and turn around and blame the unions for shut downs. I saw how they buy off politicians with favors in exchange for tax subsidies and grants. I saw how they cut corners around the laws/environmental regulations to save a few measly bucks and when I compare the money we all spend subsidizing these assholes to the money we could be giving to wind and solar companies, it turns my stomach. No matter what regulations we place on these crooks, if we aren't there with a video camera monitoring them 24/7 they will find a way around the environmental laws...or they will just buy off the EPA agent doing the inspection. It pays for them to pollute.

Ultimately, though, my concern isn't for the poor displaced workers who choose to work in an industry that is dumping tons of pollution into the air while people like you shrug your shoulders and say "well those people need jobs". Does it suck when anyone loses a job? Of course. My concern is that by keeping these industries heavily subsidized with OUR money and turning a blind eye to the amount of pollutants and CO2 these industries dump into the air we are condemning millions of innocent citizens to permanent displacement and death due to global climate change.

As you indicated in your post, most of our electricity comes from coal. We need to stop this now and it really doesn't matter to me if a few thousand people have to find a new job. The economic costs of a few thousand former coal miners losing their jobs are, in my estimation, nothing compared to the economic costs of another Katrina, or watching the sea levels rise 10 feet.

And I insult your intelligence because you seem to be arguing that these people need to keep these jobs so we need to continue destroying the planet until we reach the point where the coal companies will finally do what they never have: play by the rules, clean up their product to the point where it doesn't pollute much and start behaving like responsible businesses. This point of view is based on an emotional attachment to your family and friends and a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of big industry.

If that is not your point, make your point and I will address what you mean to say and not what you say.