Despite disasters, climate is a taboo election issue in U.S. coal country

Well, let’s see now. Here in North Florida, they built a NEW, Coal Fire Generator to EPA Extreme Regulation standards to remove as much pollution as possible (“Scrubbers”, etc) in 1978? The idea was because the Coal Mines of America could fuel them for the next two hundred years, only to TEAR THEM DOWN and go BACK to Oil Fueled Generators !

Don’t bother talking about this, it’s ridiculous what wasted tax money is going on, it’s all about politics and filling pockets, nothing more.

How is change depersonalized and argued rationally? Moreover how are those who's lives depend on a declining technology lured away from it without suffering monetary loss?

I have always though it would be sensible for oil companies to be at the forefront of solar and wind and hydro power generation so they switch over from the old to the new while keeping their employee's working. Training them in the new technologies and methods.

Coal and Gas could be at the forefront of hydrogen generation and used to replace their fossil fuels in the same way.

It is only their reluctance to embrace the change themselves that puts them at odds with the new ways. Just as society needs to embrace the changes and new technology in many facets of life every day, these companies need to not limit themselves to what they do now and make the jump into new science and ways to produce power generation tecnologies that fossil fuels have done over the past 120 odd years. Doctors, IT technicians and many other careers are constantly evolving. Failure to evolve means a dead end, even for oil companies and coal miners. Embrace the future rather than trying to slow it down for your own personal sake. There is much more at stake than jobs in a few industries.

Trump promised to restore coal miners jobs but never did.

One of the problems inherent in change is that those who's lifestyle are affected usually take offense and feel as if they are being attacked for what they do. How is that perception changed? How is change depersonalized and argued rationally? Moreover how are those who's lives depend on a declining technology lured away from it without suffering monetary loss? Clinging to use of coal for energy production is basically trying to turn the clock back but yet calling those who mine the stuff backwards or hillbillies isn't productive either.

Of course people want a cleaner world, but the world energy is from oil first and coal second.

Er, natural gas has replaced oil in much of the industrial world for power generation.

China and India alone consume 10 times the coal of the US. The coal miners are hurt not just from domestic reduction of coal consumption, but because they can’t compete against the biggest exporter of coal in the world — Australia.

TokyoLivingToday  12:00 pm JST

The pathetic, anti-science and ignorant medieval GOP agenda does not stop working and spreading more ignorance..

Of course people want a cleaner world, but the world energy is from oil first and coal second. There is plenty of unscientific handwringing by those who don’t accept the fact that the least polluting and safest energy generation is from nuclear. Nuclear is dead last in workplace accidents and deaths (none from radiation). Deaths and injuries from wind and solar are higher.

Despite disasters, climate is a taboo election issue in U.S. coal country

Keeping their collective heads in the sand, hoping climate change will go away so as not to offend the coal industry that provides local employment. Yet when disaster strikes, their homes are destroyed, insurance companies look to screw policy holders to limit payouts and companies continue to be responsible for more CO2 in the atmosphere making the next disaster even worse than the last. For short term dollar income they make their own futures worse and worse and ending up homeless and possession-less with nothing to leave their children but a life much harder than their own.

It wont go away without big changes on how humanity goes about things. It does not require giving up technology but it does mean changing how we collect energy and means we need to be able to store energy for future use. The longer it takes to do what is required, the worse life will get, more species becoming extinct on land and in oceans, and the hotter this world will get driving humanity underground in some areas just to survive summer heatwaves.

The market is already moving away from coal. It's dirty. It's expensive. It's dangerous to mine.

It's being kept alive by a core of GQP politicians and one Joe Manchin who are going to make sure the rest of us have to breath dirty air so that a very small subset of the population never has to change how it makes a living.

If only buggy whip makers had the same political representation, eh?

The pathetic, anti-science and ignorant medieval GOP agenda does not stop working and spreading more ignorance..

The US does not need coal, at least in the medium term. Renewables and less polluting "blue" energy can more than cover American energy needs, even with electric cars.

Many US corporations are repatriating overseas operations, particularly from China. Kentucky would do much better for its future to attract those. It is a wonderful place to live and low-cost so has much potential.

In December, tornadoes killed 80 people in western Kentucky, and in late July, unprecedented heavy rains left 40 residents dead in the east of the state.

79 people were killed by a tornado in 1890.

The heaviest flooding and “unprecedented” rainfall in Kentucky was in 1957.

The US is going to need coal since states are mandating electric vehicles. It’s just transferring pollution to somewhere else other than the tailpipe. And generating the electricity and transmitting it is inefficient, so more net pollution will be have to made to run those golf carts with doors. Solar and wind power won’t do it.