When airports, roads and bridges can’t function because of extreme heat, you’d think there would be more widespread support for the president’s effort to combat climate change, but the press has barely noticed and the people are therefore uninformed. The Republicans certainly don’t seem intimidated. When Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes held a press conference today to announce that she is running for Mitch McConnell’s Senate seat, the response was remarkable:
When it became clear Monday that Lundergan Grimes was entering the race, Republicans wasted no time in tying her to Obama, who remains unpopular in Kentucky after losing the state by more than 20 points in 2012.
“The next 16 months will provide a great opportunity for Kentuckians to contrast a liberal agenda that promotes a war on coal families and government rationed health care with someone who works everyday to protect Kentuckians from those bad ideas,” McConnell said.
So, it’s 130 degrees in Death Valley, 19 firefighters were engulfed in an Arizona wildfire, and Utah is suffering a horrible drought, but McConnell is still talking about “coal families.”
Sometimes, it feels like we’re doomed because we have too many idiots with too much power.
Too many media outlets with too much corporate incentive?
my father in law is a modern-day Archie Bunker and I am the Meathead of the family, although I do my best not to challenge him when he goes off on topics.
He’s also a huge proponent of the coal industry (he has a financial interest through some coal stocks he owns). He doesn’t believe in global warming, or climate change, but was going off this weekend about how terrible windmills are because they kill eagles.
Since I consider myself to be a good son-in-law, I didn’t ask him how many eagles and other birds of prey are at risk of dying in the forest fires, or the result of droughts, or other extreme weather events…
Instead I told him that if he wanted his stocks in coal to rise, then he should be against fracking because the abundant supply of natural gas is driving down the value of coal.
That coal is still going to be mined, it’s just going straight overseas, is all, and that carbon (and other fun stuff like mercury and arsenic) will end up in the atmosphere over there if not over here.
I keep hearing also that there’s a huge potential market for natural gas in Japan, and that once the TPP takes effect, a lot of our gas “boom” is going straight over there, so who knows, maybe those coal plants aren’t in all that much danger either.
Sometimes, it feels like we’re doomed because we have too many idiots with too much power.
“Sometimes?” Although it’s not necessarily idiots–there are plenty of socio- and psychopaths out there with their hands on the reins, too. I don’t see a long term for our species.
There is no “war on coal”, as McConnell knows perfectly well. There is, however, a free market, which is why natural gas is kicking coal’s ass.
Funny how free marketers get all pissed when they get slapped. Y the invisible hand.
NYTimes: Tar sand waste sold by a company called Koch Carbon they sell the waste to overseas where it is burned as cheap fuel. Billionaire Koch brothers won’t rest until the sea level rises six feet.
I may have gotten this link from a comment or article here if so its worth seeing again.
Sometimes, it feels like we’re doomed because we have too many idiots with too much power.
“The trouble ain’t that there are too many fools, but that the lightning ain’t distributed right.”
–Twain