Environmentalists deserve a lump of coal for Christmas
If I were president, I would declare a national “Slap an Environmentalist Upside the Head Day.”
No, I’m not anti-environment and yes, I believe in recycling. But I’ve watched in horror over the past 20 years as unelected officials of the Environmental Protection Agency have destroyed jobs in the coal industry, hurt businesses and individuals, and ruined entire communities with their overly zealous behavior and impossible-to-follow regulations.
Of course, environmentalists who aren’t even part of the EPA but who worship at the feet of the agency also want to do their part to stop coal in its tracks, even when it won’t be used in the United States.
A case in point is a recent trend of environmentalists in the northwestern U.S. blocking coal-producing states such as Wyoming from shipping their products to nations overseas that are willing to pay for it. What’s the result? The usual – loss of jobs, loss of revenue and damage to the U.S. economy.
Wyoming, which is only interested in exporting 1 percent of the 400 million tons of coal it produces each year, is being thwarted from doing so by environmentalists in states that control Pacific ports.
Wyoming Governor Matt Mead is calling it “interference with interstate commerce.” Do these environmentalists really think that Asians who have purchased coal produced by Wyoming in the past will stop using coal as a result of this? They’ll just get it from somewhere else. The environment will not be protected, but American companies in Wyoming, Montana and elsewhere will lose money and have to cut jobs.
Can we please start electing American politicians who are more interested in Americans and their welfare than they are in trying to promote their own personal legacies?
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There are many different grades of coal. The same applies to crude oil. Some grades of coal burn much cleaner than others, and produce many more BTU’s per ton, and at the same time, produce fewer emissions. That is only one reason many Asian countries are importing coal from the western U.S. States like Wyoming, Montana, Utah, and Colorado have easily mined, high value anthracite coal reserves. If we sell this coal to countries who are now using “dirty” coal, wouldn’t that be a positive move in helping to reduce overall emissions? It also would keep a viable industry from going kaput. Let’s hear some more THOUGHTFUL comments. Thank you Frank, And keep up the good work. Like Orrin says
GOD SAVE AMERICA
Sign me up!!!!!
This is some of the dumbest remarks I have ever heard.
What is wrong with selling it to someone else and what is wrong with using it. It is a small part of our energy use and all other uses are not up to speed. Coal is in the earth for a reason if not for energy have you got a better use for it? Why don’t you use your head for something beside a hat rack. Go back to school and develop something yourself and use your energy to be helpful.
I have asthma. That said, many environmental pollutants can potentially affect me. With wildfires currently consuming the West, I have been struggling. But getting by. The biggest challenge I have encountered is not coal or smoke, but perfumes. Totally legal, but I and others I know have been hospitalized, sometimes several times, due to exposure. I spent 8 days in the hospital thanks to a woman’s perfume, and several hundred dollars in costs. A friend of mine has nearly lost her husband several times for the same reason. Talk to me about coal after the perfume pushers have been corralled.
Hey john p., don’t you mean ” I realize you couldn’t care less about…….” instead of “you could care less……..”?
If you “could care less ” that means you still care! Think about it!!
Why on earth are we shipping overseas any kind of fuel produced here and then importing other fuel for our own use? What about the pollution and expense caused by all of this shipping back and forth? Wouldn’t it be better to use fuel produced in the U.S. to heat homes in the U.S.? Then we could use the money saved toward developing cleaner technologies for mining and burning coal, as well as other fuels.
i agree. coal and oil are relatively cheap, efficient non-renewable resources. when they are gone, they are gone. Virtually all of our prolific oil and gas reservoirs which allowed us to win WW II are depleted. This put us at the mercy of the middle east (gas lines in the 80’s when they cut us off) until the expensive fracking technology was developed. Obama’s veto of the Keystone Pipeline which would have allowed us to import cheap crude from Canada borders on criminology.
Thanks, Paul, for trying to tell it like it really is! Christine and John live in some non-realistic world! There is a movement, world-wide, to TRY to use cleaner coal. But until then, the people in other countries should just be cold in the winter and eat raw food, according to C & J. As for pollutants, one train accident with tanks of oil would release more pollutants than the Keystone pipeline would in its life time of use. Bet they are against that, too!
The trains are mostly owned by one rich guy. (Warren Buffet). If the pipe line comes to be, he will lose money, big money . I believe he is buddies with the DC crowd so once again money talks. Also, some one we know has to defend the climate change BS. (BHO) I also believe the DC mob is wrecking the coal industry to benefit one rich guy (George Soros) who is buying up coal company stock at fire sale prices. So let’s stop all the cutsie crap and get down to the real motivator….Money and greed.
Dear Frank,
This is just one more example of how the Utopian world crowd are total, clueless, dumb-asses.
What will they do when their lights go out? Their gas heat is turned off? Their water cannot be purified for the masses?
These people have way too much time and money on their hands and haven’t the commonsense of a dirt-clod in a driveway!
They don’t understand that the magical fantasy “Wonderland” they desire, filled with only love, rainbows and butterflies …
CANNOT INCLUDE THE HUMAN ANIMAL!!!
God Save America,
Orrin
Someone please tell me — Where is the outrage and indignation from our “friends” -aka- The sierra club, Friends of the earth, and all the other “environmental” advocates over the recent auto emissions cheating done by V.W. and Audi.
Where in HELL were the “experts” who work for the EPA in the auto emissions department. Could it be they were looking the other way? and perhaps being “encouraged” to do so?
Most of our federal government agencies are so out of touch with reality that it makes me fear for some of our most basic freedoms. Just one example: By law, the BLM is to manage a certain wild horse herd in Utah at maximum 350 head. The herd is now almost double that number, and the BLM does nothing about it…. Why? Because of pressure from “environmental” advocates. Some of those horses have starved to death, and the range is being decimated. All the “tree huggers” can say is: It’s not humane to slaughter them. Is it humane to let them starve to death??
These are just two of many examples of the problems we have with BIG GOVERNMENT. And the EPA in particular. Let’s hear some more from you out there. It’s time we took a stand and rein in BIG GOVT.
We need Coal! For heating American homes when the grids out on coal stove! The real pollutants are Monsanto in there chemicals and all the chemicals that were producing that are making us sick in that arena food in all our products we buy!
I live in the Pacific Northwest and I am definitely not in favor of coal being shipped by train through our communities on the way to being shipped to China. With all of the accidents we’ve seen on the news we are really worried about the fate of our small rural towns if those trains should derail or crash. Also, it sounds like there will be a great deal of coal dust emanating from the trains as they pass through. This has to be a health hazard. This is surely related to the welfare of Americans!
You heard wrong.
A “great deal of coal dust” is not “emanating from the trains”. Each load of coal is sprayed with a surfactant sealant to prevent this problem. It is very effective. For those who still spread the lies of “emanating” coal dust problems, companies are working on covers that will work with the cars as well.
“All the accidents” you see on the news are a tiny percentage of all the materials in transit by truck, rail, and ship. It’s just not exciting to report “Another 3000 over-the-road and rail shipments arrived on time and without incident today” when instead you can run “oooh, look, something bad happened with one train today” and run it to death so everybody thinks it was a lot worse than it was.
What is related to the welfare of Americans is a bunch of non-working idiots who get in the way of working people thinking they are somehow “saving the planet” when all they’re doing is sidelining productive workers and removing the source of their own entitlements (for socialists to survive, they have to steal from capitalists).
It is apparent that Christine has absolutely no-clue to what coal is nor its properties. If a derailment shoulcl occur the coal, looks like black rocks, will be picked up and reloaded into either rail cars or trucks. Coal dust is produced when the coal is mined; there is very little dust remaining on the coal to “blow off” of the coal while it is being transported. Life will always be difficult for you if you continually follow and emphasize the negative rather than investigate and follow the truth.
Are you really that stupid to imply that burning coal as long as it isn’t done here is fine? You must be planning to build a dome over the US to keep the pollution at bay. I can’t believe how assenine your logic is on this subject. Logic so convoluted, I’ve un-subscribed from your emails. I realize you could care less about one potential customer, but this was a bridge too far.
Well, John I guess you think that coal supplied from some where else will not pollute? When China goes along with the anti -pollution plans maybe then your ideas will have some merit. No matter what is done in the USA about selling coal, burned in China, they will continue to thumb their noses at all these tree huggers. They will buy and burn coal from where ever they can buy it. So you suggest biting off the USA coal miners noses to spite the facts of reality.
no wonder why the economy is suffering.