A Look at the “War on Coal”
Markey is a bright guy with a progressive posture, and his argument here on the war against coal is an interesting way to look at it. Hey, when you’re in politics, perhaps it’s the only way to look at it.
Here, Markey presents the case that “war” is the wrong word, that what’s happening with coal is the result of pure market forces. As I’ve argued elsewhere, there is a ton of validity to this; the reduction in coal consumption in the U.S. is almost exclusive the result of competition from natural gas and renewable energy.
Having said that, would it be wrong to wage such a war? Land lines with rotary phones were replaced by cell phones, but the former weren’t spewing toxins in the form of cadmium, selenium, arsenic, mercury, oxides of nitrogen and sulfur, and countless radioactive isotopes that were killing over a million people annually, and causing illness in countless millions more.
I really don’t have a problem with a war on coal, and you shouldn’t either.
Craig,
In the words of another President, “there you go again!”.
You are quite entitled to invent your own opinion (however bigoted and ill-informed) but you aren’t entitled to invent your own facts.
You claim to be concerned about the environment, yet you refuse to discuss, let alone debate, the rapid strides in clean(er) coal technology, will also refusing to discuss the massive environmental pollution of solar and wind.
Unfortunately, you have forsaken being an advocate for clean technology and a better environment, preferring instead to become a political fanatic, dishonestly misrepresenting and distorting facts to promote a political agenda at the expense of the environment.
I’m sure you haven’t noticed how narrow and prejudiced your attitude has became, while seeking only those advocates, politicians and writers who support your beliefs. Now you ignore or disparage any information that contracts your prejudice for fear your illusions may be revealed as merely delusions.
This year Coal will increase as a percentage of global electricity production. IMO, the increase will not be as large as predicted, more in the vicinity of 1-2% (from 41.1% to approximate 42.7).
Renewables are failing in Europe, with nations once so confident of a fossil fuel-free future, now desperately begging to invest in the worlds largest pipeline from Russia under the Baltic to Western Europe, increasing EU dependency on Russia.
Like the 1938 Munich agreement all over again, an ungrateful and foolish band of Euro sycophants applauded Merkel for disparaging Mike Pence, while hypocritically selling out Europe to Russia.
(With luck, these are the last days of the UK’s alliance with the ship of fools that constitutes the EU).
It wouldn’t be so bad, if only the hypocrisy wasn’t so blatant! What happened to all that passion you had against pipelines and fracking? Whatever happened to your admiration for the distortions, lies and nonsense you praised so highly in “Gasland”?
Whatever happened to all those immediate and terrible predictions you so predicted only a few years ago about the disaters of allowing any expansion of US natural Gas production?
Oh, and incidentally, what will you do with all the pollution including, “cadmium, selenium, arsenic, mercury, oxides of nitrogen and sulfur, and radioactive isotopes” used in the production of Solar and Wind ?
Hmmm? Hey, what plans do you have to deal with the tsunami of pollution created within 20 years when millions of tonnes of unrecyclable, highly toxic, solar panels become the world’s largest pollution problem?
Ah, that’s right, I forgot for a moment you are Californian! I just remembered California solves the problem by shipping all pollutant rubbish overseas to less discerning third world nations.
I have met Ed Markey on a number of occasions since 1978, and can attest to his being a charming and affable politician and well intentioned in public life.
However, his grip on reality, objectivity and wisdom) have diminished over the years. His latest folly in co-sponsoring Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s 14-page manifesto of the Green New Deal Plan (quickly removed, then falsely denied), is evident his nativity and lack of judgement to support such a bizarre document.
Worse, his explanation of “not fully reading the document!”, is alarming. I mean, how seriously can you take a Senator who happily admits he doesn’t read documents he “strongly supports” ?
But then, that’s not so strange in the bizarro world of the Green-left, where any nonsense is ok.
No doubt Billionaire Bloomberg’s $500 million donation to the Democratic party will be excused by those ardent opponents of “money in politics”, while ‘anti-billionaire’ campaigners will eagerly approve of Jeff Bezos’s massive democrat contributions, even buying up media to secure democrat support for his monopolistic practices to be allowed to continue.
Once again, Craig, I implore you, remember what your original purpose once sought to achieve.
Craig, I implore you, just take a serious,honest and objective investigation into the benefits of clean coal technology, at least for the sake of the environment, and forget the party political agenda.