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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
Atreides, you're not really providing enough information here.
Firstly, if every coal mine harvested coal as efficiently as Alaska, then still those millions of ex-coal miners in the Rust Belt aren't getting their jobs back no matter what. Trump's plan to re-fire those plants to get those jobs back is just not going to happen, end of story. It would be better for our economy if we stayed at the forefront of exporting renewables rather than trying to turn back the clock and destroying two industries instead of one.
Secondly, you haven't said anything about the environmental costs. Again, although renewable energies have traditionally been more expensive than coal, gas, and oil (although that's rapidly changing), the difference is that the environmental cost is built into the renewables, whereas coal/gas/oil companies have passed the bill for environmental damage onto society to pay. (Which is to say nothing of the fact that it's a lot better to do no harm to begin with than to do harm and pay to fix it.)
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It's pretty quiet right now in Ogunquit, Maine. But Sarah Diment, owner of Beachmere Inn, says a surge of tourists in the summer will transform the city into a bustling New England ocean resort colony. And accompanying the tourists are an influx of foreign workers.
"Most of the women that have worked for us have come from Jamaica," Diment says. "They come, they work, they buy. It's an insane amount of goods that they ship home. And then they go home every year."
Prospects are dimming for their return: A cap will soon kick in on the number of short-term work visas provided under the H-2B program, which brings in low-skilled labor for nonagricultural jobs that U.S. employers say they can't fill closer to home. This occurs mostly in landscaping, seafood processing, maid and other hospitality services.
The program provides roughly 66,000 of the visas. In some years — including last year — Congress has allowed more. But that's not the case this year, and there are only about 11,000 left.
Southern tier states such as Florida have already secured workers, but many resorts with later seasons won't make it into the queue. Diment says she's likely to close up whole sections of the Beachmere, cancel reservations booked long ago and possibly lay off local staff.
"If I have to take 20 rooms out of inventory, then do I really need five people in our maintenance department?" she asks. "Do I really need eight people at the front desk? Not only would it impact my guests, but it would potentially impact what we do here as a hotel to stay open with everyone else."
Those concerns have caught the attention of a bipartisan coalition of senators, including Maine Republican Susan Collins, that wants an audit of the H-2B program to ensure all available visas are issued.
"I think it's important to realize that even in this environment, where immigration issues have become so controversial, that these are essentially guest workers," Collins says.
She also wants more visas allotted for returning workers. But efforts to expand the program are likely to be caught in the larger immigration debate and to divide Republicans. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, for instance, condemned the program last year, when he was the senator of Alabama.
"Our focus needs to be on getting Americans back to work — not on seeing how many foreign workers we can bring to the United States," he says.
Progressive groups also oppose the program. They point to evidence of abuses: unenforced pay-scale and advertising requirements, which can hurt wages for American job-seekers. And because the visas commit workers to a single employer, opponents say there's a power imbalance that puts workers at risk of deportation if they try to protest any mistreatment.
Congressional supporters of the visa program may still try to attach expansions to a coming budget measure. But one major wildcard is President Trump.
"Buy American, and hire American" has been his mantra. But he's also hired dozens of H-2B workers for his properties, including Mar-a-Lago, sometimes dubbed the "winter White House."
Source
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On March 28 2017 22:41 LightSpectra wrote:
Atreides, you're not really providing enough information here.
Firstly, if every coal mine harvested coal as efficiently as Alaska, then still those millions of ex-coal miners in the Rust Belt aren't getting their jobs back no matter what. Trump's plan to re-fire those plants to get those jobs back is just not going to happen, end of story. It would be better for our economy if we stayed at the forefront of exporting renewables rather than trying to turn back the clock and destroying two industries instead of one.
Secondly, you haven't said anything about the environmental costs. Again, although renewable energies have traditionally been more expensive than coal, gas, and oil (although that's rapidly changing), the difference is that the environmental cost is built into the renewables, whereas coal/gas/oil companies have passed the bill for environmental damage onto society to pay. (Which is to say nothing of the fact that it's a lot better to do no harm to begin with than to do harm and pay to fix it.)
Well, that's not true. Environmental costs are still externalized. The main difference is that it's harm to the local environment in a place far far away, rather than in gaseous form that spreads around the world. Apparently we don't care about poisoning the soil and rivers in China because cadmium from photovoltaic cell fabrication gets into them, or because of neodymium mines for wind turbines.
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Republicans: The focus needs to be on putting Americans to work.
Job Market: The American education system doesn’t teach the skills the job market needs and student loans are a burden to young workers. That is why we have to get people from all over the world. And the number of jobs is pretty small.
Republicans: We think the free market should move the education system forward.
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I mean I think you miss the point of my post. I don't try and make any of those claims. Hence I don't try and prove them.
I merely commented that based on my knowledge of coal mining in my area that I've seen and have experience with that most of the "anti-coal" stuff you see online seems hilariously uninformed. People literally reference issues from over 100 years ago and act like they are relevant. They aren't here, but I even allowed they might be elsewhere.
Ironically my only involvement with coal personally was opposing a proposed mine because of it being in salmon habitat area. I really think you are projecting a position on me I didn't take.
(Like you literally say the same things I said as a "counter" to me.)
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On March 28 2017 22:54 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2017 22:41 LightSpectra wrote:
Atreides, you're not really providing enough information here.
Firstly, if every coal mine harvested coal as efficiently as Alaska, then still those millions of ex-coal miners in the Rust Belt aren't getting their jobs back no matter what. Trump's plan to re-fire those plants to get those jobs back is just not going to happen, end of story. It would be better for our economy if we stayed at the forefront of exporting renewables rather than trying to turn back the clock and destroying two industries instead of one.
Secondly, you haven't said anything about the environmental costs. Again, although renewable energies have traditionally been more expensive than coal, gas, and oil (although that's rapidly changing), the difference is that the environmental cost is built into the renewables, whereas coal/gas/oil companies have passed the bill for environmental damage onto society to pay. (Which is to say nothing of the fact that it's a lot better to do no harm to begin with than to do harm and pay to fix it.) Well, that's not true. Environmental costs are still externalized. The main difference is that it's harm to the local environment in a place far far away, rather than in gaseous form that spreads around the world. Apparently we don't care about poisoning the soil and rivers in China because cadmium from photovoltaic cell fabrication gets into them, or because of neodymium mines for wind turbines.
That's true of coal too, the coal industry has to take care of local environmental damage they're responsible for (at least in America, maybe the PRC doesn't give a shit about that right now).
What they're not responsible for is dispensing CO2 into the atmosphere where nobody is taking responsibility for it except the national governments that signed the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. In that sense, fossil fuels have a hidden cost, but it's built into renewables.
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On March 28 2017 22:16 LightSpectra wrote:
Well that's why I'm asking, maybe my perception of coal's damage to the environment is much higher than it really is. Or perhaps not. I'd like to see some facts about it.
If it's as bad as my impression it is, then maybe just paying all of those ex-coal miners a free living wage would be a better idea.
Ther are horrid things like MTR, leachate ponds, sinkholes, to name a few. You also have subsurface and surface mining.
For surface mining you basically peel off the earth's skin (i.e. soil) and devastate whole areas to be remediated after coal extraction is complete or not financially suitable anymore. Of course technology differs from site to site as well so it's hard to encompass everything in a general statement.
Subsurface possibly has more mining-related direct emissions of GHG and/or other toxic gases but compared to the combustion-related emissions that's minor.
All in all subsurface isn't as directly damaging if you rule out the possibly contaminated excavated material. The coal transport is provided by train mostly so trucks only amount for a third or so of the distance covered. They ofc account for particulate, CO2, NOx, SO2 emissions and so on. Depending on the fuel used for the train that's also a source of emissions (local to the train or someplace else, e.g. by electrically powered trains) as well.
After extraction you can take a look at the life cycle.
Coal is transported to be burned. So much is true for possibly a huge majority of extracted coal (not counting liquefied coal and whatnot). Immediate damages to ecosystem and population are, again, highly dependent on circumstances, mainly on the quality of the power plant. Whether it's exhaust gas is filtered adequately or not. In case of a high sulphur content, you can have damages to human health and especially soil acidity which can translate into loss of soil fertility and irreversible soil degradation as well as damages to biotic ecosystems.
But I personally don't know much about the US's standard on that end.
The other emissions with attributed direct damages are particulate emissions, especially fine dust and so forth. E.g. Berlin has extremely high fine dust particle counts and mass due to neighbouring coal power plants. Here again it's up to the purifier system used whether that's a big or a huge problem.
In general there's a lot of energy input necessary to transform coal into energy (heat n electricity if you want to be generous). While I'm not sure about the US, for a close knit energy network like Germany or even the EU, it's possible to maintain a power grid without big, centralized power plants. Not yet but in a couple of decades time.
As to the US with it's vast distances this might be too difficult of a task and since investing in future technology's is not the current government's idea of sound politics I doubt there will be many projects looking into tackling that problem.
Implications of CO2 emissions and global warming needn't be discussed I think.
Other arguments to be made against coal are
- it can not be a clean technology due to the inherently high CO2 emissions per kWh of usable energy (Lol@CCS, ofc that's a personal opinion, feel free to argue otherwise).
- big evil corporations standing on the pillar of coal energy don't want to close their money making machines (who with a short term quarterly perspective would want to?) and thus blocade future-oriented energy generation systems and endanger the planet's future for profits (though idk about US companies again, whether they accept man made CC as a fact or still deny it)
- relying on "cheap" coal is only possible because external costs (see above) arn't internalized and due to high subsidies like tax cuts, so cheap coal comes with a hidden price tag.
e: fixing some issues
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On March 28 2017 22:56 Atreides wrote:
I mean I think you miss the point of my post. I don't try and make any of those claims. Hence I don't try and prove them.
I merely commented that based on my knowledge of coal mining in my area that I've seen and have experience with that most of the "anti-coal" stuff you see online seems hilariously uninformed. People literally reference issues from over 100 years ago and act like they are relevant. They aren't here, but I even allowed they might be elsewhere.
Ironically my only involvement with coal personally was opposing a proposed mine because of it being in salmon habitat area. I really think you are projecting a position on me I didn't take.
(Like you literally say the same things I said as a "counter" to me.)
this sounds eminently unsurprising; on basically EVERY issue of public importance you find the same thing; the public at large is incredibly uninformed on the actual realities of the situation.
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Nunes is too close to the White House and needs to go. Fun fact: three weeks ago the general counsel of the House Intel Committee, aka Nunes' lawyer, joined the White House. He works in the same building Nunes went to view documents about team Trump being surveilled. Another fun fact: Nunes served on Trump's transition team.
The Trump administration sought to block former acting attorney general Sally Yates from testifying to Congress in the House investigation of links between Russian officials and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, The Washington Post has learned, a position that is likely to further anger Democrats who have accused Republicans of trying to damage the inquiry.
According to letters The Post reviewed, the Justice Department notified Yates earlier this month that the administration considers a great deal of her possible testimony to be barred from discussion in a congressional hearing because the topics are covered by the presidential communication privilege.
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President Trump fired Yates in January after she ordered Justice Department lawyers not to defend his first immigration order temporarily banning entry to United States for citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries and refugees from around the world.
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Yates’s attorney then sent a letter Friday to McGahn, the White House lawyer, saying that any claim of privilege “has been waived as a result of the multiple public comments of current senior White House officials describing the January 2017 communications. Nevertheless, I am advising the White House of Ms. Yates’ intention to provide information.’’
That same day, Nunes, the panel’s chairman, said he would not go forward with the public hearing that was to feature Yates’s testimony.
WaPo
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On March 28 2017 23:33 Doodsmack wrote:Nunes is too close to the White House and needs to go. Fun fact: three weeks ago the general counsel of the House Intel Committee, aka Nunes' lawyer, joined the White House. He works in the same building Nunes went to view documents about team Trump being surveilled. Another fun fact: Nunes served on Trump's transition team. Show nested quote +The Trump administration sought to block former acting attorney general Sally Yates from testifying to Congress in the House investigation of links between Russian officials and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, The Washington Post has learned, a position that is likely to further anger Democrats who have accused Republicans of trying to damage the inquiry.
According to letters The Post reviewed, the Justice Department notified Yates earlier this month that the administration considers a great deal of her possible testimony to be barred from discussion in a congressional hearing because the topics are covered by the presidential communication privilege.
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President Trump fired Yates in January after she ordered Justice Department lawyers not to defend his first immigration order temporarily banning entry to United States for citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries and refugees from around the world.
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Yates’s attorney then sent a letter Friday to McGahn, the White House lawyer, saying that any claim of privilege “has been waived as a result of the multiple public comments of current senior White House officials describing the January 2017 communications. Nevertheless, I am advising the White House of Ms. Yates’ intention to provide information.’’
That same day, Nunes, the panel’s chairman, said he would not go forward with the public hearing that was to feature Yates’s testimony. WaPo
Its not even his White House connections. Its his repeated actions that deem him utterly unfit.
From informing the speaker and WH before his fellow committee members.
To holding a press conference before informing his fellow committee members
To still not having informed his committee members because there is somehow nothing to share
To cancelling hearings for no legitimate reason
To cancelling all meetings of the committee
Anyone single one of those things would be enough to call for his resignation.
Let alone the entire list.
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In under two months, this nation has become a joke to a lot of people, and it's joke politicians are making it worse. I wouldn't be surprised in the near future a lot more protests/riots start happening. I don't know if you saw the Paul Ryan meeting, but apparently dude was a joke there. Republicans are calling them out for having 7 years to "fix" ACA, and failing to do so when they had the chance.
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On March 28 2017 22:41 LightSpectra wrote:
Atreides, you're not really providing enough information here.
Firstly, if every coal mine harvested coal as efficiently as Alaska, then still those millions of ex-coal miners in the Rust Belt aren't getting their jobs back no matter what. Trump's plan to re-fire those plants to get those jobs back is just not going to happen, end of story. It would be better for our economy if we stayed at the forefront of exporting renewables rather than trying to turn back the clock and destroying two industries instead of one.
Secondly, you haven't said anything about the environmental costs. Again, although renewable energies have traditionally been more expensive than coal, gas, and oil (although that's rapidly changing), the difference is that the environmental cost is built into the renewables, whereas coal/gas/oil companies have passed the bill for environmental damage onto society to pay. (Which is to say nothing of the fact that it's a lot better to do no harm to begin with than to do harm and pay to fix it.)
Actually renewable environmental damage is passed onto society just as much.
Mine rare earths in other countries for solar panels->cost passed onto society
Get special government permission to ignore environmental protections to kill birds and bats with a wind farm->cost passed onto society
(it might not be the same amount [although you can't necessarily compare 'amounts" because they are different types like apples and legal briefs]... but the essence of environmental damage is that it is passed onto society)
see it was addressed already...
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On March 29 2017 00:01 Krikkitone wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2017 22:41 LightSpectra wrote:
Atreides, you're not really providing enough information here.
Firstly, if every coal mine harvested coal as efficiently as Alaska, then still those millions of ex-coal miners in the Rust Belt aren't getting their jobs back no matter what. Trump's plan to re-fire those plants to get those jobs back is just not going to happen, end of story. It would be better for our economy if we stayed at the forefront of exporting renewables rather than trying to turn back the clock and destroying two industries instead of one.
Secondly, you haven't said anything about the environmental costs. Again, although renewable energies have traditionally been more expensive than coal, gas, and oil (although that's rapidly changing), the difference is that the environmental cost is built into the renewables, whereas coal/gas/oil companies have passed the bill for environmental damage onto society to pay. (Which is to say nothing of the fact that it's a lot better to do no harm to begin with than to do harm and pay to fix it.) Actually renewable environmental damage is passed onto society just as much. Mine rare earths in other countries for solar panels->cost passed onto society Get special government permission to ignore environmental protections to kill birds and bats with a wind farm->cost passed onto society (it might not be the same amount [although you can't necessarily compare 'amounts" because they are different types like apples and legal briefs]... but the essence of environmental damage is that it is passed onto society) see it was addressed already...
What's the point of your post? I don't get it.
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United States42775 Posts
On March 28 2017 21:38 LightSpectra wrote:
Just curious, suppose a million coal jobs came back overnight. After you factor in the cost of the environmental damage (both locally and in the global ecosphere) and the increased strain on the medical industry, would it be more economical to just pay a million people the same wage to do literally nothing?
Paying 1m people a bit above minimum wage would come out to approximately $20b/year by the way. (Less than half of Trump's proposed spending hike for the defense department.)
Yes. The coal industry is a classic broken window fallacy. Appalachia isn't content so simply make us all collectively poorer by taking Federal charity as a fucked up region, they have to fuck our air too.
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Maybe putting a guy that campaigned and worked for Trump in charge of his investigation was not so good an idea.
Well, for those of us who want straight answers, in any case. It's doubtless that he was put in charge for the very reason that he can obscure/dispose of anything incriminating.
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United States42775 Posts
On March 29 2017 00:01 Krikkitone wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2017 22:41 LightSpectra wrote:
Atreides, you're not really providing enough information here.
Firstly, if every coal mine harvested coal as efficiently as Alaska, then still those millions of ex-coal miners in the Rust Belt aren't getting their jobs back no matter what. Trump's plan to re-fire those plants to get those jobs back is just not going to happen, end of story. It would be better for our economy if we stayed at the forefront of exporting renewables rather than trying to turn back the clock and destroying two industries instead of one.
Secondly, you haven't said anything about the environmental costs. Again, although renewable energies have traditionally been more expensive than coal, gas, and oil (although that's rapidly changing), the difference is that the environmental cost is built into the renewables, whereas coal/gas/oil companies have passed the bill for environmental damage onto society to pay. (Which is to say nothing of the fact that it's a lot better to do no harm to begin with than to do harm and pay to fix it.) Actually renewable environmental damage is passed onto society just as much. Mine rare earths in other countries for solar panels->cost passed onto society Get special government permission to ignore environmental protections to kill birds and bats with a wind farm->cost passed onto society (it might not be the same amount [although you can't necessarily compare 'amounts" because they are different types like apples and legal briefs]... but the essence of environmental damage is that it is passed onto society) see it was addressed already...
Some environmental issues apply to societies at different levels. Take overfishing in the North Atlantic. If Spain does it then it certainly has an impact on wealth of the British, or the Icelandic etc. So it's not a purely national concern, the externalities of the production impact multiple nations. But it doesn't impact the Swiss. CO2 emissions are a good example of an externality that impacts basically everyone. If you're living in Bangladesh just above sea level and America decides it wants to use coal as its principle form of energy generation then they're fucking you over. The problem isn't externalities, it's when the benefit from the action goes to one group and the cost goes to another leading to economically irrational decisions being made. But some operate pretty much on just the national level, like your example of rare earth mineral mining in China and those are fine. China has, for whatever reason, decided that the benefit to China is greater than the cost to China. And that's not really a problem. The increased jobs, technological and infrastructure investment, money and market share are apparently worth the environmental damage. It's a completely different situation to "well sure if I burn this coal to make $1000 of electricity to sell then someone else is going to have $1500 worth of costs but it won't be me paying for those costs so I'm going to do it anyway".
If we can place an accurate value on the environment and it is still worth it to damage the environment then by all means go ahead. If we can calculate the cost of dirty air, and the cost of reimbursing the victims of dirty air for their trouble, and it's still worth making the air dirty then apparently whatever it was that made the air dirty was really fucking awesome so we should totally do it. The environment was never really the issue, the issue was the tragedy of the commons. Costs were just thrown onto the people as a whole in order to artificially rig the profit:cost equation and create a broken window fallacy.
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On March 29 2017 00:20 LightSpectra wrote:Maybe putting a guy that campaigned and worked for Trump in charge of his investigation was not so good an idea. Well, for those of us who want straight answers, in any case. It's doubtless that he was put in charge for the very reason that he can obscure/dispose of anything incriminating.
He became chairman of the House Intelligence Committee in January 2015 so no.
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Nunes is the personification of legislative and political ineptitude, and the worst part is that he's not unique among Representatives. He literally has no idea what he is doing and it shows.
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EPT
