New Coal Regulations Will Kill Jobs, Boost Energy Bills

[daveman]

You know, the people operated the ovens at Auschwitz lost their jobs too. That too fucking bad. Mountaintop removal is an attack on this nation, our environment and it's people.

 

[Bfgrn]

Where are you from? Where do you live? I was born and raised in the heart of Appalachia and was a 4th genration coal miner until the EPA saw fit to make it impossible to strip mine coal anymore.

Who gives anyone especially Robert F Kennedy Jr the right to decide whats best for me and my children? Save the mountains and starve familys. But who cares because you and your lefty elitist buddies dont have to suffer the economic consequences to save these mountains.

Dont give me any lines about new jobs and new industries to replace the coal jobs lost because they will not get here in time to save my house from being reposessed.

Forgive me if I see angry but we are all sick and tired of outsiders coming in to save us from ourselves. All you green idiots live in la la land. There is no land of milk and honey. All of us cant just pick up and work at McDonalds. You are taking away a mans basic right to feed his family.

If you go see the movie, it is people who LIVE in the the heart of Appalachia who are protesting. What gives any corporation the right to destroy the commons, human health and life???

The rule is the commons, the air we breathe, the water we drink, the fish we eat are owned by all of us. They're not owned by governments, coal companies or utilities. Everybody has a right to use them. Nobody has a right to abuse them. Nobody has a right to use them in a way that will diminish or injure their use and enjoyment by others.

I have some really bad news for you...the EPA is not to blame for lost coal jobs...blame strip mining, which eliminates 'miners' and union busting by scum bags like Don Blankenship who should be arrested and tried for manslaughter.



Razing Appalachia

Before

After

Mountaintop removal mining is the practice of blasting off the tops of mountains so machines called draglines can mine coal deposits. Coal mining companies dump the mountaintops into nearby valleys and streams to create "valley fills," converting mountain landscapes covered in hardwood forests into fields of sparse grass. Coal companies are stripping off the tops of mountains in West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia. Tennessee has three inactive mines.

The U.S. is responsible for 22.3 percent of the world's coal-related carbon emissions.

Over 1000 miles of streams have been buried by strip mine waste in Appalachia.

In 1950, West Virginia employed 143,000 miners. By 1997, that number was down to 22,000.

75 percent of West Virginia's streams and rivers are polluted by mining and other industries.

300,000 acres of hardwood forest in West Virginia have been destroyed by mountaintop removal mining.

I would like to see links that support your statements. You also neglect to admit that once the mines are played out the mining companies MUST restore the environment back to the way it was. There are lots of abandoned holes out there, but the new paradigm sees the mining companies in jail if they don't clean up their messes now.

China is the big offender at the moment (followed closely by India). Interesting how they can continue to pollute the crap out of everything and you only want to concentrate on punishing the workers and citizens of the US.

China accounts for 78 percent of the total increase in the world's coal-related carbon dioxide emissions from 2007 to 2035, and India accounts for 7 percent. For China alone, coal-related emissions grow by an average of 2.6 percent annually, from 5.2 billion metric tons in 2007 to 10.6 billion metric tons (or 55 percent of the world total) in 2035. India's carbon dioxide emissions from coal combustion total 1.4 billion metric tons in 2035, accounting for more than 7 percent of the world total. In the United States—the world's other major coal consumer—coal-related carbon dioxide emissions rise more slowly, by 0.3 percent per year, to 2.4 billion metric tons (12 percent of the world total) in 2035.

EIA - 2010 International Energy Outlook - Energy-Related Carbon Dioxide Emissions

There is no way to restore the environment back to what it was. And the acres that are removed are dumped in valleys and streams. It is an environmental Hiroshima.

I have said before that communism is conservative. And it's clear that if conservatives have their way in America, it will be an environmental nightmare like the Soviet Union and China...thanks for proving my case.

 

[Bfgrn]

You know, the people operated the ovens at Auschwitz lost their jobs too. That too fucking bad. Mountaintop removal is an attack on this nation, our environment and it's people.

http://i51.tinypic.com/2lm6khg.jpg

daveman

 

[daveman]

You know, the people operated the ovens at Auschwitz lost their jobs too. That too fucking bad. Mountaintop removal is an attack on this nation, our environment and it's people.

http://i51.tinypic.com/2lm6khg.jpg

daveman

"Pea brain?" I've never heard that used by anyone over 9.

So your use is perfectly in character.

 

[westwall]

If you go see the movie, it is people who LIVE in the the heart of Appalachia who are protesting. What gives any corporation the right to destroy the commons, human health and life???

The rule is the commons, the air we breathe, the water we drink, the fish we eat are owned by all of us. They're not owned by governments, coal companies or utilities. Everybody has a right to use them. Nobody has a right to abuse them. Nobody has a right to use them in a way that will diminish or injure their use and enjoyment by others.

I have some really bad news for you...the EPA is not to blame for lost coal jobs...blame strip mining, which eliminates 'miners' and union busting by scum bags like Don Blankenship who should be arrested and tried for manslaughter.



Razing Appalachia

Before

After

Mountaintop removal mining is the practice of blasting off the tops of mountains so machines called draglines can mine coal deposits. Coal mining companies dump the mountaintops into nearby valleys and streams to create "valley fills," converting mountain landscapes covered in hardwood forests into fields of sparse grass. Coal companies are stripping off the tops of mountains in West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia. Tennessee has three inactive mines.

The U.S. is responsible for 22.3 percent of the world's coal-related carbon emissions.

Over 1000 miles of streams have been buried by strip mine waste in Appalachia.

In 1950, West Virginia employed 143,000 miners. By 1997, that number was down to 22,000.

75 percent of West Virginia's streams and rivers are polluted by mining and other industries.

300,000 acres of hardwood forest in West Virginia have been destroyed by mountaintop removal mining.

I would like to see links that support your statements. You also neglect to admit that once the mines are played out the mining companies MUST restore the environment back to the way it was. There are lots of abandoned holes out there, but the new paradigm sees the mining companies in jail if they don't clean up their messes now.

China is the big offender at the moment (followed closely by India). Interesting how they can continue to pollute the crap out of everything and you only want to concentrate on punishing the workers and citizens of the US.

China accounts for 78 percent of the total increase in the world's coal-related carbon dioxide emissions from 2007 to 2035, and India accounts for 7 percent. For China alone, coal-related emissions grow by an average of 2.6 percent annually, from 5.2 billion metric tons in 2007 to 10.6 billion metric tons (or 55 percent of the world total) in 2035. India's carbon dioxide emissions from coal combustion total 1.4 billion metric tons in 2035, accounting for more than 7 percent of the world total. In the United States—the world's other major coal consumer—coal-related carbon dioxide emissions rise more slowly, by 0.3 percent per year, to 2.4 billion metric tons (12 percent of the world total) in 2035.

EIA - 2010 International Energy Outlook - Energy-Related Carbon Dioxide Emissions

There is no way to restore the environment back to what it was. And the acres that are removed are dumped in valleys and streams. It is an environmental Hiroshima.

I have said before that communism is conservative. And it's clear that if conservatives have their way in America, it will be an environmental nightmare like the Soviet Union and China...thanks for proving my case.

As usual you are wrong. Please view the picture below. That's Lake Tahoe. 100 years ago it was a moonscape. Virtually every tree in the entire Tahoe basin disappeared into the mines of the Comstock. 100 years later and you would never know it had happened.

 

[Jroc]

I know that the great Robert F Kennedy Jr has shown you pictures of reclaimed mine sites that look bad. There are some companies that do a bad job. The ones you dont see are the majority that look good after reclamation. I have seen many that where done good. Hardwoods planted that will be harvested 30-40 years from now.

Having a little more flat land in Souther WV would not be a bad idea anyway. You cant put a factory anywhere around here because you cant find a flat acre anywhere.

I did not lose my job becasue of strip mining I worked as a strip miner.

I will tell you that those mountains are the people of the state of West Virginina's and the vast majority of us want to mine; underground, strip, and MTR.

Give me and the 100 guys that lost our jobs and alternative that pays 30.00 an hour. No one has considered what to do with us. No just leave us to live off the govt. Thanks a lot. I love drawing unemployment.

They are not your mountains, or West Virginia's mountains. The water and streams that have been contaminated is not your water and streams, West Virginia's water and streams. They are part of the commons.

You know, the people operated the ovens at Auschwitz lost their jobs too. That too fucking bad. Mountaintop removal is an attack on this nation, our environment and it's people.

This post just proves what kind of whacked out idiot you really are. Environmentalism is your religion (long with liberalism in general)

 

[Jroc]

It seems to me that if you live in ivory towers its real easy to ignore the consequences of your actions but when a filthy laid off coal miner climbs up there and asks you to your face how am I going to feed my family now; its tougher. All these people who hate coal should come to my county and see what your precious EPA is doing to people then it might be harder for you all to blindly put your ideals over the needs of honest hard working families.

Those type of people don't care, They are the elitist (the liberals) they'll decide what's good for you and your family

 

[Jroc]

The problem is that coal is destroying the environment, our environment, and if you really care about you children, you'd realize that it is for them, for the world they are going to have to live in later. You are being selfish and thinking only of RIGHT NOW and not about the future. I understand you are upset about losing jobs, but these coal operations are not good for the future. The EPA is right to do this. It's too bad it is you that pays, but they have the absolute right to save the rest of us from the operation that benefits only a few workers and a massive industry bent on destroying our earth for a little profit.

There are jobs everywhere, and other ways to make money.

Says who? You people just don't get it, you ban chemicals like DDT which cause the deaths of tens of millions of people, you want us to drive little match box cars which will cause more traffic deaths, you ban farmers in California from farming, putting people on the welfare line to "save a little fish" people like you don't realize the consequences of your actions new sources of energy will be developed, but for now we need fossil fuels get it?

 

[Annie]

I know that the great Robert F Kennedy Jr has shown you pictures of reclaimed mine sites that look bad. There are some companies that do a bad job. The ones you dont see are the majority that look good after reclamation. I have seen many that where done good. Hardwoods planted that will be harvested 30-40 years from now.

Having a little more flat land in Souther WV would not be a bad idea anyway. You cant put a factory anywhere around here because you cant find a flat acre anywhere.

I did not lose my job becasue of strip mining I worked as a strip miner.

I will tell you that those mountains are the people of the state of West Virginina's and the vast majority of us want to mine; underground, strip, and MTR.

Give me and the 100 guys that lost our jobs and alternative that pays 30.00 an hour. No one has considered what to do with us. No just leave us to live off the govt. Thanks a lot. I love drawing unemployment.

They are not your mountains, or West Virginia's mountains. The water and streams that have been contaminated is not your water and streams, West Virginia's water and streams. They are part of the commons.

You know, the people operated the ovens at Auschwitz lost their jobs too. That too fucking bad. Mountaintop removal is an attack on this nation, our environment and it's people.

This post just proves what kind of whacked out idiot you really are. Environmentalism is your religion (long with liberalism in general)

I think that his post proves that he and many liberals are uncompassionate** assholes.

**Main Entry: uncompassionate
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: unsympathetic
Synonyms: aloof, antipathetic, apathetic, aversive, callous, cold*, cold-blooded, cool*, cruel, disinterested, frigid, halfhearted, hard, harsh, heartless, icy*, indifferent, insensitive, lukewarm, mean, nasty, obdurate, repellent, repugnant, stony, tough*, uncaring, uncharitable, unconcerned, uncongenial, unemotional, unfeeling, unkind, unmoved, unpitying, unpleasant, unresponsive, unstirred, untouched​

 

[Bfgrn]

They are not your mountains, or West Virginia's mountains. The water and streams that have been contaminated is not your water and streams, West Virginia's water and streams. They are part of the commons.

You know, the people operated the ovens at Auschwitz lost their jobs too. That too fucking bad. Mountaintop removal is an attack on this nation, our environment and it's people.

This post just proves what kind of whacked out idiot you really are. Environmentalism is your religion (long with liberalism in general)

I think that his post proves that he and many liberals are uncompassionate** assholes.

**Main Entry: uncompassionate
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: unsympathetic
Synonyms: aloof, antipathetic, apathetic, aversive, callous, cold*, cold-blooded, cool*, cruel, disinterested, frigid, halfhearted, hard, harsh, heartless, icy*, indifferent, insensitive, lukewarm, mean, nasty, obdurate, repellent, repugnant, stony, tough*, uncaring, uncharitable, unconcerned, uncongenial, unemotional, unfeeling, unkind, unmoved, unpitying, unpleasant, unresponsive, unstirred, untouched​

So...Annie has compassion for the people who operated the ovens at Auschwitz that lost their jobs...how nice Annie!

The Lung Association’s report reveals the real public health threat from coal-fired power plants.

** Coal-fired power plants that sell electricity to the grid produce more hazardous air pollution in the U.S. than any other industrial pollution sources.

** More than 400 coal-fired power plants located in 46 states across the country release more that 386,000 tons of hazardous air pollutants into the atmosphere each year.

** Particle pollution from power plants is estimated to kill approximately 13,000 people a year.

“Power plant pollution kills people,” said Charles D. Connor, President and CEO of the American Lung Association. “It threatens the brains and nervous system of children. It can cause cancer, heart attacks and strokes.

 

[daveman]

So...Annie has compassion for the people who operated the ovens at Auschwitz that lost their jobs...how nice Annie!

Retard.

 

[tonystewart1]

This post just proves what kind of whacked out idiot you really are. Environmentalism is your religion (long with liberalism in general)

I think that his post proves that he and many liberals are uncompassionate** assholes.

**Main Entry: uncompassionate
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: unsympathetic
Synonyms: aloof, antipathetic, apathetic, aversive, callous, cold*, cold-blooded, cool*, cruel, disinterested, frigid, halfhearted, hard, harsh, heartless, icy*, indifferent, insensitive, lukewarm, mean, nasty, obdurate, repellent, repugnant, stony, tough*, uncaring, uncharitable, unconcerned, uncongenial, unemotional, unfeeling, unkind, unmoved, unpitying, unpleasant, unresponsive, unstirred, untouched​

So...Annie has compassion for the people who operated the ovens at Auschwitz that lost their jobs...how nice Annie!

The Lung Association’s report reveals the real public health threat from coal-fired power plants.

** Coal-fired power plants that sell electricity to the grid produce more hazardous air pollution in the U.S. than any other industrial pollution sources.

** More than 400 coal-fired power plants located in 46 states across the country release more that 386,000 tons of hazardous air pollutants into the atmosphere each year.

** Particle pollution from power plants is estimated to kill approximately 13,000 people a year.

“Power plant pollution kills people,” said Charles D. Connor, President and CEO of the American Lung Association. “It threatens the brains and nervous system of children. It can cause cancer, heart attacks and strokes.

I would love to see you come to my community for 1 year and try to make a living. You would never make it. If you did not starve to death then you would open up that mouth of yours and never be seen or heard from again.

You disrespect my people who have carved out a living from the a very inhospitable place. No one else could have or would have mined this coal that made our country as wonderful as it is today. The coal we mined helped to win WWII.

Now honest hardworking patriotic americans can not make a living that would help America achieve some sort of energy independance. Thats fine. When you and your lefty buddies have turned America into some third world hell hole we in WV will be fine. We know how to take care of ourselves. And when you all want that coal back because you realize the mistake you made be ready to beg.

 

[Bfgrn]

I think that his post proves that he and many liberals are uncompassionate** assholes.

**Main Entry: uncompassionate
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: unsympathetic
Synonyms: aloof, antipathetic, apathetic, aversive, callous, cold*, cold-blooded, cool*, cruel, disinterested, frigid, halfhearted, hard, harsh, heartless, icy*, indifferent, insensitive, lukewarm, mean, nasty, obdurate, repellent, repugnant, stony, tough*, uncaring, uncharitable, unconcerned, uncongenial, unemotional, unfeeling, unkind, unmoved, unpitying, unpleasant, unresponsive, unstirred, untouched​

So...Annie has compassion for the people who operated the ovens at Auschwitz that lost their jobs...how nice Annie!

The Lung Association’s report reveals the real public health threat from coal-fired power plants.

** Coal-fired power plants that sell electricity to the grid produce more hazardous air pollution in the U.S. than any other industrial pollution sources.

** More than 400 coal-fired power plants located in 46 states across the country release more that 386,000 tons of hazardous air pollutants into the atmosphere each year.

** Particle pollution from power plants is estimated to kill approximately 13,000 people a year.

“Power plant pollution kills people,” said Charles D. Connor, President and CEO of the American Lung Association. “It threatens the brains and nervous system of children. It can cause cancer, heart attacks and strokes.

I would love to see you come to my community for 1 year and try to make a living. You would never make it. If you did not starve to death then you would open up that mouth of yours and never be seen or heard from again.

You disrespect my people who have carved out a living from the a very inhospitable place. No one else could have or would have mined this coal that made our country as wonderful as it is today. The coal we mined helped to win WWII.

Now honest hardworking patriotic americans can not make a living that would help America achieve some sort of energy independance. Thats fine. When you and your lefty buddies have turned America into some third world hell hole we in WV will be fine. We know how to take care of ourselves. And when you all want that coal back because you realize the mistake you made be ready to beg.

Listen...I am going to tell you who to be mad at...it is not the EPA, it is not liberals and it is not environmentalist. It IS COAL companies. They have made the life of the miners a nightmare for 100 years.

When Bobby Kennedy Jr's uncle Jack was running for President in 1960, during boom days for coal and mining jobs, the West Virginia coal counties were some of the poorest in the nation. When Bobby Kennedy Jr's father was fighting strip mining back in the 60s, he told his son in a conversation he had with him at the dinner table that the coal companies are not only destroying the environment, but they are permanently impoverishing these communities because there is no way that you can generate an economy from the moonscapes that they leave behind. He said they're doing it so that they can break the unions, and he was right. In 1968, when he told me that, there were 114,000 unionized mine workers taking coal out of tunnels in West Virginia.

Today there are only 11,000 miners left in the state, and almost none of them are unionized because the strip industry isn't.

Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1968. The EPA was not created until 2 years later by Richard Nixon.

Bobby Kennedy Jr. wants the coal industries to stop strip mining and go back to traditional mining. it would create thousands of mining jobs and end the devastation of our environment.

 

[Jroc]

Coal-fired power plants that sell electricity to the grid produce more hazardous air pollution in the U.S. than any other industrial pollution sources.

** More than 400 coal-fired power plants located in 46 states across the country release more that 386,000 tons of hazardous air pollutants into the atmosphere each year.

** Particle pollution from power plants is estimated to kill approximately 13,000 people a year.

“Power plant pollution kills people,” said Charles D. Connor, President and CEO of the American Lung Association. “It threatens the brains and nervous system of children. It can cause cancer, heart attacks and strokes.

Estimated...It was estimated 35 yrs ago that we'd be in another ice age, how'd that work out?

 

[tonystewart1]

Do you even realize how much more dangerous underground mining is compared to strip mining? You dont because you have never done either. So you think its better for men to crawl on their hands and needs for 12 hours because the top in only 40 inches high or lower. It is safer to set in the cab of a truck for 12 hours and haul 60-100 tons of overburden at a time.

All of these people that you are getting your opinions from have never worked as a miner. Come to WV and get your red hat card and try to go to work. Live with us and struggle with us then see if you can still spout out your ignorance.

Yes the coal industry has devasted some places financailly in the past. That does not work for them anymore. They pay high wages and leave behind beautifully reclaimed areas that are more usable than they where before.

Honestly how would you feel if someone tried to keep you from providing for your family in the name of a better world in the future with no plan on how to feed them in the short term? Something tells me you have no idea what real poverty is. You might see it from time to time but you never lived it. I bet you have never had to make a living by the strength of you back and the sweat of your brow.

I dont blame the coal companies. They paid me and many others enough money to live a real good life and provide a living for my family. The EPA took away the pride I had in working hard and giving my wife and sons the things they deserved and replaced it with a check every two weeks. Yea put me on the government dole and take my job from me; thats real progress.

 

[westwall]

This post just proves what kind of whacked out idiot you really are. Environmentalism is your religion (long with liberalism in general)

I think that his post proves that he and many liberals are uncompassionate** assholes.

**Main Entry: uncompassionate
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: unsympathetic
Synonyms: aloof, antipathetic, apathetic, aversive, callous, cold*, cold-blooded, cool*, cruel, disinterested, frigid, halfhearted, hard, harsh, heartless, icy*, indifferent, insensitive, lukewarm, mean, nasty, obdurate, repellent, repugnant, stony, tough*, uncaring, uncharitable, unconcerned, uncongenial, unemotional, unfeeling, unkind, unmoved, unpitying, unpleasant, unresponsive, unstirred, untouched​

So...Annie has compassion for the people who operated the ovens at Auschwitz that lost their jobs...how nice Annie!

The Lung Association’s report reveals the real public health threat from coal-fired power plants.

** Coal-fired power plants that sell electricity to the grid produce more hazardous air pollution in the U.S. than any other industrial pollution sources.

** More than 400 coal-fired power plants located in 46 states across the country release more that 386,000 tons of hazardous air pollutants into the atmosphere each year.

** Particle pollution from power plants is estimated to kill approximately 13,000 people a year.

“Power plant pollution kills people,” said Charles D. Connor, President and CEO of the American Lung Association. “It threatens the brains and nervous system of children. It can cause cancer, heart attacks and strokes.

Interesting how the American Lung Association recieved 20 million dollars in grants from the EPA. If it were an oil company you would claim they were being bought.






"Rep. Fred Upton, protect our kids' health. Don't weaken the Clean Air Act."

So reads a billboard advertisement in Upton's (R-MI) home district, paid for by the American Lung Association (ALA) as part of that organization's effort to defend the EPA's newly discovered ability to regulate carbon dioxide.

It's an interesting ad, especially when you consider that ALA has received some $20 million in grants from none other than the Environmental Protection Agency.

Of course, the ALA contends that it is acting in "full compliance" with federal law and not using any of those funds for political activities, such as the billboard ads against Rep. Upton. But even if that's true, the fact that ALA has accepted and continues to accept grant money from the EPA means it has a vested financial interest in an EPA that is as big and intrusive as possible.

Put differently, any effort to shrink the size and scope of the EPA poses a potential threat to the Lung Association's future ability to obtain grant money.

Interestingly, the ALA's willingness to lobby on behalf of government agencies from which it receives grant money is not limited to the current debate over the EPA.

The American Lung Association is also a champion of Obamacare, stating on its website that the organization "stood firmly behind the Affordable Care Act from the beginning." When the Senate passed its version of Obamacare in December 2009, ALA issued a press release that stated in part: "We are particularly pleased the Senate healthcare bill contains wellness provisions, including grant opportunities for community-based wellness and prevention efforts." (emphasis added)

Indeed. A quick scan of public documents finds that the American Lung Association has received more than $15 million in grants from the Department of Health and Human Services over the past decade -- the government entity that will greatly expand under Obamacare and will be the new law's chief implementer.

The American Lung Association can argue that the money it received from these grants is completely separate from its political activities, and that may well be the case. But what it cannot escape is its own financial interest in seeing government grow.

After all, if government were smaller and taxpayer dollars were used more wisely, what are the odds that Congress would continue to appropriate money for agencies to dole out to outside organizations with such overt political agendas?


Lung Association Breathes Life into Bigger Government | Corruption & Reform | American Solutions

 

[westwall]

So...Annie has compassion for the people who operated the ovens at Auschwitz that lost their jobs...how nice Annie!

The Lung Association’s report reveals the real public health threat from coal-fired power plants.

** Coal-fired power plants that sell electricity to the grid produce more hazardous air pollution in the U.S. than any other industrial pollution sources.

** More than 400 coal-fired power plants located in 46 states across the country release more that 386,000 tons of hazardous air pollutants into the atmosphere each year.

** Particle pollution from power plants is estimated to kill approximately 13,000 people a year.

“Power plant pollution kills people,” said Charles D. Connor, President and CEO of the American Lung Association. “It threatens the brains and nervous system of children. It can cause cancer, heart attacks and strokes.

I would love to see you come to my community for 1 year and try to make a living. You would never make it. If you did not starve to death then you would open up that mouth of yours and never be seen or heard from again.

You disrespect my people who have carved out a living from the a very inhospitable place. No one else could have or would have mined this coal that made our country as wonderful as it is today. The coal we mined helped to win WWII.

Now honest hardworking patriotic americans can not make a living that would help America achieve some sort of energy independance. Thats fine. When you and your lefty buddies have turned America into some third world hell hole we in WV will be fine. We know how to take care of ourselves. And when you all want that coal back because you realize the mistake you made be ready to beg.

Listen...I am going to tell you who to be mad at...it is not the EPA, it is not liberals and it is not environmentalist. It IS COAL companies. They have made the life of the miners a nightmare for 100 years.

When Bobby Kennedy Jr's uncle Jack was running for President in 1960, during boom days for coal and mining jobs, the West Virginia coal counties were some of the poorest in the nation. When Bobby Kennedy Jr's father was fighting strip mining back in the 60s, he told his son in a conversation he had with him at the dinner table that the coal companies are not only destroying the environment, but they are permanently impoverishing these communities because there is no way that you can generate an economy from the moonscapes that they leave behind. He said they're doing it so that they can break the unions, and he was right. In 1968, when he told me that, there were 114,000 unionized mine workers taking coal out of tunnels in West Virginia.

Today there are only 11,000 miners left in the state, and almost none of them are unionized because the strip industry isn't.

Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1968. The EPA was not created until 2 years later by Richard Nixon.

Bobby Kennedy Jr. wants the coal industries to stop strip mining and go back to traditional mining. it would create thousands of mining jobs and end the devastation of our environment.

Strip mining is FAR safer then hard rock mining which you and Bobby Jr. are advocating. It is more destructive to the environment but now they have to go in and repair the damage they have caused. Coal technology has advanced a great deal with scrubbers and filters and other new technology to keep the particulate matter under control. Of course the Chinese and the Indians don't bother with those new technologies but our power plants do. Coal is becoming cleaner and cleaner and CO2 emissions don't matter anyway. That is a fraud. the more CO2 the better the plants do.

 

[Jroc]

So...Annie has compassion for the people who operated the ovens at Auschwitz that lost their jobs...how nice Annie!

The Lung Association’s report reveals the real public health threat from coal-fired power plants.

** Coal-fired power plants that sell electricity to the grid produce more hazardous air pollution in the U.S. than any other industrial pollution sources.

** More than 400 coal-fired power plants located in 46 states across the country release more that 386,000 tons of hazardous air pollutants into the atmosphere each year.

** Particle pollution from power plants is estimated to kill approximately 13,000 people a year.

“Power plant pollution kills people,” said Charles D. Connor, President and CEO of the American Lung Association. “It threatens the brains and nervous system of children. It can cause cancer, heart attacks and strokes.

I would love to see you come to my community for 1 year and try to make a living. You would never make it. If you did not starve to death then you would open up that mouth of yours and never be seen or heard from again.

You disrespect my people who have carved out a living from the a very inhospitable place. No one else could have or would have mined this coal that made our country as wonderful as it is today. The coal we mined helped to win WWII.

Now honest hardworking patriotic americans can not make a living that would help America achieve some sort of energy independance. Thats fine. When you and your lefty buddies have turned America into some third world hell hole we in WV will be fine. We know how to take care of ourselves. And when you all want that coal back because you realize the mistake you made be ready to beg.

Listen...I am going to tell you who to be mad at...it is not the EPA, it is not liberals and it is not environmentalist. It IS COAL companies. They have made the life of the miners a nightmare for 100 years.

When Bobby Kennedy Jr's uncle Jack was running for President in 1960, during boom days for coal and mining jobs, the West Virginia coal counties were some of the poorest in the nation. When Bobby Kennedy Jr's father was fighting strip mining back in the 60s, he told his son in a conversation he had with him at the dinner table that the coal companies are not only destroying the environment, but they are permanently impoverishing these communities because there is no way that you can generate an economy from the moonscapes that they leave behind. He said they're doing it so that they can break the unions, and he was right. In 1968, when he told me that, there were 114,000 unionized mine workers taking coal out of tunnels in West Virginia.

Today there are only 11,000 miners left in the state, and almost none of them are unionized because the strip industry isn't.

Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1968. The EPA was not created until 2 years later by Richard Nixon.

Bobby Kennedy Jr. wants the coal industries to stop strip mining and go back to traditional mining. it would create thousands of mining jobs and end the devastation of our environment.

Bobby Kennedy Jr? He's an alcoholic. We aren't in the 60s anymore idiot, we have way better technology now, we get 50% of our electricity from coal your head out of you ass

 

[Bfgrn]

Do you even realize how much more dangerous underground mining is compared to strip mining? You dont because you have never done either. So you think its better for men to crawl on their hands and needs for 12 hours because the top in only 40 inches high or lower. It is safer to set in the cab of a truck for 12 hours and haul 60-100 tons of overburden at a time.

All of these people that you are getting your opinions from have never worked as a miner. Come to WV and get your red hat card and try to go to work. Live with us and struggle with us then see if you can still spout out your ignorance.

Yes the coal industry has devasted some places financailly in the past. That does not work for them anymore. They pay high wages and leave behind beautifully reclaimed areas that are more usable than they where before.

Honestly how would you feel if someone tried to keep you from providing for your family in the name of a better world in the future with no plan on how to feed them in the short term? Something tells me you have no idea what real poverty is. You might see it from time to time but you never lived it. I bet you have never had to make a living by the strength of you back and the sweat of your brow.

I dont blame the coal companies. They paid me and many others enough money to live a real good life and provide a living for my family. The EPA took away the pride I had in working hard and giving my wife and sons the things they deserved and replaced it with a check every two weeks. Yea put me on the government dole and take my job from me; thats real progress.

Well here is the reality. Strip mining is not labor intensive, it is equipment intensive. There will never be enough jobs in that industry. Most state unemployment programs offer retraining and placement services.

You can continue to give the coal companies a pass, but they have always been the miner's worst enemy.

They have owned the state and their government puppets...

The March on Blair Mountain

Excerpts:

This week an important protest is taking place in the coalfields of West Virginia. The March on Blair Mountain began on Monday as several hundred people embarked on a five-day journey retracing the steps of over 10,000 miners who 90 years ago staged the largest armed insurrection after the American Civil War. Today's march is a protest against both the attack of the union movement in America and the demolition of the Appalachian mountains.

Blair Mountain's storied history dates back to West Virginia in the 1920s, when the entire state was a company town. Big Coal dominated every aspect of economic life. The industry owned the shops, the homes, of course the mines -- and made sure there was virtually no other source of employment in the state. Working conditions were horrendous: men and their sons worked 12 to 16 grueling hours in dark, dangerous mines dying from a notorious plague of subsurface explosions, cave-ins and black lung.

The companies used local sheriffs to enforce their system of feudal serfdom. When a miner was injured and his family needed to be evicted from their home, the sheriff did the dirty deed. When union organizers appeared, the sheriff arrested, jailed, and routinely beat them, before escorting them to the county line. One sheriff refused to tow the company line: Sid Hatfield, of Hatfield and McCoy lore.

Not only did Hatfield refuse to do the industry's bidding, but he jailed mine operators for mistreating their workers. In the infamous Matewan gun battle, Hatfield helped kill seven mine company private investigators who had evicted union families from their homes.

Hatfield was never convicted for the Matewan shootings, but the mine operators took their revenge and on August 1, 1921 when industry thugs executed Hatfield in broad daylight on the McDowell county court-house steps.

Hatfield's assassination triggered one of the biggest labor demonstrations in American history. Ten thousand miners from the coalfields of Kentucky and West Virginia marched for six days, converging on Blair Mountain to confront their industry bosses. They were met by King Coal's powerful army of thugs and mowed down by Gatling guns.

President Warren Harding, a so-called "friend of coal," like most of the leading politicians of the Gilded Age, authorized the U.S. army to drop bombs and poison gas on the marching miners -- the only time in American History when our military deliberately bombed U.S. citizens. These military measures broke the demonstration but outraged the public, and gave vital traction to the United Mine Workers and the American labor movement.

Over the next 60 years unions became the critical counterweight to corporate power and the principal platform for the growth of the American middle class, which gave our Democracy its wealth, prosperity, and sense of justice as a core value.

More

 

[westwall]

Do you even realize how much more dangerous underground mining is compared to strip mining? You dont because you have never done either. So you think its better for men to crawl on their hands and needs for 12 hours because the top in only 40 inches high or lower. It is safer to set in the cab of a truck for 12 hours and haul 60-100 tons of overburden at a time.

All of these people that you are getting your opinions from have never worked as a miner. Come to WV and get your red hat card and try to go to work. Live with us and struggle with us then see if you can still spout out your ignorance.

Yes the coal industry has devasted some places financailly in the past. That does not work for them anymore. They pay high wages and leave behind beautifully reclaimed areas that are more usable than they where before.

Honestly how would you feel if someone tried to keep you from providing for your family in the name of a better world in the future with no plan on how to feed them in the short term? Something tells me you have no idea what real poverty is. You might see it from time to time but you never lived it. I bet you have never had to make a living by the strength of you back and the sweat of your brow.

I dont blame the coal companies. They paid me and many others enough money to live a real good life and provide a living for my family. The EPA took away the pride I had in working hard and giving my wife and sons the things they deserved and replaced it with a check every two weeks. Yea put me on the government dole and take my job from me; thats real progress.

Well here is the reality. Strip mining is not labor intensive, it is equipment intensive. There will never be enough jobs in that industry. Most state unemployment programs offer retraining and placement services.

You can continue to give the coal companies a pass, but they have always been the miner's worst enemy.

They have owned the state and their government puppets...

The March on Blair Mountain

Excerpts:

This week an important protest is taking place in the coalfields of West Virginia. The March on Blair Mountain began on Monday as several hundred people embarked on a five-day journey retracing the steps of over 10,000 miners who 90 years ago staged the largest armed insurrection after the American Civil War. Today's march is a protest against both the attack of the union movement in America and the demolition of the Appalachian mountains.

Blair Mountain's storied history dates back to West Virginia in the 1920s, when the entire state was a company town. Big Coal dominated every aspect of economic life. The industry owned the shops, the homes, of course the mines -- and made sure there was virtually no other source of employment in the state. Working conditions were horrendous: men and their sons worked 12 to 16 grueling hours in dark, dangerous mines dying from a notorious plague of subsurface explosions, cave-ins and black lung.

The companies used local sheriffs to enforce their system of feudal serfdom. When a miner was injured and his family needed to be evicted from their home, the sheriff did the dirty deed. When union organizers appeared, the sheriff arrested, jailed, and routinely beat them, before escorting them to the county line. One sheriff refused to tow the company line: Sid Hatfield, of Hatfield and McCoy lore.

Not only did Hatfield refuse to do the industry's bidding, but he jailed mine operators for mistreating their workers. In the infamous Matewan gun battle, Hatfield helped kill seven mine company private investigators who had evicted union families from their homes.

Hatfield was never convicted for the Matewan shootings, but the mine operators took their revenge and on August 1, 1921 when industry thugs executed Hatfield in broad daylight on the McDowell county court-house steps.

Hatfield's assassination triggered one of the biggest labor demonstrations in American history. Ten thousand miners from the coalfields of Kentucky and West Virginia marched for six days, converging on Blair Mountain to confront their industry bosses. They were met by King Coal's powerful army of thugs and mowed down by Gatling guns.

President Warren Harding, a so-called "friend of coal," like most of the leading politicians of the Gilded Age, authorized the U.S. army to drop bombs and poison gas on the marching miners -- the only time in American History when our military deliberately bombed U.S. citizens. These military measures broke the demonstration but outraged the public, and gave vital traction to the United Mine Workers and the American labor movement.

Over the next 60 years unions became the critical counterweight to corporate power and the principal platform for the growth of the American middle class, which gave our Democracy its wealth, prosperity, and sense of justice as a core value.

More

So what! I have a feeling that the families of the coal miners killed around the world just last year would rather have them back and be engaged in strip mining....what a fool you are.