Haven’t we seen enough of this ignorance? When will people who think they’re worthy of elected office realize that climate and weather are not the same thing? When will they realize that 2009 was one of the warmest years on record? Guess that’d take too much common sense for all of these wealthy candidates to grasp.
Take a look at Johnson’s latest “press release” spread via Facebook (yeah, awesome campaigning):
JOHNSON: GLOBAL WARMING? BURRRR IT IS COLD OUTSIDE
Abundance of hot air in Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency
Candidate calls for reduction or disbanding of EPA.ELKTON ‹Kentucky GOP Senate Candidate Bill Johnson today issued the following statement regarding global warming and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA):
We now know that claims of global warming are not science-based. They are an excuse to drive a political agenda that has become a religion to some and a hoax lining the pockets of others. The most prominent scientists who pushed the notion that climate change is man-made have been discredited as having abandoned science as they’ve manipulated data, conspired to silence criticism, and even lost the most critical temperature data that allegedly supported their climate Armageddon theories.
The EPA has responded to the global warming myth by classifying carbon dioxide, a benign gas essential to all green life on the planet, as a pollutant while waiting for passage of Cap-and-Trade ŒTax¹ legislation. While reasonable measures to protect our environment are appropriate, the EPA has become a political tool of environmental radicals to keep America from using its natural resources, like Kentucky coal.
With over $10.5 billion in its discretionary budget and 17,384 full time equivalents, the EPA has become the epitome of the federal government out of control. It should be near the top of the list of federal agencies that should be severely reduced in scope or disbanded all together. The EPA should be replaced with a small, focused group that deals with real pollutants, not something all humans exhale.
Bill Johnson is a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from Kentucky. Johnson is a Gulf War veteran, businessman and concerned citizen fighting against the nonsense coming out of Washington. He stands for limited government, low taxes, strong military, gun ownership, marriage between one man and one woman, and believes life begins at conception. Johnson is committed to returning our great nation to the conservative values of Ronald Reagan.
####
Riiiiiight.
I won’t even bother.
51 responses so far ↓
1 Mark H (Not Hebert) // Jan 7, 2010 at 11:06 am
The cold temperatures we are experiencing today are no more of an indicator of global climate, than the warmer ones of the past. While I’m not saying it isn’t possible, the fact that is it scientifically impossible to determine what impact CO2 has on climate because of two very simple factors.
1) We don’t have enough accurate long-term data to define a variable trend from a true change.
When you are talking about defining changes of a degree over decades and centuries, you would need to have the ability of having global temperature data over centuries to the fraction of degrees. Tree ring and ice core interpretations cannot provide that level of precision, period.
2) Unless you can absolutely define the impact of other variables, how can you isolate CO2 as the cause. There are other man-made activities which may be impacting the global temperature even more.
Both sides of the debate need to get a reality check. Just because we have a warmer than normal winter, it isn’t evidence of global warming and if we have a colder one, it is evidence that there isn’t.
Instead of spending all of this money trying to prove the each side wrong, we should use that money to provide the business incentive to develop alternative energy sources to reduce or eliminate hydrocarbon usage.
2 E // Jan 7, 2010 at 11:14 am
Well stated Mark.
3 UK Alumni // Jan 7, 2010 at 11:16 am
It’s a shame that stupid people are as much a danger to others as they are themselves. If this display of ignorance only had consequences for idiots like Johnson, I probably wouldn’t care at all.
As it is Johnson and folks like him are in the process of writing a Darwin Award for the whole species.
4 jake // Jan 7, 2010 at 11:18 am
Apparently SOMEBODY (*cough* UK Alumni *cough*) has no idea how awesome it is to win an award…
5 tbrauch // Jan 7, 2010 at 11:25 am
Dr. Richard Hamming, a great mathematician and early computer scientist, for whom Hamming codes are named, once said “It is better to solve the right problem the wrong way than to solve the wrong problem the right way.”
This is how I feel about human accelerated global warming. Whether human accelerated global warming is true or not, the air we breathe is not healthy. I’m dumbfounded by people who demonize cigarettes but say we shouldn’t have restrictions on industrial exhaust.
If human accelerated global warming concerns clean the air when people otherwise wouldn’t care, then I have no problems.
6 UK Alumni // Jan 7, 2010 at 11:28 am
As a humble person, that’s one award I would love not to be nominated for or win…
7 Mark H (Not Hebert) // Jan 7, 2010 at 11:39 am
I agree tbranch in that I think CO2 is not the biggest reason to rid ourselves of hydrocarbons. The reason we have focused on CO2 is that it is global, undefinable, and provides the ability for world government to regulate and more importantly to them, tax it to generate income.
The discharge of soot, noxious gases, heavy metals, and water contamination are all more dangerous, but they are fairly localized to the source.
This is why I don’t disagree that we need to drastically reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, but the CO2 path, in my opinion, is not only a more costly and slower to implement, it provides fodder for absolutley legitimate arguments from the opposition because it is a fudged argument.
Unfortunately the goal isn’t to eliminate hydrocarbons, it’s to allow the taxation of them to redistribute the wealth to less wealthy countries under the guise of improving the environment.
Not unlike attacking “Big Tobacco” to allow greater government taxation of cigarettes instead of banning their sales. The less-affluent governments of the world want CO2 to be their cash cow. All of the fights in Copenhagen revolved around the distribution of money and not the reduction of CO2.
8 Polly Anna // Jan 7, 2010 at 11:43 am
If it wasn’t for global warming, just think how cold it would be. For goodness sakes, think of my Aunt Maudie in Fargo.
9 Steve Magruder (I, not D or R) // Jan 7, 2010 at 11:51 am
There’s a world government? And it taxes?
Who knew?
10 Mark H (Not Hebert) // Jan 7, 2010 at 12:13 pm
That’s the goal Steve. That was the goal of Kyoto and that was the goal of this meeting. They’ll regroup and try again next year.
I followed the Copenhagen talks pretty closely and it’s not debatable that the distribution of payments was the main sticking point, not the agreement to reduce of CO2. Who is going to pay up, how much, and to whom. The focus was on carbon usage-based reparations to poorer countries, and not carbon reduction.
11 Noah // Jan 7, 2010 at 12:23 pm
tbrauch, why is the air you breathe not healthy? modern coal plants only emit a few things, water vapor, carbon dioxide, a little carbon monoxide, and some trace compounds (some very toxic including mercury). Cigarettes smoke contains much more, including particulates, in much higher local concentrations. There is a big difference.
So if I played devil’s advocate and asked you to prove the statement, “the air we breathe is not healthy”, could you do it?
12 E // Jan 7, 2010 at 12:24 pm
World government….multinational banks & investment houses, global law firms, and financiers…what’s the difference?
13 Steve Magruder (I, not D or R) // Jan 7, 2010 at 1:08 pm
Mark H, you’re full of it. Please start getting your news from wider sources. Maybe then your outlook won’t be so…um… strange.
14 Kenny Boy // Jan 7, 2010 at 1:12 pm
Cap and trade..brought to you by the good folks at Enron, and we all know that all they cared about was a clean environment.
15 Lisa Graas // Jan 7, 2010 at 1:17 pm
I heard you were challenging Johnson on this so I came over to see that there is, in fact, no challenge. Whomever wrote this article obviously doesn’t understand that these cold temperatures we’re having are relevant in more ways than one. First, they are part of the data scientists are *expected* to include in their climate models and secondly, the result of climate alarmists policies would be high heating bills across the board. Johnson is right, in other words, and there is no challenge on this blog.
16 tbrauch // Jan 7, 2010 at 1:20 pm
Noah, would you take this as proof that the air in Louisville is full of more than just “water vapor, carbon dioxide, a little carbon monoxide, and some trace compounds?” I mean, your definition of “trace” might be different from mine.
http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20091222/BUSINESS/912220334/1025/NEWS02/Duke+to+cut+pollution+at+Indiana+plant
Or view EPA collected data in Louisville at http://www.epa.gov/air/data/aqiday.html?co~21111~Jefferson%20Co%2C%20Kentucky where we see in 2008 there were 5 days in Louisville in which the air was quality was unhealthy. I can’t just choose not to breathe those 5 days.
As for the cigarette issue, if I smoke, it’s only for 10 minutes. I breathe the air in Louisville 24 hours a day, which is the same amount of time time it would take to smoke 144 cigarettes. So if the air quality in Louisville is about 144 times less polluted than a cigarette, it’s a draw.
17 tbrauch // Jan 7, 2010 at 1:25 pm
Lisa,
Let me ask you a simple question.
Do you understand the difference between “weather” and “climate?”
18 Doc // Jan 7, 2010 at 1:29 pm
And the 2010 Darwin Award goes to:
The Rand Paul/Ron Paul Schizophrenic Senate Campaign in Kentucky.
________
We won!
Did not!
Did too!
Did not!
We’re right!
No were not!
Are too!
Are not!
Call Chis!
No, call Christi!
Call Mr. Paul!’
It’s DOCTOR Paul!
Is not!
Is too!
Call his daddy!
Who?
Ron!
I thought we were working for Ron.
Shhhh!
19 KYvoter // Jan 7, 2010 at 1:34 pm
weather=manure
climate=shinola
Your point?
20 robnot // Jan 7, 2010 at 1:36 pm
Ya’ll might be interested in this thought-provoking video by John Coleman (of The Weather Channel). No one would dispute that some of the air we breathe isn’t pure, but ‘Global WARMING”?…..it’s “been here, and done that” before.
http://www.kusi.com/home/78477082.html?video=pop&t=a
21 tbrauch // Jan 7, 2010 at 1:48 pm
Hey Robnot, guess what… there was an ice age. I swear, I read about it on the internet.
Anybody who disputes the Earth changes temperatures is a complete idiot. Or a 6000 year old earth believer (though those might not be distinct categories).
The question is whether humans are accelerating the pace at which the Earth warms and cools.
KYvoter the difference is that it could be coldest January 7th ever recorded in the warmest January ever recorded in the coldest year ever recorded. Weather is a singular instance. Climate is the long term.
Lisa is claiming that the snow today is proof there is no global warming.
Look at it this way. The temperature for August 1 is gonna be hotter than the temperature for January 1. That it gets hotter from January 1 to August 1 is not global warming. That is weather, not climate.
22 Doc // Jan 7, 2010 at 1:48 pm
OK boys and girls:
The data on “climate change” was corrupted. Now we have to start over by rules of scientific process.
The media distortions have biased any conclusions.
The argument should focused on man-made contributions (
23 UK Alumni // Jan 7, 2010 at 3:23 pm
Now Mr. Johnson can make all the wild assertions he wants, it’s a free country. But that doesn’t mean Kentucky Citizens cann’t call it for what it is- Ignorant Bullshit.
All of the following scientific bodies have issued consensus statements on Global Warming/Climate Change being the result of man made activity. So I’ll be looking forward to Dr. Johnson’s refutation of their findings in a suitable peer reviewed journal, which I’m sure he’s preparing as we speak.
American Astronomical Society, American Chemical Society, American Geophysical Union, American Institute of Physics, American Meteorological Society, American Physical Society, American Quaternary Association, Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, European Academy of Sciences and Arts, European Geosciences Union, European Science Foundation, Geological Society of America, Geological Society of Australia, Geological Society of London-Stratigraphy Commission, InterAcademy Council, International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, International Union for Quaternary Research, National Association of Geoscience Teachers, National Research Council (US), Royal Meteorological Society, and World Meteorological Organization.
The 2001 joint Climate Change statement was signed by the national academies of science of Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, the Caribbean, the People’s Republic of China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, New Zealand, Sweden, and the UK. The 2005 statement added Japan, Russia, and the U.S. The 2007 statement added Mexico and South Africa.
24 Doc // Jan 7, 2010 at 3:24 pm
Let’s let the climate change issue play out as it may. In the ’70′s we heard that CFCs had caused an “irreversible hole” in the ozone layer causing dangerous levels of IR radiation to hit the earths lower altitudes. So we banned CFCs. Well, the “irreversible” turned out to be reversible. Holes open and close regularly. We just didn’t have the technology to measure it previously.
Well, wouldn’t you know! CFCs may have balanced out ozone levels because now ozone is trapping such global warming components so IR is not reflecting away from the earth’s surface, in theory. Those pesky scientists!
Bill Johnson ran a $2.5 billion fossil fuel division of BP. The main thrust of his press release was targetting a federal behemoth, the EPA and streamlining it’s efficiency. Yet, that’s not been in this thread.
He wants to end the IRS and Dept. of Education, too.
So, to argue “climate change” is academic. Do you want to reduce the size of government?
25 Klem // Jan 7, 2010 at 3:36 pm
Look, the climate deniers aka holocaust deniers have won the climate change battle. And if you think that you have another chance to win in Mexico next December, think again. By that time, Obama will have lost his Dem majority in the House and will struggle to get a change to his lunch menu let alone a change to climate legislation. Give it up, you’ve lost. Get out there and find a mate, settle down, have some kids and try to enjoy what’s left of your life.
26 Michael // Jan 7, 2010 at 3:51 pm
Having worked in the Washington legislative arena over the past years and after having had conversations on this issue with people such as Roy Neel, Albert Gore’s former Chief of Staff and lengthy conversations with others such as Larry Schweiger, President and CEO of National Wildlife Federation, combined with such wide array of conflicting scientific data, there is no rationale to support the radical “chicken little …sky is falling” agenda other than for the creation of a fear driven industry to pad the pockets of investors hoping can dupe millions to drink from the same kool aid pitcher they’ve drank from.
27 Mark H (Not Hebert) // Jan 7, 2010 at 4:34 pm
Let’s quote the 2001 Joint Climate Statement shall we?
“The state of science at present is such that it is only possible to give illustrative examples of possible outcomes.”
Translation:
We should potentially impact our economy and lifestyles to the tune or Trillions of dollars on possible outcomes, not true outcomes or even likely outcomes.
“While we do not consider that the complexity of a climate model makes it impossible to ever prove such a model “false” in any absolute sense, it does make the task of evaluation extremely difficult and leaves room for a subjective component in any assessment.”
Translation:
Who defines what is the “subjective” component is or is that the fudge factor that can be worked in to make the model work the way you want it to. Science isn’t subjective, opinion is subjective.
Finally, the kicker:
“The long term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”
No explanation needed.
Steve, there are plenty of articles in Time, Newsweek, Huffington Post, the UK Guardian, and MSNBC on how there was no agreement signed because China, Russia, and the US would not agree to the size payments to the African and poorer counties presented there. They boycotted the proceedings and were basically shut out after Obama flew in and brokered a deal with the wealthy countries that was far less expensive and had a promise to cut emissions, but nothing in writing.
28 Noah // Jan 7, 2010 at 5:13 pm
tbrauch, Just because the air is unhealthy in downtown Louisville, doesn’t mean that it was coal plants which made it such. It might be industry or automobiles which may need to be regulated more intelligently. My point is, SCIENCE needs to drive the discussion, not the discussion drive the science.
29 tbrauch // Jan 7, 2010 at 6:20 pm
” doesn’t mean that it was coal plants which made it such.”
So you are just going to ignore the EPA report that Duke needs to clean up their coal plant because it’s polluting Louisville’s air?
“My point is, SCIENCE needs to drive the discussion, not the discussion drive the science.”
So, science, excuse me SCIENCE, as I learned it means you observe, create a hypothesis, test the hypothesis. The current hypothesis is that coal powered plants are causing pollution. Why is that the hypothesis? Maybe because the New Albany plant produces more dirty air than half a million trucks would produce in a year (check the EPA links). Seems like a valid hypothesis to me, eliminate half a million trucks in Louisville or one power plant.
Tell me, Noah, how do you expect to test that hypothesis, the power plant is causing pollution in Louisville, without cleaning up the coal plant’s emissions?
30 Doc // Jan 7, 2010 at 7:16 pm
tbrauch:
I’ve been in science for nearly 45 years. Science doesn’t drive socio-economic debate. That’s why Social Science is such a misnomer.
It is clearly an “observation” that coal plants cause pollution. Ever hear of scrubbers? There’s no hypothesis in it, either they do or they don’t. You need a control, a CV and UV to experimentally test a hypothesis. You haven’t put one out there.
The “smoke” you see from coal powered plants is water vapor aka steam.
If you shut down coal, you instantly destroy 23.5 million jobs in Appalachia from miners to table servers.
Bill Johnson ran a $2.5 billion (with a “b”) fossil fuel energy division of BP. He knows clean coal technology and will be the only US Senator to be so informed.
Bill says, “We know where coal, gas, oil are. We know how to get them safely and environmentally responsibly, and we know how to use them. We’ll break the dependance on foreign energy. We will do it.”
He’s also a Naval Nuclear Propulsion School graduate and has operated nuclear reactors, too, for 10 years.
How does this stack up compared with Paul or Grayson?
31 Taylor // Jan 7, 2010 at 7:43 pm
“If you shut down coal, you instantly destroy 23.5 million jobs in Appalachia from miners to table servers.”
Because, you know, it’s not like they have anything else going for them. Nope. No brains, no nothing. Just lots and lots of coal.
32 Doc // Jan 7, 2010 at 7:56 pm
In 1998, Clinton did a one day trip into Harlan and Hazard promising high tech, Silicon Valley type, industry to those you say have no brains, no nothing.
12 years later….nothing. But he got votes. Just like Paul is trying to do.
My wife is a coal miner’s daughter from Viper. If you live in KY you know where that is.
We ain’t got much but we’re proud.
You are one condescending SOS.
If you pull the plug from Alabama to NY then what, hotshot?
What’s your plan?
33 Taylor // Jan 7, 2010 at 9:00 pm
I’m condescending? I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the one who said that the entirety of Appalachia was fucked without coal.
34 Lisa Graas // Jan 7, 2010 at 9:14 pm
tbrauch, Do you understand that “temperatures” are “data” in the climatologists models? Give me a break. Nowhere did Bill Johnson say that our cold weather proves there’s no global warming. You may want to believe he said that, but he didn’t say that, and people who try to put words in his mouth in a public manner just prove their own ignorance. Ever heard of St. Thomas Aquinas? Brilliant thinker. St. Augustine?? Also a brilliant thinker. They would have both severely put you in your place for your empty arguments that really amount to a mindset of following the leftist line coupled with cynicism rather than using logic and a healthy skepticism.
35 Lisa Graas // Jan 7, 2010 at 9:17 pm
Clarification: What IS TRUE, which Johnson alluded to, is that the scientists have not proven global warming. Here’s the thing. There are pseudo-scientists pushing a political agenda, “fixing” numbers with what they themselves referred to as a “nature trick” so that we might all believe that the earth is heating up. The agenda is to pass legislation that will result in high heating bills for Kentuckians who are currently experiencing brutally cold weather. THAT is Johnson’s point. How you don’t see it, I’ll never know.
36 Taylor // Jan 7, 2010 at 9:21 pm
Lisa needs to just preface all of her statements with this gem from her blog: “Bill Johnson is very much, in my mind, the male version of Sarah Palin”. People will definitely vote for him if you keep that up…
37 nokooks // Jan 7, 2010 at 10:39 pm
Hilarious! Coffee out the nostrils, straight up slapstick …
With the entire Global Warming Swindle having been exposed by the recent email expose, it is an absolute knee slapper to witness these mind-numbed Church of the Sacred Ideology drones attempting to perpetuate the hoax with such pomposity, feigned superiority, and mock indignation.
It’s not that just that their high priests cooked the books, skewed the data, colluded, conspired, misrepresented, lied, misled, and attempted to hide the truth — no, what is more revealing is the fact that this cabal of self-appointed experts new all along that they had to do such things in order to make their case. ‘Hockey stick’ indeed — what a fitting device for driving a bag of hockey pucks around.
I’m in possession of a Newsweek article from April 1975 in which a similar cache of loons was decrying the ominous cooling of the planet. I wonder how many of the new climate-scare lemmings even realize they’re being led around by their noses by the old Zero Population Growth zealots who think they’ve finally found a path to their goals? Few, I’d guess.
And all that, not to mention the built-in absurdity that consensus (fraudulent or not) somehow equals science. Using that logic, if you could find enough unscrupulous “scientists” to form a consensus against gravity, they could vote it out of existence and we could all enjoy free space travel! Proof, not consensus, is the product of real science.
Perhaps instead of trying to foist their preposterous scams upon the rest of us, the Global Warming Hoaxers could show their dedication to the cause by giving up breathing — they could go out striking a collective blow (hold?) against CO2, and also put a stop to a Brobdingnagian waste of oxygen.
Bill Johnson is absolutely correct in dismissing the climate change farce for the deplorable ruse that it is.
38 Lisa Graas // Jan 7, 2010 at 11:34 pm
LOL!! Good one, Taylor! Bad analysis. Funny joke. Kentucky went 67% for McCain/Palin. I’m sure Palin is well-liked in Kentucky, but you go ahead and live in your little fantasy world. It’s still a free country, for the most part, no thanks to the socialists.
39 kentuckyblessin // Jan 8, 2010 at 7:44 am
This is a very entertaining conversation. I love it when folks use JUNK science to try to prove a point. Global warming is about as real as the tooth fairy.
40 jake // Jan 8, 2010 at 8:02 am
I LOVE LOVE LOVE watching you mouth-breathing Republicans foam over and over again.
Almost as much as I’ll love watching you all lost to Rand Paul or Trey Grayson.
41 UK Alumni // Jan 8, 2010 at 10:34 am
Sarah Palin is an idiot. People who think she’s got a whit of sense in her head are also idiots.
If someone told me they liked Sarah Palin I would honestly have a hard time trusting them with any important responsibilities from that point on.
And if Johnson is the male Sarah Palin, then we can expect him to quit when the going gets tough; have mutliple ethics complaints filed against him and find him everywhere except doing the job he was elected to do.
Just my own worthless opinion.
42 tbrauch // Jan 8, 2010 at 10:42 am
“If you shut down coal, you instantly destroy 23.5 million jobs in Appalachia from miners to table servers.”
Complete and utter bullshit, Doc. I would expect a scientist,as you claim to be, use actual facts and statistics to back up your claim.
According to the Kentucky Coal Association, coal, in Kentucky, employs either directly or indirectly (meaning those waitresses of which you speak) less than 70,000 people. That’s less than 3% of the entire Kentucky work force.
And I’m guessing if anything it would be in the Kentucky Coal Association’s best interest to INFLATE those numbers. But, they say it themselves, directly or indirectly less than 70,000 people statewide.
Next time you are going to make an uniformed statement that is completely and utterly false, don’t. Step back, look at the facts. And quit lying and spreading misinformation.
If you are the kind of people Kentucky has in science, I can see why we rank near the bottom of all the states in education.
http://www.kentuckycoal.org/documents/CoalFacts08.pdf
43 Lisa Graas // Jan 8, 2010 at 11:25 am
UKAlumni, you obviously weren’t among the 67% who pulled the lever for McCain/Palin in Kentucky in November, 2008.
44 Taylor // Jan 8, 2010 at 11:45 am
I’m being totally serious. Keep playing up the Bill Johnson = Sarah Palin thing and see where it gets you. Since we’re talking about science in this thread, consider it a kind of experiment… :)
45 Taylor // Jan 8, 2010 at 11:50 am
oops, just noticed something that shouldn’t have flown in the first place…
McCain & Palin — 1,048,462 — 57.4%
Obama & Biden — 751,985 — 41.2%
from the Kentucky Secretary of State…
Not that it makes it any less of a landslide, but given your preaching about the supposed fudging of climate data, you should know that always being truthful isn’t a bad thing.
46 UK Alumni // Jan 8, 2010 at 12:43 pm
Lisa,
You clearly weren’t among the 53% of Americans who voted for Obama/Biden in November 2008.
And as much as it truly pains me to point out deficencies of my Kentucky-
Kentucky ranks nationally 37th in Education
Kentucky ranks 40th in overall poverty
Kentucky ranks 41st in overall Health
Kentucky ranks 1st in Child Abuse deaths
Kentucky by race is 91% White
I love my state and most of its people; but holding our citizens up against the nation shows that as a state we’re mostly a bunch of poor, white, uneducated, unhealthy child beating country folks. God Bless us, Hillbillies and Rednecks are not the first people I look at to make the best choices.
Tha being said and with this information in mind, I can see why Sarah Palin appeals to you and them.
47 Doc // Jan 8, 2010 at 10:46 pm
UK Alumni, I was waiting for you to correct tbrauch. Appalachia is a region of the country and not a just county or area in Kentucky although wedo have some of Appalachia’s most impoversished communities, #1 being Viper.
You failed to tell him that the coal fields extend from Alabama to NY. Every ton of coal mined supports a trickle down cascade of employment for 23.5 million people. Coal is the life’s blood.
Since we’re being so picky…Jake, watch your verb tenses. It should be “lose” as in “You lose.”
But, let’s not split hairs, shall we? I’m still waiting for anyone to tell me what we’re going to do to sustain 23.5 million people in Appalachia after exsanguinating their economy.
Has anyone heard of ADD or STM loss? How about spacing out? I’m beginning to wonder if you either cannot stay focused due to some underlying organic pathology or you’ve fried your eggs on something.
You still have time to be contributing members of society.
48 Taylor // Jan 8, 2010 at 11:47 pm
Doc- while you’re waiting for someone to tell you how exactly the region will exist without coal, I’ll be waiting for you to explain to me why, if coal is so fucking awesome, central Appalachia remains one of the most impoverished areas in the US. Please, please, please pull the Joe Craft and say it’s because everyone is either a coal miner or a welfare queen…
49 UK_Alumni // Jan 9, 2010 at 9:51 am
I wish I had an answer for you Doc because the plight of Eastern kentucky breaks our collective hearts.
Coal may be the answer for some- but those people tend to take the money out of the communities. Joe Craft is a good example, so far giving 13 million to UK Athletics to name things after him. What could Booneville or Pineville or Prestonsburg do with an extra 13 million dollars?
If Coal were really the answer, then that region of Kentucky would be one of our brightest, instead of one of our darkest.
As a Kentuckian I’m concernd about the condition of our people; and given the history of coal in the region I’d say it’s more than past time to give those folks some other options.
50 Doc // Jan 9, 2010 at 9:55 am
Since you don’t live in KY, what difference does it matter to you?
Take a breath, Tyler. Do a little research on Poverty in Kentucky. It’s very complex but has a lot to do with the deathgrip of Democrats by perpetuating a pervasive welfare state. It’s dollars for votes.
Then research the psychological mind-numbing, amotivational consequences of “drawing.”
After that, research the intigration of Democrats and the coal industry.
Hey, look into hamstringing EPA & Greenie regulations which skyrocket costs, for one thing.
Once you are completely miffed, call Bill Johnson. He’s the fossil fuel engineer candidate for US Senate in KY which got this discussion going. Right, Jake?
So,now the thread has gone full circle.
And this thread has gone full circle.
51 Taylor // Jan 9, 2010 at 11:14 am
You’re right about one thing, Doc. This thread has gone full circle. Started with Bill Johnson’s crazy and ended with yours. Bravo.
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