Categories
Accountability free trade & free markets general freedom nannyism national politics & policies

You’re Fired! Hillary-style

“I’m the only candidate,” Hillary Clinton boasted at a town hall back in March, with “a policy about how to bring economic opportunity — using clean renewable energy as the key — into coal country. Because we’re going put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business, right Tim?”

First, who is this “Tim” fellow? Aren’t you curious? The news media, typically unhelpful, provides no context.

Clearly, Mrs. Clinton supports the Obama Administration polices that have been disastrous for the coal industry. “Now we’ve got to move away from coal and all the other fossil fuels,” she explained.

Monday, in West Virginia, Clinton met unemployed coal worker Bo Copley, who teared-​up talking about his family and being out of work. He asked Hillary, “I just want to know how you could say you are going to put a lot of coal miners out of jobs and then come in here and tell us how you’re going to be our friend?”

Mrs. Clinton told Copley that it was “a misstatement.” And that what she said was “totally out of context” from what she meant … whatever that means.

“[T]he way things are going now, we will continue to lose jobs,” she explained. “I didn’t mean that we were going to do it. What I said was, that is going to happen unless we take action to try to and help and prevent it.”

Yes, Hillary has a plan — not to “prevent” losing coal jobs, but, instead, to spend $30 billion in tax dollars to help those her policies hurt.

As one West Virginian passionately put it: “We don’t want your handouts; we want work.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Hillary Clinton, coal, renewable energy

 


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Categories
general freedom

Truly “Green” Energy

“The remarkable thing about fossil fuels,” says science writer Matt Ridley, “is that when we use them, no other animal is deprived of its livelihood.”

In a fascinating talk, Ridley, the author of The Rational Optimist and other brilliant, eye-​opening books, calls our attention to what really should be an obvious fact: “No other animal [than us Homo sapiens sapiens] wants to eat coal, or oil, or gas.” But, he insists, when we fell a tree for our fuel, “we deprive a woodpecker of its life.”

This helps explain why, in so much of the world, animal species are coming back, their populations growing. They are renewing because of our use of non-renewable energy. (Renewable energy, he says, is quite bad for the ecosystem.)

But that’s just one reason burning fossil fuels is a good thing. Another is increased carbon dioxide (CO2).

“What?!?!” — I can hear the enviro-​shrieks from here in my bunker. This weekend there were protests around the world about climate change.

But climate change may be a good thing.

Well, at least, the planet is getting greener. The Sahara’s getting greener. Much of the world’s landmasses are re-​foresting — that’s even happening in Bangladesh.

I read about widespread reforestation in The Atlantic years ago. I’ve written about this and other greening before. But the reason isn’t simply because our fossil fuel reliance has made agriculture more efficient, thus requiring less land — that disused land can then grow wild, or cultivate non-​agribiz plantlife. It’s also because CO2 feeds plants.

The Amazon, Ridley says, is greener than it was mere years ago.

Could later industrial civilization be saving the planet from the depredations of earlier industrial civilization?

Yes.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.