A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis, serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. © James Conner.

6 August 2017 — 1724 mdt

The political renascence of coal

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While Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke gallops around the west, wearing a black hat and looking like Hollywood’s image of a westerner in charge, his agency’s political hirelings, the New York Times reports, are crunching numbers and twisting words so that more coal can be mined. No one should be surprised.

As a result, more land will be ruined, more air will be fouled, more mine owners will make bigger profits (or take smaller losses), and more coal miners will be gulled into believing that their greenhouse gas producing jobs are safe.

It’s a big con, of course, but Zinke, and his patrons, Don the mendacitor, and Don the prairie dog assassin, think it wins elections, and have good reason to think that. And it’s a siren song to the ears of men whose jobs are threatened and whose futures are in doubt: “A man he hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.”

If a man wants to hear, to read, the truth about coal, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis is a good place to start. For statistics on coal, visit the Energy Information Administration. There’s more on the Beyond Coal project at Bloomberg. Mentioned in the NYT story, the Western Values Project may have useful information on coal and cleaner energy, but it appears to be a front organization for the Democratic Party and its source of funding in a mystery.