Comments Pompey Road has made

Blowing Bubbles:

Not afraid of competition, just want a level playing field. We can't keep tying to maintian a middle and working class on economic bubbles based on credit. A consumer economy at the mercy of a manufacturing economy who just happens to be our  banker..Does this make sense?

I have no problem with sharing the manufacturing pie, but green manufacturing is our ticket back to whatever is normal when we come out of this nightmare. I don't think the realities or perception of our pre depression economy will be relevant on the other side of this deep economic down turn. There are some manufacturing China will be more suited for and some that will be right down our alley if we can take R&D to the finished product quicker.

They can have most of the heavy smoke stack industry, if they can do it without polluting. We just really need to watch who we give most favored nation trading status to and then give up all our leverage on co2, pollution, child and prison labor, human rights, you name it. China is in the catbird seat as far as trade negotiations and keeping the dollar afloat.

When you get to quick to outsource and dump your legacy cost at any cost you make bad deals. Britian lost Empire and it will happen to us. A large part of our finiancial problem is the expense it takes to maintain empire. We come out of this number 2 or 3 as far as being an economic power. I can live with that, just so long as we don't become a banana republic with nukes. I know of no country in history that can survive for long without a strong middle class.

If the model is European socialism thats fine with me also, not picky about economic models either. It just strikes me as peculiar that China has become more capitalist than we are and a strong manufacturing base grew their middle class and no one will admit to this being the reason for their success story.

Manufacturing is not a dirty word, balance of trade and a healthy GNP depend on it. Excuse me if I can't seem to get over the nostalgia of our glory days when that model made us the largest economy in the world with an affluent and educated middle class.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Got a Yen for Dollars:

Been a downward spiral since we gave Most Favored Nation trading status to communist China. Foreign lobbyist are as lobbyist go, the most dangerous kind. The 30 years rush to outsource every manufacturing job we had to sustain a middle class was a failed experiment.

How do you produce green manufacturing jobs when we don't build anything anymore?

Those T-Bills are going to have to be serious interest bearing if we keep going back to the well. Especially after out GNP Debt gets more out of sinc. Our bonds will have a junk rating before the year is over if we are not careful.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Coal Dust in the Wind:

In reality that would be China and you are correct outsourcing will prevent any of us from partaking in any of the green manufacturing jobs. Corporate lobby gave our sovereignty to the WTO and we have no say or bargaining leverage left with China our major lending institution that we owe our soul to got the next two generations.

30 year plan to dump all manufacturing to cheap labor, no environmental cost, no health care or retirement cost has stripped the economy of good middle class jobs. The trend of putting your money in Switzerland or offshore means no one is paying taxes but the middle class.

Most of the middle class is now losing that 40 X 100 lot and could not afford to buy a renewable or sustainable anyway so its all a moot point.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

All along the Watchtower:

I probably had the original copy, but run out of Mr. ZigZag....

Thanks for the link Ted,

First good flashback I've had in years!

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

If you build it:

I would rather drink cat piss as warm beer but see no reason to feel guilty about my frosted mug.

Where are all the supply sider's! Catch the renewable sustainable wave of future economics and create a market for the Joe Six Packs of the world. If the economy fails and I have to revert back to the moonshine days of my ancestors I am going solar also.

Will be easy to conceal my still if I don't have the smoke giving its location away to the revenue'ers.

Seriously Exxon has the revenue to pursue renewables and create a market. The production and the transportation of their main product can not be guaranteed anymore. That puts doubt in the market and doubt is synonymous with fear over time.

Where is ol J.D when you need him, I guarantee if he were still alive he would be trying to get the monopoly on sunshine!

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Mother Earth caused your problem:

The psychology of environmentalism effects the ongoing battle between the ecologist and the masses. The Maslow hierarchy of needs environmentalist with their theory of motivation tend to be a little more cerebral than the Freudian masses who are old brain basic instinct oriented. A lions roar will still kick in the flight or fight mechanism but and they will still drop to drink from a clear water pond even if it's filled with deadly microorganisms. Their brains are still wired for here now perception and take no heed of the tiger crouching in the bamboo just a little farther down the trail.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Sackcloth and coal ashes:

A prophet is never recognized in his own country!

Where have I heard that?

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Almost Heaven W.Va.

    My family from both sides come through from old Virginia around the turn of the 19th  century.  For over 200 years since we made the trip form Spotsylvania Virginia we have thrived here in these beautiful mountains. The more accurate term would be endured from the early 1900's on. When we subsistence farmed and logged we were rich in many ways, maybe not monetarily for most of us but our large land grants and yes the isolation probably made us think we were. It is not until the North East interest come down here and stole the mineral for pennies on the acre and John Mayo's broad form deed stole the land  were we subjugated into near slavery. The wealth of our mountains being hauled and piped out of here for over a hundred years now.
    The worst thing that could have ever have happened to us was the discovery of coal in these mountains. It is destroying the people and these mountains, some say even the Earth. I have seen nothing but servitude, misery, death and destruction form a coal corporation.
    You are one of us, when you come and saw the raw beauty of the mountains and the people you become initiated into the mystery of the place. When you took upon yourself the challenge of trying to save it you become adopted into the clan. We wish you well and hope you have great success in all your endeavors. I hope you are successful in saving the Coal River Mountain, Blair Mountain and all the mountains of West Virginia that are so steeped in our history.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Standard & Poop:

The problem going forward is the ratings agencies, how do you keep counterfiet from being rated A and A+ again? How could AIG be so stupid to not see these air derivities for what they were, they insured Junk. It's easy to go ahead and buy this junk if you think someone else has already done the homework.

They need to have some public hearings on this, some people need to go to jail.

A lot of pain and misery out there on account of the counterfeiters.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Fish out of water:

I guess it still comes down to weather you were saltwater schooled or freshwater schooled. Keynesian or skeptical of government intervention.

I don't know if something form the early 20th century is relevant anymore, especially theories before the invention of the multinational institutions and risky finiancial instruments not yet 20 years old.

Theories that were old and tired way before mark to market accounting can't explain anything on the economic side of anything anymore. That includes future environmental economic implications. I don't know how they thought the SEC could keep up with them when the large finiancial intitutions that applied mark to market to derivative positions could not keep up with them.

Ironic now mark to market is in the government regs and causing some large problems. Since regulation oversight was so lax as to let the accounting practice apply to derivatives. What, late 80's or early 90's now we will have to deregulate to get the practice killed, what economist on both sides are calling for.

How do you price or value anything until they figure out just what economic model we are following.  If anybody can catagorize it for sure post.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Ready Aim:

This is synonymous with throwing a drowning man an anchor. Or the crowd that wants to trade a bushel of wheat for a barrel of oil, I could almost go there if it was a bushel of corn designated for corn ethanol.

But I digress, I guess this would fall into the category of environmental protectionism, no that ain't right either.

I know how about an environmental firing squad formed in a circle?

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

EveryBody Pays:

and the Southern Appalachian Mountains we are leveling to maintain or co2 production is as much a back water third world country as Bangladesh. Economically and politically insignificant to the country. Aside from mining the coal with MTR methods and destroying their own habitat I feel they should also turn over all severance and unmined mineral tax to the utilities. All the money we spent down there during the war on poverty and the great society program should be paid back with interest. Then we should charge them a tax to pay for carbon reduction. If they ever hope to save a deciduous forest or a steam they should have to pay for this global warming control also.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Gel Cells:

I assume the Nickel-Iron is primarily a stationary battery and not suited for rough service conditions? Any advantages over a gel instead of a liquid or does this alter the chemistry, is this workable?

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Hedgemony

But the dollar is effected more by China than the U.S. every time they threaten to adjust their monetary holdings "dump the dollar" Wall Street drops precipitously. When in the next round or two of borrowing kicks in and the ratings agency's downgrade our bonds China will be looking for quite a bit more interest also. I don't know how long the dollar will hold its value against other currency's or if we will come out of this global economic downturn with oil based on the dollar. Developing markets that come out of this stronger than ours and with more stability may be just more than competing models.

No, I just remembered Saddam snuck and sold some oil for Euro's look what happened to him!

But then again how does the world relate to a banana republic with Nukes?

It's all so speculative right now!

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Almost relevant:

I was disapointed that the 800 dollar tax break for married couples come out of the environmental package. That is a lot of money that could have went toward green manufacturing. Or Tax incentive trade off's on carbon.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

lonely trolls:

If we are on the same page as far as what a blog troll is and what flaming is, it is still better to just let a tread die.

It is no fun to troll alone...Should have known better.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

You say White he says Black:

Give it up GreyFlcn,

He knows that I or most on here take this position and from a hundred different post if he would take the time to read a few before he rants.

Everyone understands the impossibility of calling for an instant moratorium on coal.

He is just trying to paint us into a corner in order to extricate himself from his coal pit.

and hawk his book

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Stick it to the Man:

Most environmentalist are realistic enough to know we won't be seeing a moratorium on coal in the immediate future but work aggressively to begin the substitution process. Coal will be eliminated by the incremental substitution of sustainable renewable alternative energy sources over time. Most wish we could just wave the magic renewable wand over the problem but in fact are pragmatic enough to know this is going to be a laboriously slow process. More like Chinese water torture for most of us but we learn patience over time.

In the 60's we were all up for going down to the many demonstrations and getting our share of the abuse. Take your pick you could get your head clubbed or your tear gas fix for a myriad of causes.  It is not we can't get as passionate about a cause as we once could. We just heal slower and hey lets face it we are the establishment now, or part of it. I guess blogs such as this one is in reality our new electronic protest and the clean coal ads the new form of getting in the mans face.

Have become a little more political and have learned to use the system to beat the system. We should take full advantage of the media to educate the general public about the devastating effects on the environment of the mining and the preparation of coal that is presentably graphic in the now. The long term effects of co2 and global warming is more difficult on account of all the coal bought scientist and the massive amount of media money and lobby money coal corporations have at their disposal.

From what we have learned about the economic system we live in which dominates most social engineering, our renewable energy sources will have to be cost efficient to be completive with coal. Sadly Wall Street has more impact on our environmental future than main street. Most of us are cognizant of that fact and the capitalistic model. This new administration can be our first chance at leveling the playing field and may allow us our first real opportunity to introduce alternatives to coal into the grid that are more environmentally friendly. I believe we can find more effective ways of forwarding our position than demonstrating or counter demonstrating.

But we can still do that dance, still got my ol Nam helmet and can knock a sign together on short order?

                                        HELL NO, NO MORE COAL, HELL NO, NO MORE COAL!

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Cambrian Joe:

Well as I recollect in 68 when the ol man bought the farm the 311 miners that died were some of the last generation that actually had to work in the mines. For years the toll was above 2000 a year and stayed above a thousand for decades. Hey I know they were a bunch of saps for digging dinosaur shit for a living that's why I never bought into keeping your frigging lights on with it. Leave it to a the dumb a#* mentality of a coal company to fix it so no one has to mine coal anymore and they don't  unless you pay them $80,000 a year, that's right Einstein most of that bunch of suckers digging shit left over from the Cambrian period make more money than most aspiring authors and their dime novels. Started stripping and let the underground mining go to hell in a hand basket and now that MTR is on the ropes they can't find anybody dumb enough to dig the crap that can pass the piss test. It's gonna cost ya big time for every kw from now on coal boy. Was over 125 a ton last year and it will go back up as soon as oil spikes again.

It's a given no body cares about dead  miners, or the southern Appalachia forest but not to worry the co2 crowd will have you down to ½ the present coal production for the U.S. in 10 years guaranteed. The scrubbers and the carbon tax will have you buying solar and liking it and if your wind mill ain't turning, the way you run off at the mouth you can probably spin it past the rev point by just talking your antiquated hog wash on windless days.

Coal is done, stick a fork in it. You should also realize you will be on the wrong side of the argument, and will be on the wrong side of history.  You are the guy who bought a whaling ship just as J D Rockefeller decided to monopolize the kerosene business. You can cling  to your fuel and thinking from the carboniferous period and rail against any kind of progress that frightens the institutionalized and the narrow minded. However you should realize anything you put in print on a blog will be in the permanent electronic record. I tire easily or to be exact get bored with bantering back and forth with dinosaurs. I will let the future decide the fuels of the future carbon boy.  I may dig this blog record back up in 10 years or so and write me a book about the fossil heads who had to be pried off the last coal fired power plant like a tree hugger off a redwood.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Deregulation, never again:

Allowing commercial banks to fail is not now or has ever been a solution to economic recovery.

One more time the Glass Steagall Act of 1933 seperated commercial banks for the lending investment type banks for a reason. The problems with the commercial banks only started again in 99 after the repeal of Glass Steagall and later the loosening of prudent rules pertaining to lending.

Regulations keeps morrally bankrupt idiots in check, your description not mine!

The seperation of commercial banks from the investment banks or markets was done because of the same market corruption that caused the 29 crash.

Funding the commercial banks with an earmarked transfusion of cash to the tune of the 350 billion they can't seem to account for now would have gone a long way toward freeing up the credit block. As I said there is no such thing as an investment bank now, In the last 6 months they have been relegated to the dust bin of history.

Regulatory reform needs to take place however in the international markets to get the trust back into the system and the fear out.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Over the Top Joe:

After reading post from about every contributor to this blog I would be hesitant to call any of the people who hang out here stupid, delusional or any other of the derogative adjectives you carelessly use. I do not agree with some and some are amused I am sure by my lack of sophistication and even knowledge of the subject matter in some eco matters. As of yet even the most intellectual of the group has not applied such terms to the environmental neophytes that participate in the discussion on how best to save regional environments plus the planet at large.

I come from an area that has be exploited and decimated by the coal industry. From early in the last century when north east interest stole the coal and the mineral for pennies on the acre and used John Mayo's broad form deed to steal the land we have been exploited by coal. It is not within the scope of a blog to walk you through a portrait of life in Appalachia painted by the coal barons and corporations. The internet is rife with figures on the mine deaths from the early teens on through the killing coal field days of the 20's and 30's. When the bone crushing labor intensive underground mining did not suit their bottom line they started blowing up the mountains to get at thin seams of coal in the process leaving an ecological nightmare for the region to wallow in.

I watched my father get busted up in the mines 5 times before he got crushed to death in a mine roof collapse. I watched a valley rich with family history county history get buried for 2 one foot seams of coal and one 30" seam of coal 150 feet below the mountain ridge. I have been told that I am stupid for fighting Mountain Top Removal in the heart of the Appalachian Coal fields where it is done. Pissing off not only every powerful coal bought politician but numerous powerful people in high places in local and state government. Even family and friends who grovel at the feet of coal corporations for the few scraps that they let fall from the table call me stupid.

Never thought I would be called stupid on an environmental blog though. As might be assumed by someone who was raised in such a hard scrabble place I have thick skin and have also mellowed over the years. I will have to tell you however that flipping that light switch and the current flowing through it being generated by something else besides coal is still a stupid fantasy of mine. I may be jaded by the blasting that is shaking my home as I type or the noise of the tractor trailer coal trucks that keep me up at night. I will also offer an unorthodox opinion about your views concerning the individuals wanting to move to a more carbon friendly fuel source.

We did achieve a rapid transition from a lead additive in a fuel so I feel a rapid change is achievable. However I will admit the brain damage caused by the lead in the fuels and paint cause irreparable damage to some in our society before we could eliminate it. As evident by a person who comes on a blog such as this and banters about words like retarded, stupid and so on. If their brain consisted entirely of that leaded fuel it would not be enough to prime a piss ants go cart. People want a rapid transition from coal for various reasons and will fight for its demise even in the face of the seeming insurmountable odds of converting the lead altered addicted. I tolerate their  mentally challenged opinions for the same reason everybody else tolerates  my lack of subject matter environmental expertise but I don't have to tolerate their repulsive habit of labeling everybody that does not agree with their infantile arguments stupid or retarded.

You may have to rethink you commercial attempts at hawking that book in your signature quote also. Your abrasive style of blogging may not be conducive to effective advertising techniques if that is what you are attempting to do.

By the way Einstein, what are you trying to do here?

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

The Corpocracy:

Bart,

I have been screaming about the corpocracy since I have been posting, lobby reform should have been the first thing tackled if Obama was to have any chance with either the economic recovery , alternative energy sustainable renewable, or addressing the carbon problem..
 The regulation you alluded to or lack of really is what caused the economic melt down. Deregulation of the markets and allowing commercial banks and wall street to mingle was a catastrophic mistake. All the old Roosevelt regulations and acts to separate the two had to be nullified before we could self destruct, no matter they had worked for 60 years with moderate success.

If GM as about every other corporation had been paying more attention to the wants and needs of the American market instead of devoting most of their capital and energy in the China market they might not be on the verge of bankruptcy now. A healthy portion of our effort for recovery, alternative energy, and all environmental concerns should be guided by a manufacturing philosophy of build it here. A fool can looked at the hyper growth rate of China and the swelling of the ranks of their middle class and see how important manufacturing was to their success.  We need the service, tech and info sector but the 30 year planned dumping of our manufacturing base boarders on the criminal when you look at the part the corporate lobbyist played in dismantling the sector of the economy that sustains the middle class and pays the bills.

We should have already had universal health care and a universal retirement fund that everybody pays into to relieve the corporations of the so called legacy cost. Social Security should be as it was originally set up. For old age pension and the truly disabled, no SSI or Medicare prescription plans the pharmaceutical companies wrote. Al Gore's lock box will be only for the I.O.U.'s now. The unfunded liabilities will hamper balanced budgets for decades to come. If left as it was originally set up even at the lousy 2 % interest Social Security would have been solvent for the next 150 years. If every body had not been dipping into it and throwing an I.O.U. back in the box.

A 180 degree shift from trickle down and deregulated markets will have to be undertaken and it will take a decade of reconstruction to repair the damage that has been done over the last 30 years.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Ethanol:

Hmm! I wonder if he will cut the subsidy for corn ethanol.

                     NOT!

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Close but yet so far away:

Almost had a few items of agreement with your last post Joe,

If the first 350 billion of tarp money had been put into comercial banks the credit log jam would have been fixed and half of what you alluded to would have been fixed. I see no benifit buying trillions of toxic debt with the taxpayers for two generations after ours having to pay for it.

Different administrations follow the advise of the two main branches of economics. The government intervention model, manipulation of the free market system. And the purist who think no government intervention is necessary, the market always know best and corrects itself over time. You will have different variations of the two with varying amounts of government intervention.

The question to be answered was the wisdom of becoming a comsumer nation based on credit while striving to do away with our manufacturing base. In the process becoming dependent upon other countries with a strong middle class building manufacturing base that are now our bankers, holding most of our debt and funding our economic recovery.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Extreme Joe:

It may be we will have to strive for more fuel efficient cars, use bridge fuels such as NatGas and make a big push for mass transit as we develop batteries sufficient in reliability and cost for the electric car. It may be we will have to look for energy conservation and make the grid more efficient as we develop sustainable renewable alternatives to coal and oil. Everyone is aware of the pollution problem with all manufacturing even solar cells. Your position is extreme and even environmentalist look for moderation and common sense in all things. I will buy the silly looking light bulb even though it is powered by a coal powered power plant until the day it is lit with wind or solar. I may have to run my 4cyl Toyota a few more years and then go to a natural gas with my next purchase until they develop an electric battery powered car for the masses.

We are all aware that there is no such thing as a pollution free consumer society we just trade idea's and work the problem until that day, "if there is ever such a day" celebrating every little victory with the knowledge many of us will never see it in our life time. We do what is in our ability to do at the time in space we live in. Stopping MTR does not require a quantum leap in technology it only requires enough people saying enough. So I work toward what is within the realm of possibility and hope to see it in my lifetime, not as much for myself as for the ages I pass it down to.

Most people are not so concrete in their position that they will not undertake the doable while striving toward a higher goal. I see no harm in some going all out for zero environmental pollution as long as they are mindful of the people working the problem in increments or being practical and doing the feasible first.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Make it Gone:

Joe the Poet,

The coal corporations had over 30 years to develop a fuel that that the would would let them burn. Gasified coal is old technology but the cheap misers walked away from scores of gasification attempts in the late 70's. And even then your have the cheap bastards blowing up mountains and destrying Southern Appalachia just to save a few bucks on the ton over underground mining.

From the mining, the cleaning "wet sludge Ponds" the power generation, the "Wet Fly Ash Ponds" particulate matter, heavy metals, co2, coal is an earth killing medievil fuel source. For Christ sake man this is the 21st century, it is just time to get off this crap and find some renewable sustainable fuels that won't destroy whole regions of the earth with the mining process or the planet with it's end use.

No one wants to make coal better we just want it gone. If the crap was cleaner than sunshine and you are still blowing up whole mountains regions or ruining streams, rivers and water tables with the coal slurry's and sludge from the mining and cleaning process, it's still not worth the effort or the destruction.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Patience is still a virtue:

He has only been in office for close to a month. Give the man a chance. I am a centrist and a fiscal conservative and have not been exactly thrilled with every decision made up to this point. Especially the government guarantying to cover all the toxic debt. I am hoping the whiz kids he brought in with him have a better view of the economic picture than I and know what they are doing. Never the less I am sure also when he began his campaign he never envisioned the economic mess he was to inherit from the Bush administration. I would loved to have seen what he could have accomplished without the extra burden of trying to stave off a total economic collapse. It is sad commentary on the nation when considering the first time we elect an African American President he has to preside over a national and world economy on the brink. I am heartened by the fact that we may have also have elected someone who is up to the challenge.

He has been methodical and persistent and seems confident he can use the opportunity to come out on the other side of this recession stronger than we were when we went in. I have made up my mind to be patient and not rush to judgment, at least give the man a full year to see what transpires. In my book you are either a part of the problem or a part of the solution. Anyone can stand back and throw stones. There are times in our nations story when we are faced with unprecedented challenges and teetering on the edge of destruction. One would have to have a bad case of ostrich syndrome to not understand that we stand on the precipice of either economic collapse or a brave new energy independent, green manufacturing economy.

No matter what kind of boat we all got here on or where we rode on the boat there is one thing for certain. We are all in the same boat now. One man can't do all the rowing!

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Vegas Express:

Reid just got his MagLev Train to Vegas, no rush on the rest of the package now!

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

007 and 1/2:

Need to see if this was coal corporation sabotage.

Just joking, but there may be a good conspiracy book and movie in the making here!

Is payload seperation common?

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Appalachian Biomass:

I would at this time volunteer the forest of Southern Appalachia for biomass. Stop at the Smoky Mountains please, they may frown on this that far south. They are being stripped of deciduous forest anyway before conventional coal stripping is done or MTR.

Come and get it and save the coal corporations the cost of removing it and save the thousands of gallons of diesel fuel to burn it.

I have one 50 acre patch left beside a MTR I don't want touched but other than that, come and get it.  

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Resolution

 I wish they would up grade the optical resolution for rural areas. The Southern Appalachian forest especially in Eastern Ky., and West Virginia are at about I believe 2200 feet. A tighter shot would allow us to better monitor Mountain Top Removal sites. I am not complaining really because for 2100-2200 feet it still looks bad. I feel we could identify some non permitted sites easier and spot some of the illegal maintenance sites where they dump oil and fluids on the ground. I have seen tires, oil soaked filters and other debris not eco friendly disposed of in an illegal manner.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Who knows Best:

John,

The terms conspiracy and nut does not automatically explain the work that elite or intelligent individuals pursue in their fields of interest or endeavor. Economics is capital driven and the international bankers that set up Federal Reserves and finance the worlds governments is not conspiracy it is an economic fact. If such individuals do not trust the electorate of representative style governments to make good choices for the future, well it would be completely understandable to me. This could be agreeing with them and admitting that all conspiracy is not necessarily a bad thing and as I go through the membership list of both organizations "the one that has a membership list" there is no way I can classify this group into the nut category. Not to much into the nationalistic and view an economy without boarders but I never in fact said this a bad thing.

I will not do as some and speak to things I know little about and really have not made up my mind that their influence is such a bad thing. I do know they are still there as of 2008 when the sites of their last meeting are common knowledge and meetings are scheduled for 09. They definitely do not fall into the same class as the shooter on the grassy knoll. The deeper one digs and observes how they permeate international banking and the European and North American Governments one could make some casual observations about them but as I am not privy to the secret meetings they indulge in I will reserve judgment.  Their stated mission is to influence the worlds economy and even social agenda.

David Rockefeller in his book, " Memoirs" said as much and said he was proud of it. Really when you have forwarded your agenda close to its completion there is no need for as much secrecy. Most people were just turned off early on by the conspiracy nut theory and wrote them off, especially when it come from Barry Goldwater. It really works to their favor when staying under the radar. Most people ignore the impact of the corporate lobby on the decision making process of government. Most are still under the delusion of one man one vote and their representatives making decisions based on the local, state or national will of the people.

When it comes to the electorate making sound decisions on some issues I may be inclined to agree with the international elite. I just lived through 8 years of a bad electorate choice, still can't say I have survived it yet!

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Text Book Economics:

Most economist are the Ida Tarbell's of today, they go about tearing down things they don't understand and embellish the truth to do it.

If they ever have a constuctive thought or a concensus they may become more relevent. John D. invented the modern corporation, turned a waste product into a more valuable product than he made his first million on. Lived economy of scale and if he did not invent it, it was because he was not an economist and could not come up with a text book name for it. Elastic Demand to him would have been the suspenders that held his pants up.

He never was the man he was made to be in the yellow press and I am not defending his business model in this time. I am just suspicious of the economical theories of people who have never actually been involved in the economy to the extent they never risked their fortune or invested their lives in the actual or the mechanics of it.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Tinkle on economics:

Just part of the cycle in capatalist society when  government action shrinks the middle class or causes a debt crisis in the middle class.

If George had stuck with the Clinton tax formula and had not seperated commercial banking from the speculative markets we would not be talking about this.

Deregulation! How do you like it now?

Have not seen them run ol Phil Gramm out for awhile. Are they keeping him in an undisclosed location.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

True Cost of Coal:

 
As I type a mine accident in Northern China has claimed at least 74 lives by early accounting. China has become infamous for having the most dangerous mines in the would and spectacular explosions and high death tolls are common place.

Life is chep in the coal fields no matter where it is mined. We have fewer mine deaths in the U.S. thanks to the efforts of M.S.H.A., Mine Safety and Health Act but for the most part the large decrease in mine deaths can be contributed to the fact we surface mine most of our coal now. In the underground mines the death toll is still to high for the tonnage and due to advances in better emergency medical care we have more walking wounded.

The events of 1968 when the U.S. mine death toll was way over 300 prompted the advent of government action to deal with the safety situation in the mines. On November 20th 1968 the Consol Number 9 mine at Farmington W.Va exploded and 78 men died. This was a couple weeks after my father ws killed in a coal mine roof fall in Kentucky. The miners that die in one's and two's do not attract the same amount of media attention that the more spectacular multi death catastrophes do.

I am conflicted at times about the need for stopping mountain top removal and coal stripping operations. This is easy coal and when it is stopped the coal corporations will be forced to go back down under the water table where the dangers are many.

The same coal that kills the planet has been killing Appalachian miners for over a hundred years. Many early years over 2000 miners would die in the mines each year. The same coal that is killing the planet and the miners also is killing the mountains of Southern Appalachia with the Mountain Top Removal. To the extent even people who have lost family in the underground coal mines fight to have the most destructive type of mining to the environment stopped.  

The worst thing that could have ever happened to Eastern Kentucky is the discovery of the coal beneath and in the mountains. From the earliest days the region has been exploited and the wealth hauled or piped out of the region.

The 20/20, Diane Sawyers Documentary on the children of the mountains failed to indentify the true culpret or cause of the abject poverty in the region. Low wages and no benifits for any other work aside from coal. No diversification allowed for years to ensure a cheap labor source for the mines. Politicians who are bought to promote MTR even though it puts less money into the local economy because we don't need half the miners necessary to mine the same or larger amounts of coal.

We will be left with the environmental devistation without ever having received any benifit of the wealth under our feet that was stolen at the first of the last century.

As you discuss the environmental ramifications of burning coal on the earth always remain cognizant of the people and the mountains that are being destroyed as I type in Appalachia.

I do not know how long before co2 destroys the planet. I do know we are running out of time to save the mountains and the people of Appalachia who have not left already.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

At every level:

Local Paper in Editorials come down on the side of MTR. Has stoppped publishing a popular segment in the paper, "Speak Out", they were getting to many anti-MTR pieces that made the pro MTR artlicles look as silly as the clean coal ads.

Micro or Macro who ever owns the press owns the truth. Corporate canned news is flush with talking head whores.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Walking Wounded:

Biodiversity,

 You can depend on coal when left to their own devices to self destruct over time, not to worry they are staying the course. The added negative press of Mountain Top Removal added to the outcry over co2 emissions is just more negative press they could be avoiding. This fact notwithstanding their shortsightedness in this regard will make things extremely difficult for them when they are forced to go back to underground mining methods.

When they started to get heavily into MTR in the early 80's we lost thousands of underground mining jobs and it really hurt the local economy and the tax base. The several large underground union mines shut down and about 400 drift shaft underground mines. We went from 8500 miners down to just under 4000 thousand miners in my county alone, and still mine the same tonnage.  What happens is that when you have a versatile people who want to work they will leave the area to do so. It happened in the late 50s and 60's when the price of coal dropped. Instead of going up to the industrial north that is now the rust belt the 80's miners went south. The coal corporations lost thousands of years of underground mining experience and more importantly lost the tradition of sons following their fathers into the mines. It is difficult even in this depressed economy for them to entice people into underground mining for jobs that pay $60,000-75,000 a year starting out.

When MTR is stopped and it will be, they are going to be in a world of hurt when trying to find a workforce for drift and deep shaft mining.

So as they wasted 30 years and never developed coal gasification, developed a coal fuel the public might have let them burn. They also dismantled their own workforce at the source for underground mining.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Corps fudge on the sludge:

Not enough has been said about the wet coal slurry ponds," we call them sludge ponds " in East Ky. , along the Ky. Virginia border and in West Virginia. They are more isolated and not inspected enough and more dangerous to the environment. They also contain the heavy metals a fly ash coal slurry contains plus the chemicals used in the coal washing process to separate the clays and other non coal elements in the coal preparation process. I have personally seen them cut loose at night on the third shift into a river that leads to a dam that is used for a drinking water source. Of course the water will be running clear when the work crowd is driving along the river in the morning on their way to work.

I fear the EPA has weakened the clean water rules to make them completely ineffectual as regarding coal chemical waste water. The EPA and the Corps of engineers allow a coal corporation, "CONSOL" to dump so called cleaned waste water into the river below Grundy, Va., it flows into a river that runs into the Fishtrap Dam an Army Corps of Engineer operated flood control project. They will tell you the water is chemically contaminated a few hundred feet below the source where the waste water enters the river but that it is clean several hundred feet after the water enters the river. TRUST ME, they have given me no reasonable explaination on how the water miraculously cleaned it self. I can only guess dilution which of course is just dependant on the old parts per million game.

I can not understand how a government organization that uses the words environmental protection in their name and another who is responsible for maintaining clean water in the dam allowing any sort of chemical tainted water to be dumped into the drinking water source of several communities downstream. Of course this is Southern Appalachia where they blow the tops of mountains and cover up valleys and fresh water streams. Isolated, forgotten and wrote off as expendable with not a large enough voting base to have an impact on federal decision making. Then there is the ever present coal lobby the only voice they listen to from the Eastern coal fields.

They caught the corps with two illegal non-permitted hollow fills on the watershed area they control. These are the people who we have to rely on when they say trust me your water is fine. The aggregate crushed rock from the overburden in all the Mountain Top Removal Hollow fills leeching heavy metals into that same water. The people who eat the mercury contaminated fish from that lake have a lot more trust in the corps than I. I never could wrap my mind around how you can strip the vegetation off the watershed area of a flood control dam and still call it flood control. The silt from the coal strip mining of the watershed area is filling the lake making it useless for flood control. Millions of dollars to construct that dam in 1968 and millions since to maintain it and all the taxpayer got from it is a coal corporation stripping operation complete with MTR and a sludge pond. This is criminal.

Continuous coal stripping since before 1977 and the region below the Dam got hammered in 1977. It cost the tax payers millions to repair the damage from the 1977 flood. FEMA and other organizations was in here for months. This is insanity and government sponsored eco terrorism.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Massey or Gassy:

T.Boone want NatGas for Transportation, Power Generations wants it to meet the co2 standard.

Yes it looks as if the residential gas customer is going to get run off heating,cooking and heating water with NatGas. Then when all of these customers pile onto the grid you will have another major increase in demand and another set of problems to deal with.

You can still lay this at the feet of the coal industry, had thirty years to gasify coal and walked away from a hundred projects trying to do it. They could have funded some of these projects they walked away from 20 years ago.

They will spend thousands to run clean coal ads, while they do MTR to get their cost down to $4.00 a ton instead of paying the $20.00 a ton it takes to underground mine.

No they will not buy a scrubber or do CCS unless you create the legislation that makes them if they can pay a lobbyist to undermine the Surface Mine and Reclamation Act and EPA

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

You can come back home again:

A little late to the cause but she made up for it in Spades. We have lost in the last 4 legislative sessions with our Stream Saver Bill. We will probably lose this year, but we will be back.

Fact, contract underground miners get $20.00 a ton to mine eastern coal that sells for around $60.00

MTR coal can be mined for 4 to 6 dollars a ton if you are willing to shove 100-150 feet of overburden mountain top into valleys and cover up fresh water streams.

It takes 4 times as many men to underground mine, MTR is destroying the Southern Appalachian mountains to save a coal corporation a few dollars on a ton. They are depriving the area of thousands more mining jobs that would put some real money back into the economy by using this miser mining practice.

I know it is still coal but at least you still have the mountain and valley and get some money into the economy.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Trilateral Commission:

I wonder if the Trilateral Commission hands out any awards for environment enhancement. I would love to see what extent the members are invested in coal, oil and natural gas.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

WTO Supremacy:

The Information Tech jobs we created was before we gave our sovereignty to the WTO. Obama is already backing off the campaign promise to stop outsourcing.

We may get a few jobs off the infrastructure and the alternative energy portion of the Economic Recovery Package but they will be construction only.

NAFTA, CAFTA plus deals set up for corporate to take advantage of cheap overseas labor, tax incintives for that really.  Most favored nation status for China that congress sold them will kill any chance for a green manufactuing job.

And until you tell me who is protecting the American worker and middle class I do not want to hear the word protectionism.

Outsourcing a corporate code word for their goes your job.

Legacy Cost a new corporate media word for there goes your Health Care and Retirement.

Anybody who calls themselves environmentalist and lets corporations ship their manufacturing to China to avoid the Environmental cost of building it clean is as bad as the coal corporations who are shipping coal to China to dodge co2 emissions standards.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Al Queda snubbed by the Czar:

The security risk of economic turmoil was the lead in topic for our new Intelligence Czar, they usually lead in with terrorism but Dennis Blair points to the instability of the emerging nations over the next few years if the economic crisis continues.  The report to a congressional committee stated a prolonged economic crisis could lead to global violence and extremism.

"Social dislocation can be dangerous, too. Failing states tend to spawn refugees, ethnic cleansing, civil wars".

"Failing States open up vacuums for violence and extremism-and it does not take much for this to spill across national boarders."

"There are a lot of reasons for America to be afraid of other countries failing economies and shaky political system."

"America has never been able immune from the violent side of economic turmoil, and there's no reason we will be safe this time either."

Dennis Blair's message to congress last week.

Over population in certain parts of the world make them even more susceptible to destabilization. With the current economic crisis that is effecting every country in the world the fund to help over populated countries survive will be limited. One year into the crisis and the governments of Haiti and Iceland have already collapsed. Even countries such as Greece are on the verge of collapse. Greece owed Britain 4;1 billion and their GNP is only 2.1. The turmoil of the 20's and 30's that led to a World War will be magnified by the powers of 10 when the over population problem is added to the mix.

I think the current financial condition of the developed countries economies will fall short of the amount required to overcome the problems of overpopulation. Politically with the developed nations struggling themselves the will to help will not be there either.

If and the big if is that if the economic recovery plan being attempted here in the U.S. and looked at by the G-8 countries works it will be 12 to 18 months before the developed countries feel the positive effects of the recovery plan.  The under developed nations usually lag behind even in the best of times.

I feel we are headed for a population correction!

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Here I go Again:

Another classic example of how Reagan's deregulating concept everybody since the great communicator jumped on, screwed up a system.

I can tell by the obvious knowledge of the system displayed by some of you that you are probably aware of the pre-Reagan regulations the utilities had to adhere to that kept the grid infrastructure up and running with a decent amount of reliability built into the system.

We went for years in a deciduous forest rural area with very few interruptions in service until they stopped clearing the limbs and overhanging tree branches from off the line. Every summer crews were working out under the transmission lines clearing brush.

Recently our system has the reliability of the power system in Iraq. I have had to put surge protection on all my electronics and battery backup on the computers. When I ask friends who work for AEP about it, they say the Power Company says it is just cheaper to fix the line breaks, breakers kicking out or blown fuses and transformers than it is to hire the contractors every summer to cut back the brush.

I know that they had more specific regulation on every area of infrastructure upgrade, upkeep and I know that even a well maintained grid as we currently use will not fulfill the needs of  an alternative energy smart grid.

However a regular maintenance and upgrade schedule mandated by the federal and state governing bodies should also be part of whatever a smart grid turns out to be.

Quality materials during the construction and maintenance phases and some common sense regulations to ensure the reliability of the grid.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Is it cold on this blog or is it George:

Conservatives have lost all credibility by kowtowing to the Cheney/Bush model of budget busting, deficit spending and lying their way into any foreign relations or domestic endeavor they deem worthwhile. The 750-800 billion that the economy generated in the small economic recovery from 2002-2006 went 75% to the top 1% of the people at the high end of the pay scale. Wages have been stagnant for the middle class for years and they were forced to borrow to maintain any sort of middle class life style. The people have turned back to the notion the wants and needs of the middle class must be served if the nation is to survive and if any mode of fairness can be found in the system.

Point being the trust factor will haunt the neo cons for years to come. No WMD's and the fundamentals of the economy was sound as they proclaimed right up until the day the market crashed. People are just naturally suspicious of people who embellish or fudge on the evidence or facts just to forward their agenda.
I would not trust George Wills assessment of global cooling if he had a priest, a rabbi and an Ayatollah vouching for him and it was 10 below in July.

The man comes off as credible but even if there was a possibility he was right conservatives have been so loose with the truth and so willing to reengineer the evidence it just becomes hard to take them at face value anymore.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Not Ready for Prime Time TV

L25Kin,

Unfortunately the first amendment guarantee's the right of this corporate media hack to spew the coal bought science taught in special ed classes.

However the same amendment guarantee's our right to counter it, if we ever get the funding necessary to compete in prime time. Or a network to carry it?

It's all about the money!

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Under the Radar Government:

Political philosophy that may seem relevant and current, I moved a little into the future to justify my paranoia. All of the decisions concerning the economy, energy or the environment seem to point to a new order, even if Machiavelli thinks a new world order is a tough row to hoe.

We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times and Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended out meetings and respected their promise of discretion for almost 40 years. It would have impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the work is now much more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational  sovereignty of the intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to national auto determination practiced in past centuries".  David Rockefeller, founder of the Trilateral commission, in an address to the Trilateral Commission, in June 1991.

"In the next century, nations as we know it will be obsolete; all states, will recognize a single global authority. National Sovereignty wasn't such a great idea after all". Strobe Talbot, President Clinton's , Deputy Secretary of State. As quoted in Time, July 20th 1992.

"The depression was the calculated shearing of the public by the world money powers, triggered by the planned sudden shortage of supply of call money in the New York money market...the one World Government leaders and their ever close bankers have now acquired full control of the money and credit machinery of the U.S. by via the creation of the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank". Curtis Dull FDR's Son in Law as quoted in his book, My Exploited Father in Law.

"The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson." as written by FDR to Colonel House, November 21st 1933.

"The real rulers in Washington are invisible, and exercise power from behind the scenes." Supreme Court Justice, Felix Frankfurter 1952.

"The case for government by the elites is irrefutable." Senator William Fulbright, former chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, stated at a 1963 symposium : Entitled, The Elite and the Electorate - Is Government by the People Possible?

"The Trilateral Commission is intended to be the vehicle for multinational consolidation of the commercial and banking interest by seizing control of the political government of the United States. The Trilateral Commission represents a skillful, coordinated effort to seize control and consolidate the four centers of power, political, monetary, intellectual and ecclesiastical. What the Trilateral Commission intends is to create a  worldwide economic power superior to the political governments of the nationstates involved. As creators and managers of the system, they will control the future." U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater in his 1964 book: With No Apologies

"The powers of financial capitalism has another far reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements, arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences.  The apex of the system was the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland a private bank owned by the worlds central banks which were by themselves private corporations. The growth of financial capitalism made a centralization of world economic control and use of this power for the direct benefit of financiers and the indirect injury to all other economic groups. "Tragedy and Hope: A History of the world of our Time.( MacMillan Company,1966 ) Professor Carroll Quigley of Georgetown University, highly esteemed by his former student, William Jefferson Clinton

Hundreds more, conservative, liberal and nonpolitical pointing to the shadow government I keep ranting about...just another conspiracy nut theory...check lobby control even if you think so.  Something else seems to be controlling our representative style of government other than our elected representatives, judges and Administrative people.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Two Front War:

Wolverine,

To government you are either seen as a tax payer or unfunded liablity.

To the multinational corporate you are only seen as a consumer or a labor source, preferably a low cost one. If you fall outside either of the two you are not relevant to corporations. I will agree with everything you say but the corporations as a provider of energy don't really want you as a consumer to use less of it. That is not conducive to their maintaining an optimum margin of profit. The corporate mind set and their influence on the government they control by proxy will even effect the obvious need to conserve instead of build more coal or nuclear power plants. Their vast resources and contol of Madison Avenue and the corporate media will still be something you always have to be cognizant of.

It is good to see the clean coal ads being ripped apart by the ads showing there is no clean coal. Environmental groups challenging corporations in an arena they have dominated for too long. Taking the fight to them on one important front in this battle. Your thoughts on saving energy should be in infomercial form and run for the lemmings also. Incridable amounts of saving here.

The other front is in the administrative, judicial and legislative body's of our government and you know they still have an advantage over us there.

Lobby reform for a two front war, we can't even mount a respectable defence there yet. Overwhelming odds drowning out our voices and corporate money closing ears and doors to us.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Natural Selection:

Kicking the coal habit is "about the deeply ingrained economic and cultural habits and ways of thinking" of corporations. Applied to corporations the statement is true, applied to the general population, well they are just not that deep. Lemmings really that will go over a cliff for anything from a hula hoop to a pet rock. You are correct in your assumption that it will have to work as well as coal and be cost completive. Really if you get Madison Avenue behind it they will pay  little more for it if it's the next new thing.

I liken it more to the argument over Darwinism and Intelligent Design. George Bush and his support of coal and other anti environmental positions blows the intelligent design theory all to hell. On the evolutionary road toward sustainable energy that is not destroying the planet I feel we are somewhere between the Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens still climbing the ladder toward modern man.

As I studied the evolution from wood to coal I noticed the Forest of Europe did not survive the transition. As I noticed the transition from Whale oil to Earth oil I noticed the whale was hunted almost to extinction and almost did not survive the transition. Now as I watch the transition from oil and coal to sustainable renewable energy that does not destroy the planet I wonder if we can change the corporate attitude and model and if we will survive the transition.

Believe me changing public attitude and behavior will require but little effort. Changing the Multi-National Corporate attitude at this point in their evolutionary development will be a Herculean task. The vast resources they command and their influence with governments is almost insurmountable. The influence of the corporate lobby will have to be nullified before any serious progress can be made toward a speedy transition to renewable, sustainable energy sources.

It will take no less than an evolutionary change in government to the extent corporations do not dominate the conversation and deny access to the people that are trying to forward the renewable, sustainable energy transition. Lobby reform now is the evolutionary progression required for a government that is still a work in progress and has not yet fully evolved. The establishment of the corporate person was not meant to be for the domination or even extra access in the representative style of government. This is an interesting anomaly or a mutation to observe in the evolutionary progression of government however the requirement to transition to an energy that is more life sustaining may require that we attempt to interfere in this process and manipulate this representative style government experiment to see if we can effect a more desirable outcome.

Obama has just made the mistake of not pursuing lobby reform first. You can see the results of it in his first piece of legislation "The Economic Recovery Plan".  Really you can trace the economic collapse back to the need for lobby reform and going forward the next piece of legislation necessary to stabilize the Markets will be a corporate lobby feeding fest.

In a perfect world environmentalist could interject some checks and balance into government first in order to level the playing field with the energy corporations and let society choose their energy source. Virtual Natural Selection, no pun intended. Nature hardly ever seems perfect viewed in the short term and I do not know if we will have time for a long term observation  in order to see how it all turns out.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Pea brained Nuts!

Alas, The clarion call for deregulation, the mantra of the neo conservtive since Reagan was mumbling about that shinning city on a hill.

As we initiate our crime scene investigation of who burned it down the trail leads back to the alzheimers mentality that threw the fuel on the economy and our regulatory agencies.

I don't need his medium to tell be who ingnited it. George Bush's complete abrogation of any regulation from the finiancial to food safety has let us with commodities for the new poor he created not fit for human consumption.

F.D.A. is but a shell of it's former self. Stipped of the funding needed to ensure our food safety by the consummate free market champion and "here it comes" the agri-corporate food lobby.

Deregulate from short selling and short loaning on risky derivatives to the Peanut and Jelly sandwich we feed out kids.

Only providence knows if we will survive the graft and incompetence loosed upon us over the last eight years.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Correction:

The word energy in the last sentence was misspelled and as I was correctly reminded,

I should have used the terms renewable or sustainable energy sources! Humans have no alternatives if we are to survive.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Sunny Side of the Mountain:

Amazing,

Started looking at some of the long term coal contracts being negotiated with China last summer. This don't bode well for Appalachia as a lot of that coal is going to be MTR coal.

Oh Well! We outsource everything else out to them might as well let them have our mountains also. I am starting to get a little more acclimated to the big plateau behind my house where a valley existed before.

I have a big 102" drain tile behind my house over 400 feet long buried under 1000 ft. of overburden now also. Will make a dandy bomb shelter or shelter from the asteroid strike, if we don't take a direct hit. The air coming out of it with force now is cooler in the summer, natural ventilation and air conditioning. Will also come in handy with the global warming and all.

There is always a bright side, just got to know how to look at any situation.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Confused:

I was under the impression that Western coal was lower in sulfur. We have some low sulfur. Also the Western coal in most cases does not have to be washed which also makes it cheaper to process.

At any rate George Bush wrote in some more midnight rule changes just before he left office that effects mining. Look at how it relates to mining within 100 feet of streams. If you can't mine near a stream it stands to reason you can't cover one up. It was an administrative rule change.

Even if it comes down to Environmental Defence Fund supporting, establishing or maintaining MTR it would be no different making administrtive rule changes or reversing administrative rule changes than it would to EPA or the Surface Mine Act. There is enough language in either that can be changed to stop MTR without going through the full legislative process that can be time consuming and corporate lobby controlled.

Going on the precept that this administration may be more inclined to make some of these rule and reg changes I feel the timing is right to put pressure on them to do so.

When we have exhausted all possible administrative rule changes to correct the environmental damaging way coal is mined then we can go back to looking for some fell swoop legislation to stop all stripping, especially in deciduous mountain regions that can't recover from the effects of it.

I may be confusing everyone with my theory of taking little bits out of the problem of coal. Doing the doable and expedient first, or what is within the realm of possiblity. Celebrating each little win knowing we are chipping away at the perceived invincibility of coal and changing minds and opinions about it during the process.

Let's change the discussion then to is it within the realm of possibility to go through the langualge of EPA, Surface Mine Act of 77, the Environmetal Defence Fund language and the Clean Water Act provisions of the EPA and see if only administrative changes can stop MTR.

I know for a fact that MTR was not allowed under the original Surface Mining Act and adminsitrative changes are what weakened that Act that now allows MTR.

Really a discussion on which Governing Body allowed the change to MTR is irrelevant. The question of the day is can we get the practice stopped with just administrative changes in the language of all the relevant governing bodies that regulate how coal is strip mined?

Then the question would be why are we not doing it with an administration that was advertised to be more environmentally friendly?

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

I do know coal:

If you stop mountain top removal you will see a temporary spike in Eastern Coal and then Western Coal will take up the slack. It will not slow down the over all production but it will run the cost up for the N.E. on down to the South because Transportation cost will still allow for conventional strip and underground mining to be cometitive in the eastern market.

They do MTR for purely econmic reasons, cost per ton cheaper than conventional strip and way cheaper than underground mining. I look at the spot market for coal and watch the new long term contracts.

I am not saying that stopping MTR will have a devestating economic effects on the coal industry. Just another nail in the coffin and one you can nail in fairly easy. Just some tweaking of the Surface Mine Act that was screwed with by or for the coal lobby. Making conventional strip mining illegal will have a serious impact on the Eastern Coal market and I am only talking about the Eastern Coal Market. I will get some figures on the cost per ton for underground mining. I will tell you now that the cost per ton for Powder River strip coal is 5 times cheaper to mine than the Eastern underground method and in most cases does not have to be washed.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Title fits the Theme:

Our dependence on oil may still have grave consequences for the would aside from the global warming catastrophe that looms in our future. Neither the production or the transportation of oil can be guaranteed in the Middle Eastern Countries where neither the Jew or the Muslim can reconcile their differences because of their religion.

"The prayers of both could not be answered"

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

All the Above Plus:

Stopping Mountain Top Removal mining will also drive up the price of Eastern Coal. Stop all stripping on decicuous mountain forest land and you drive the price of coal even higher.

While you are bringing down the price of alternative energy by economy of scale you should also be making coal more expensive giving the alternatives a chance to compete.

Repealing rule changes made to the original 1977 Surface Mine Act and changes made to EPA especially the rules and regs that pertain to the clean water act as it pertains to fresh water streams.

Most were done by the last administration and can be repealed by executive order.

Stop MTR you will stop the destruction of the southern appalachian mountains plus get the added benefit of raisng the price of eastern coal per ton. Stop all stripping of deciduous mountain land forest and you get an even greater increase in the price of coal.

Drive the Coal Corportions back underground and double the price per ton of the Eastern Coal. Give the Alternatives a chance to compete.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Thousands of Acres:

Only thousands of acres. ONLY THOUSANDS OF ACRES!

Well hell thats different, only a few piddly thousands of acres that can be saved with a few rule and regulation changes. I know that a few thousand acres will be added in the next year or two and this is acreage that includes valley's that are being buried. Mountain tops Blown off and shoved into pristine valleys.

Yep, its only thousands of Appalachian Mountains down in dogpatch that nobody gives a s#^t about.

It's not like you have to stop co2 and suck millions of tons of the stuff out of the atmosphere. You just get old change is coming, change is here to overturn the Bush rule and reg changes he made to The Surface Mine and Reclamation Act, plus the rule changes he made to EPA, specifically the streams and Clean Water Act.

Here's a tip, stop MTR and you are going to raise the price of coal per ton in the Eastern Coal Fields. Stop all types of coal stripping in Appalachia and you will raise the price of coal even higher. You may get the price of coal high enough to let the alternative energy sector catch up. Could get you some co2 reduction to save the Canadian forest.

I can see why you can write off the southern Appalachia Mountains, not worth the effort. The place is just a hillbilly s*#t hole. Not to worry we will pour the good black stuff out of these thousands of acres with a lower MTR mining cost, help you with your co2 problem.

It is as much about stopping a cheap form of coal production with just the added benifit of saving thousands of acres of deciduous forest.  

Friggen Brilliant!

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

A matter of Geography:

What would seem worse than this is cutting down healthy green forest , piling it up and burning it with diesel fuel. MTR notwithstanding regular coal stripping or the conventional method of coal strip mining is consuming thousands of acres of healthy forest. We have no fire problem in the Eastern Appalachian forest except for the coal strip jobs cutting the forest and burning it before they move the blasters and the bulldozers in. But of course I forget you are talking about the west  that seems to have a higher status than a healthy deciduous Eastern Forest. Let me get the priority straight, the Amazon, the Western States forest including the North West the Australian Bush, the Siberian forest then we get down to the Pine Forest in the South. Wait a minute the Southern Appalachian forest does not seem to be on the list.

Sorry my mistake, wrong blog

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

King of Coal:

Mitch McConnell just barely won his reelection bid in Kentucky. If we had anybody but another corporate crook to run against him he would have lost. He is the main coal lobby senator and wears mountain top removal like a badge of honor. The trickle down, tax breaks for the rich, deregulation shinning city just burned down. The people rejected this economic abortion that caused the mess we are in. They left this mess and this deficit.

Mitch needs to explain how come he is not even backing a fellow republican "Bunning" from Ky. People are ready to break from the old just tax relief for the rich formula and help Obama work the problem.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Credit For Nature Swap:

The changes to the Surface Mining and Reclamation Act and to EPA rules that allow MTR were for the most part administrative changes made by George Bush. Under this present administration it would not be very difficult to have these changes reversed. Why not a consorted effort now to stop MTR and if it can't be done with just the administrative changes make the Appalachian Forest part of Lugar and Kerry's debt for nature swaps.

Hell the place has been on some sort of welfare since the 60's and the ARC, Appalachian Regional Commission has cost billions. We should have incurred some debt by now. Make Kentucky and West Virginia trade some Deciduous Forest land to pay for it.

Ethnocentic elitist should not be trading with just the Latino's until we swap out some U.S. Forest also.

We will call the place Kentuctinia to make it sound like a country instead of the states of Kentucky and West Virginia. Feds won't know the difference because they forgot about this place years ago.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Chinese Stimulus:

Even though China is experiencing a slow down, 10% annual growth down to about 6% this is still spectacular growth and their economy was overheating anyway and needed a little correction. Hell Yes! They will lend us the money for the stimulus for they know all the spin off jobs from the alternative energy research and development will spring them into a new sector of manufacturing to go with their old smoke stack industry. They will manufacture for every thing from our smart grid to alternative manufacturing for every type we develop from this economic discovery bill. We will not have enough sense to keep those new manufacturing jobs at home to put people back to work and even if we did the WTO won't let us.

They will rack up an impossible to service debt when we go back to the well for trillions more to finally do what they should have tackled first, HOUSING. This is where the economic disaster begin and this is where it will end if it ever does. The trillions needed to take all the toxic debt off the books before the lending institutions will free up credit will be expensive money interest wise. Between the National debt we have already accumulated and all the unfunded liability debt they are not counting now we are becoming a bad credit risk. The United States is becoming a worse risk than a sub prime loan. Our net worth or GDP to debt ratio is such that the rating institutions will downgrade our bonds we need to sell to pay for the trillions we are borrowing.

We are living on a recovery bubble just as precarious as the sub prime loan fiasco that created the housing bubble that just blew up. If you call this living, it will take at least a year to see if this spending orgy reduces the 600.000 a month unemployment deluge. It will be short lived if the private sector does not revive and start creating jobs again. Government cash that you have pay back will help with the pain short term but the private sector is where long term job creation comes from.

Before we have always had our manufacturing base to help service the debt, this time we wont have it. We have set ourselves up to be a banana republic with nukes and China and Saudi Arabia will be pulling our strings.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

What about Furure Gen:

2 billion for a project that even George Bush killed. He was in the coal corporations back pocket yet he even viewed this project as a dead end waste of money that had little or no chance of working.

Obama needs to cut this Illinois based pork project to be able to say there is no pork in the economic recovery project.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

One size fits all:

 The plight of Southern Appalachia will be no worse this time than the plight of the Northern
Auto worker. When the country turned from a large loaded up behemoth that guzzles fuel and does not meet reliability standards the world rejected it. The Auto industry had since 74 to produce a reliable fuel efficient vehicle and direct the trend toward this type of vehicle. There inefficiency and inability to adapt will see them go the way of the steel industry who stuck with open hearth blast while the Japanese invested capital into their steel industry and went with oxygen blast. In a capitalistic model you stay current and innovative or you go under and we were programmed to let this happen without making this big a deal of it. I guess because of the daily 24 news cycle with instant news crying panic and doom we think the world is falling apart when all is happening is the evolution of a process.

In reality there are quite a few peripheral jobs surrounding the mining, processing and transporting of coal. The need for metallurgical coal will still have to be met but this will be an amount of mining we can accept if it is done by shaft mining that is under the water table. When and if the need for coal for power generation is reduced or eliminated the first wave of green jobs will be for reclamation fixing the damage done by years of MTR and strip mining. Some of the flat land created may be suitable for soy or other crops for biofuel and soy plastics. The plants actually builds up the soil and may make it suitable for something other than weeds. The area that has been planted by single species trees by the coal corporations may also be used for wood alcohol production. There is little wind corridor here but the mountain tops that are now high plateaus may be suitable for solar panel farms.

People here adapt, they went from subsistence farming and some bumble bee cotton to logging and then when coal was found in the region they went to mining. What ever works for the rust belt up north will work for the people of Southern Appalachia. The people are resilient and adaptable, a large portion have already migrated to the above mentioned area's and are part of the same northern new unemployed plus the textile mills in the south. As long as the nation does not forget about the region again and starts seeing it as part of the nation and not some backwater third world territory the same green technology and alternative energy jobs that eases the unemployment stress in the other sectors will work for the coal producing area.

We need to become as protective as a nation as the Germans are of the forest that have not as of yet been destroyed. As long as the nation thinks this is just a Southern Appalachia problem between the area and the coal corportions the enviromental destruction will continue. These Mountains belong to the nation and should be seen as the great Smoky Mountain national park region below located directly south of us. When new jobs are being considered for the auto workers of the north and the textile workers of the south the people from the coal producing areas of Southern Appalachia sould also be included in the process.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Coal Community:

When I was growing up almost everybody on my hollow" think of it in terms of a street" was employed in the mines. Underground mines, horizontal shaft or drift mines. Some good union jobs in union mines. Most in what we called truck mines. Single unit mines where the wages were lower but still it was a paycheck.

Now I have one nephew that works in a drift mine. No one else on my hollow now works in the mines. There is a stip job on the hollow that blows the hell out of everything, dust, noise all night and day from the trucks. All aggrivation but no money into the community form it. If most of the families had a person working on that job there would probably not be people down at the fiscal court complaining about it. There would probably not be people on every blog site complaining about the mountain top removal and the whole hollow being turned into a mess with side hollows filled and lost forever.

Take this from a person who was born in a coal company house, who's ol man died in the mines and who worked in the mines. We were covered up with coal mining jobs. I am not saying they all were the best jobs but if you wanted to work it was available. Now we have a few underground mines but the most of the coal run is from stripping and it takes fewer men to do it.

Do the country a favor and shut down MTR. I would like to tell you it would shut down the coal industry since that is your main goal. It will only slow Eastern Coal Production down short term until Western Coal can take up the slack. The large part of the coal reserve is underground. They own it and are paying unmined mineral tax on it. When MTR is illegal they will do contour stripping, "putting the mountains back on the original contour" as was originally required by the 1977 Surface Mining and Reclamation Act. That is still an environmental mess and if it is outlawed they will go back to underground  mining. It will not destroy the coal business  stopping MTR mining but it will save
the Southern Appalachian Mountains

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Shovel Ready:

New constuction takes time and more planning. The White House has been revamped many times. A good example for federal and state buildings. The new school construction and others provisions have no place in an economic recovery plan that is designed to get immediate effects of putting people to work.

 With weatherization you will get the immediate effect of putting people back to work plus the added benifit of real energy savings. You save the energy it takes to make and transport the new building materials and may reduce the need for building a new coal fired power plant.

Weatherization just makes more sense for real, immeadiate employment opportunities. If it is not direst alternative energy producing or energy saving don't put it in this bill if it also does not produce jobs in the near future.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Liberal Arts:

I hope I don't get on any toes here but we are in desperate need of more Engineering and Science degree's.

China and India are eating our lunch by graduating about 6-1 more than we do!

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Jokes about Feudin:

Ashley Judd is a joke,

She is a third rate B actor who is trying to revive her career by getting some national attention and free PR at the expense of the Republican's party's Poster Girl for the incest philosophy of how to cater to the trailer trash vote.

She is no more concerned about an Alaskan Wolf than she is by the animals that are being driven to extinction by Mountain Top Removal and Valley fills right in her back yard. The mountain grouse is in more danger of extinction than an Alaskan Wolf. The Eastern flying Squirrel is all but extinct.

The GD coal Corporations bring Elk from out West to replace all the species that were driven out by MTR. The animals that need a deciduous forest in her back yard replaced by an artificial attempt to make the flat land look natural and more appealing to the yokels down in dog patch.

Why don't she go get the wolves and introduce a natural predator back in this artificial environment to keep our artificial Elk herd in check.

Woody Harrelson is more of my Hollywood type, he is down here in Southern Appalachia, East Ky. Her back yard with his I love mountains campaign fighting Mountain Top Removal. Down in the trenches doing the dirty work and drawing attention to the problem of MTR not himself. I feel his motives are sincere and more pure. She is a publicity seeking has been riding that conservative nuts coat tail to some free PR.

There are a lot of animals right at her back door and some environmental causes she could have chosen without going up to Deliverance North.

By the way I am from East Kentucky and am vulgar and mean and know first hand about the bigotry toward the people of Appalachia. That's why the rest of the country wrote this place off and lets this MTR destruction go on. Nobody gives a crap about Southern Appalachia.

I am not pathetic or stupid enough to not see this showboat for what she is. Harrelson has got more credibility and sincerity in his little finger than this washed up wanna be has in her whole hick body.
 

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Crying from the Wilderness:

John,
 Probably read all my tirades on lobby reform and how the corpocracy will mess the real alternative energy portion of the Economic Recovery Act up.

In this blind rush to push this monster through the legislative branch you create the perfect environment for a prianha style feeding fest by the lobbyist.

I suggested the ludicrous notion of Obama tackling Lobby reform first. He backed off on his commentment to lobby reform with some of his administrative appointments.

The D.C. Economy is actually booming right now, it's dominated by high priced lobbyist who make the place recession proof. I hear no one calling for lobbyist compensation reform.

With everything we try to keep up with on the environmental front it is hard to do an indepth study of how the corporate lobby effects government. We mostly think in terms of how they are effecting someone else's agenda. Wall Street lobbyist created the economic destruction we are trying to dig our way out of. They are impediments to this recovery act we are tring to hammer out. It is not within the scope of this to relist the energy sector lobbyist that will leave their handprint all over this piece of legislation.

When I narrow in on all your concerns and reccomendations I can list all the different interest that will smoother out any common sense, alternative energy job creating, energy saving, environmentally friendly provisions of the bill.

I know it was outside the plausable and non-realistic to even suggest that lobby reform be done first so we could come out of the legislative body with a clean economic recovery package that would have a chance at working.

We had one shot at borrowing this large amount of money from China and Saudia Arabia and getting it right. What was the rush? When we have to go back to the well it will be after our bonds have been downrraded by the ratings agencies and the interest on any money after this will be substantial. Of course the Wall Steet crowd that walked away from this with tax payer billions will have some safe place to put their money. As we go into the hyperinflationary Carter type era your CD's will pay better than the current 1.85%. Some of us remember the 17% loans for cars more than the 10% rate on CD's and other secure finiancial instruments.

The economy falling completly off a cliff into a world wide recession may foil their plans this time. Of course my dream of a solid manufacturing base, based on green manufacturing just went up in smoke. The buy american provision just got watered down. There will be no incentives for manufacturing in the U.S. added to the bill nor the elimination of incentives for taking production overseas. I see no provision for reducing foreign VISA's to let the U.S economy take advantage of the high tech spin off jobs that the alternative energy research money will create. Some construction jobs maybe, but the materials will be imported. We could have employed some people in the U.S. providing that material for the infra-structure materials, the smart grid and alternative energy manufacturing materials.

It seems the corporate lobby gave over our sovereignty to the WTO. Other country's can mandate their citizens tax money that is directed toward government projects must be spent on their countries products. This does not violate WTO trade agreements but when we try to stipulate the same thing the European countries and China cry foul. Obama just jumped some democrats for talking about this and warned of protectionism and legal actions that might be taken by the WTO.

There will be little mass transit, a lot of money spent on the coal industry, very few green manufacturing jobs created and a national debt that will cripple any further attempt to save the economy if we don't get this right the first time.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Over Think the Subject as Usual:

Set the co2 emission standard to that of Natural gas and let the damn utility corporations work it out.

10 to 12 years to meet standsrd. Benchmarks to meet every 2 years with ever increasing fines until you hit peak fine in 12 years.

Reduce or offset fine prorated to the amount of wind and solar they use, or other source such as hydro.

They can either use natural gas which is more expensive for the short term while they start getting themselves some alternative fuel that will meet the natural gas standard.

Hell,  if the coal industry can come up with an environmentally friendly way to do coal gasification more power to them. They have just had over 30 years to do it.

As long as they have to clean up their mining techniques.

Thing is why sweat the details or get caught up in the what if's. Set the standard to natural gas allow what ever the right time is to meet the standard and let the utility companies worry about how they are going to meet it.

Will never get anything done on co2 as long as we chase every rabbit or what if.

Set a straight forward standard with no loopholes or complicated trading schemes and lets go on to something else.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Fueden country:

Palin may have met her match with Judd. Judd being from East Kentucky the home of the Hatfield & McCoy feud.

Better tread lightly around a clan that would make the Palins look like charm school graduates.

I don't know about the level of difficulty, shooting a wolf from a moving chopper but barking a squirrel is required by age 5 in Kentucky.

I can almost hear the theme music from the movie Deliverance in the background.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Boone County Boondoggle:

The problem in Boone County W.Va. Is coal sludge pumped into abandoned mines and leeching into the water table. Slurry is created when coal is washed with water and chemicals to separate clay, rock, and other impurities that keep the carbon from burning efficiently. Injecting it into abandoned mines is a cheap way of dodging the construction cost of building another legal coal slurry impoundment. The act was made legal a few years back and Massey Energy will beat this hands down.

I have been warning on this site about the hundreds of coal slurry impoundments in Southern Appalachia that not only contain the mercury, arsenic, lead and other heavy metals the wet waste ash impoundments in Power Generation contain but also a list of chemicals that are considered carcinogens`. The practice of dumping the excess coal chemical waste water into an abandoned mine is probably better than turning the stuff loose into creeks and rivers in the area on the 3rd or maintenance shifts. I have seen this done often enough.

The scourge of Mountain Top Removal Mining is just the tip of the Environmental Destruction Iceberg in Appalachia. The fresh water streams are being covered up by  MTR and the water table is being destroyed by coal slurry or sludge impoundments or the new practice of pumping the stuff into abandoned mines.

A virtual toxic heavy metal, chemical cocktail or cesspool of elements and chemicals the EPA individually declare as Hazardous Materials. If however you mix it all up and pump it into an abandoned mine to keep form constructing a legal impoundment it's all good.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

D.C. Dreamin:

When you have stripped the nation of its manufacturing base the spin off jobs for this sector will go to China.

Construction, maybe but we have only one multi national company of the top 15 windmill fabricators, GE.

The same goes for the rest of the alternative energy sector. If it's new tech and they write some incentives in for new manufacturing for the U.S. we would create those promised green manufacturing jobs. Mr. Obama has already indicated that he won't support the democrats on this because it might violate WTO trade agreements.

China complains and the WTO backs down.

We can have tax incentives for taking production overseas but are in violation if we give tax incentives for manufacturing here.

The democrat proposal was for any country to manufacture here, very fair.

We were promised change, if we had wanted the same old trickle down, outsourcing, dump your environmental cost economics of the last 8 years we could have voted for McCain.

It is not only buy American where you can it will be build American if we are to reap any employment from tne green manufacturing sector.

Of course if you don't give China the jobs they won't loan us the money for the economic recovery plan. A classic catch 22 situation.

The train wreck the outsourcing, dump manufacturing, deregulating, trickle down crowd left us will cripple our efforts to create some good high pay green manufacturing jobs.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Great for Chinese Economy:

Sorry to throw a wet blanket on all this but the components for windmills are for the most part manufactured offshore.. There could be around 5 jobs for each megawatt of wind generated electricity if we manufactured windmills in the U.S. Of the top 15 suppliers only one so called U.S. company is listed "GM". I think some representatives are asking for tax incentives for any corporation that will manufacture here. If incentives to manufacture here and the closing of tax incentives for shipping jobs overseas is not included in the economic recovery plan we will not see the benefit of green manufacturing jobs.

The most favored trading status for China and the 30 year trend of outsourcing and dismantling our manufacturing base will ensure that 3.5 of every windmill component fabrication will go China. I had great hopes the green manufacturing jobs would help us with our unemployment and return us to a healthy 30% of our economy as manufacturing. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is in direct opposition to our way of thinking and still stuck in the old mode of sending our manufacturing overseas.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

W.Va. Plant:

 The CTL plant for Williamson W.Va. is still on the drawing board. I guess the new concept will be to take the coal to liquid fuel to southern Appalachia. If you can hide such environmental disasters as Mountain Top Removal and the coal slurry sludge ponds you can hide out with your CTL plants.

They won't add much environmental damage to a place that is being stripped bare anyway.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Lost in the 50's

This is why for the first time I have ever supported a candidate and actively got involved in his campaign. I am hoping for some real breakthroughs in alternative energy. I would like to see some of the social agenda program money diverted to alternative energy and mass transit. Of course I am on board for the job creating and necessary infrastructure portion of the Mr. Obama's Economic Recovery plan. I would like to see him govern as much to the center as he can as Bill Clinton did but whatever it takes to see the alternative energy and mass transit portion of the bill through. The former was only mentioned to keep in mind the Reagan Democrats and Blue Dog democrats that crossed over to support him. Of course the fiscal irresponsibility of the Reagan, Bush, Phil Gramm, trickle down, deregulation, corporate greed orgy helped give us a shove.  I felt he is the only person with the answers right now and wish him well. The energy policy of the 50's also added to the depths of the economic crash. We must find another way.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Eco Pulpit::

 
I don't which denomination or sect preaches against Mountain Top Removal or what book they refer to.

Catholic, Protestant, New Age or Druid, if they come out against MTR I may take a look at their metaphysical philosophy.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Good News But:

Is this the only CTL installation the AirForce is looking at?

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Plains Indians:

Excuse me, indigenous American people used every part of the Buffalo. Wasted nothing.

The early settlers in Appalachia had the same mindset. When they slaughtered a hog they used everything but the squeal!

Waste product tallow to biofuel would follow the same line of thinking to me as the animals will be raised for food anyway. Why not take some extra revenue and increase profifs while decreasing the demand for Middle Eastern Oil.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

OOP's

I thought the fat to be used was just waste left over from beef processing.

I agree raising Cattle just for tallow or fat would be an expensive waste for a fuel.

Almost as bad as corn ethanol!

Are they ever going to cut the subsidy on that and take the tarrif off sugar cane ethanol?

A genetic tweaked sorghum could be grown all the way up to northern states and is efficient as Sugar Cane as a fuel. Using a less efficient food stock as a fuel and taxing its competition out of existance is the work of a dedicated corn lobby.

Even if you don't like agri fuels Sugar Cane Makes more sense than beef tallow or corn.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Been there, Done That:

Been studied to death but still a worthy thing to give further study, but not on this bill.

To much fluff and democratic social agenda programs. It is is not direct job producing, infrastructure, mass transit, alternative energy keep it out of this package.

Everybody know there will be some kind of government trust set up to buy the toxic assets. There will more billions to be spent as soon as this economic recovery package flows through the process.

850 billion is really 1.2 trillion when you add the interest on top of what we already owe.

When the rating agency's rank the U.S. as a bad risk the interest rates will skyrocket and the dollar is going to take a bath.

You can cut this bill by 200 billion by just getting the social agenda out of it. I know that most are worthy programs but do not belong in this bill.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

The Diving Dollar of 2012:

There is not an economist that can fathom the depth of this new type recession caused by the failed dogma and practice of deregulation. The Reagan, Bush, Phil Gramm deregulation Wall Street gospel according to Enron has not only destroyed the American economy but has destroyed the world wide economy. Anyone who thinks if they ever climb out of this economic abyss we pushed the world into they will ever follow our economic lead again is as goofy as the crowd that was telling us up until last September the fundamentals of the economy are sound.  The U.S. days of being the market leader is over and the emerging markets will point to this economic corpse as the poster boy of deregulated markets. As soon as Standard & Poor's and Moody's who gave the sub prime derivatives an initial AAA rating even though there was no transparency apparent at the time to see how they derived this rating and later devalued the same financial instruments they helped sell to the world, claims the U.S. is a bad risk we are done. Stick a fork in it.

Is no one looking at the national debt and comparing it with the GNP. Watching the Democrats create an Economic Recovery is like watching a Monkey F*#k a football, I have seen better organization at a monkey S*#t fight at the zoo. Half the programs they are funding have nothing to do with the immediate unemployment situation. The trillions of toxic debt they are about to buy will do nothing for freeing up credit. You put this money at the community and mid level banks for small business and individual loans and you might move the credit bolder. 2012 may be an accurate time frame for when we find the bottom of this meltdown. Leveling off at the bottom we are headed for will be like Evil Knievel's Grand Canyon jump. This Economic Recovery is going to come up way short of the mark and leave the dollar at the bottom.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Cap and Trade Away:

Cap and Trade is to compicated and has to many loopholes for the coal burning utilities to crawl through. It is a coal corporate lawyers wet dream and they can tie this up in the courts in segments or as a whole.

Real enforcable emission standards written in a straight forward way. This gives coal fired to much wiggle room and is not enforcable.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Already Impacted:

I ride only on roads already cut in by logging, gas well roads, coal auger roads and benches. I do not cut any roads in to an area. My ATV is a utility and used more for work around the forested mountain area of my property. I have a busted leg from a motorcycle accident and have to have something to get around on the property with. I do plan to get a golf cart for the level or flat portions of the property.

I see the gas company and power company in my region have started using them in our mountainous terrain and all the fire and rescue people now have them. They are here to stay, thread lightly programs and education are the only way to control them now plus stiff fines for riding them in places where they are not allowed to be or in a manner that causes damage.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Lobby Stimulus:

3.3 Billion last year of lobby money and a large part of it was for getting  your Christmas Gift from the Tarp Grab Bag.

Estimated to go to 5 Billion this year and what adds insult to injury is a large part of that lobby money will come from the bailout and economic recovery money.  The chicken S*#t corporations that got the money will use some of it for corporate lawyers to sue EPA over the new mileage and pollution standards, you know the one that Bush said no to and Obama just threw back to EPA. The corporate lobby and lawyers will get their share. Was this to be part of the 3 million jobs saved or created?

Yes, everybody loves the bailout and the economic recovery money!

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

The King and I:

Bio,

     No use in railing against the Machine until you can fix the machine. All the ATV Manufactures are like reading the Who's Who list of Major Japanese Corporations. Each Japanese Corporation that is Manufacturing ATV's has either a large automotive or other industry component. These are such a large multinational conglomerate there is no need for me to go into my corporate lobby tirade again. A large dealership and parts network has been built around the ATV and what gripes me even more is that we don't even get any jobs for our working class from this new fad called ATV riding. Even called Adventure Tourism in Southern Appalachia in order to drum up state and local money to build trails to stimulate the local economy. All we get here in the U.S. is the pollution, wasted fuel and environmental damage. I bet the electric ATV will be a far distant afterthought to the electric car.
    I must confess it is easy to go over to the dark side. I own one myself. I even tried to get a trail through a Corps of Engineer Flood Control Project. The Corp is allowing the area to be mined by Coal Corporations with the Mountain Top Removal Method and hundreds of miles of gas company roads have been cut in with no environmental impact study. We call the area Sherwood Forest because of the restrictive nature of the ARMY CORPS of ENGINEERS  and the Coal Corporations not allowing people access to the area. They have been caught by some environmental groups allowing un permitted Hollow Fills on the area. I determined that an  ATV would have less environmental impact as the blasting or the Caterpillar Dozers would and wanted into the area to keep taps on the Mountain Top Removals and Gas Wells leaking oil. I am old and can't hike it anymore but in reality the ATV causes me to lose credibility. The ends don't justify the means and it is restricted, illegal to ride an ATV in that area. I was breaking the law every time I took my ATV and camera on a spy mission.
   Got to admit I did derive a little excitement in my life and thrill of busting an illegal hollow fill, almost covered the guilt of using an ATV to get in there.

Anybody got a good mule or Alpaca for sale or Trade for an Good ATV

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Don't throw baby out with bath water:

rckoegel,

Replacing a multinational corporation is no easy task and even this can be contributed to the dangerous animal called a lobbyist. In accordance with pure capitalism the inefficient and failed companies, corporations and individuals are supposed to be cannibalized or simply self destruct. The efficient and the profitable will rise to the top and replace them. Capitalist Darwinism in a representative democracy.  In a Corpocracy the inefficient and failed institutions can ensure there survival by employing lobbyist. Wall Street was rewarded for making poor financial decisions and unwarranted risk taking. The real assets of the top players were not put at risk because they had lobbyist who could buy the Wall Street bailout to make the American Tax payer pay for all the trillions lost by the corrupt and inefficient.

The Auto Corporations that have failed to provide a fuel efficient reliable automobile and stay competitive with foreign competition were not allowed to fail, for the most part because of well placed lobbyist. None of the business models or corporations that would have failed before the Representative Government was allowed to become a Corpocracy are swept out of the way to allow the new and efficient to emerge. The corporate lobby buys the necessary rule & regulation changes or the legislation that allows the corrupt, the inefficient and the status quo to survive. A lobbyist is a parasite on government, especially representative style democracy's that will eventually destroy its host.

It was said when all of this bailout of Wall Street, Banks, and inefficient corporations was sold to us a few months ago by the Wall Street, Banking and Corporate lobby that capitalism only works when bailed out by socialism. Just another cheap shot at socialist democracies that see the person or the citizen as important as the corporate entity.  Socialist Democracies or socialist style representative governments are seen as not being as efficient as pure capitalist representative governments . We will never know because the corporate lobby has changed our model or government to a corpocracy with only the corporate interest at heart and no regard for the working or middle class.  You as an individual are seen as only a consumer or a worker by the corporate and because they are multinational and have no specific allegiance to country you are in completion as American worker with other workers in other countries to reduce labor and legacy cost. In a corpocracy you either a tax payer or an unfunded liability and in competition with the corporate who lobby are for the corporate and have no regard for the individual, the working, middle class or the environment.

Provisions of the constitution that allow all to petition the government was the corporate lobbyist foot in the door and what keeps the door wide open for them. You will have to understand that under current law the corporation is seen as a person. I have no problem with that as long as it is for liability or tax purposes even if some see the later as a form of tax evasion. The problem being is that the corporate person with the 14,000 paid lobbyist petitioning has a deliberate desire to protect only the interest of the corporate.  They have no regard for the people they see only as consumers or only a part of the overall cost of producing or selling their product.

It may not be as desirable to do away with the corporate as it would be to change the way they are counted as a person. Obama has made some inroads on the administrative side with lobby reform and is trying to include some provisions for transparency and anti lobby rules in his new Economic Recovery Bill he is sending to congress.  Unless real lobby reform is done first the Economic Part of the Recovery Bill will be slanted toward the corporate. The alternative energy portion of the Economic Recovery Bill will be stripped out for corporate interest and billions wasted on earmarks and non relevant pork. The portion that was supposed to be for rail and mass transit will be skimmed off in the same fashion.

Real, Meaningful, Substantial Lobby Reform to make the corporation person be counted the same as the individual or the corpocracy will cannibalize more than just the Representative style of government. The corpocracy  will cannibalize the planet if not reigned in. The big planet killing part of the corpocracy big oil and big coal will spend billions to maintain the status quo. A very difficult task indeed to kill the corporate and we need the economic engine to survive. Change the rules that created the Corpocracy and  it will have the same effect.  

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

co2 Last's a long time in Atmosphere:

Expect 1,000-year climate impacts, experts say
Study: Stopping emissions won't prevent decreased rainfall, higher seas

Vital Signs of a Warming World

WASHINGTON - Even if the world can cap carbon dioxide emissions tied to global warming, expect to see droughts and sea level rise that span centuries, not just decades, according to a new study sponsored by the U.S. government.

"People have imagined that if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide the climate would go back to normal in 100 years, 200 years; that's not true," lead author Susan Solomon told reporters.

Instead, the team concluded, warming tied to higher CO2 "is largely irreversible for 1,000 years after emissions stop."

"Climate change is slow, but it is unstoppable" said Solomon, a researcher at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo.

All the more reason to act quickly, so the long-term situation doesn't get even worse, Solomon said.

Waiting could compound problems
Gerald Meehl, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, added that "the real concern is that the longer we wait to do something, the higher the level of irreversible climate change to which we'll have to adapt." Meehl was not part of Solomon's research team.

The findings were announced as President Barack Obama ordered reviews that could lead to automobiles that emit less CO2 and get higher mileage.

Climate change has been driven by gases in the atmosphere that trap heat from solar radiation and raise the planet's temperature -- the "greenhouse effect." Carbon dioxide has been the most important of those gases because it remains in the air for hundreds of years. While other gases are responsible for nearly half of the warming, they degrade more rapidly, Solomon said.

  Study: No going back on global warming
Jan. 26: A NOAA study asserts that if carbon dioxide continues to build up unchecked in the atmosphere, the effects of global warming could be irreversible for more than 1,000 years. NBC's Brian Williams.
Nightly News

Before the industrial revolution the air contained about 280 parts per million of carbon dioxide. That has risen to 385 ppm today, and politicians and scientists have debated at what level it could be stabilized.

The peer-reviewed study concludes that if CO2 is allowed to peak at 450-600 parts per million, the results would include persistent decreases in dry-season rainfall that are comparable to the 1930s U.S. Dust Bowl in zones including the U.S. southwest, southern Europe, Africa, eastern South America and western Australia.

The study, which relied on computer models and historical temperatures, was published in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Warming and the seas
Warmer climate also is causing expansion of the ocean and that factor alone is likely to lock in a 1.3 to 3.2 foot sea level rise by the year 3000 if CO2 peaks at 600 ppm, and double that if it peaks at 1,000 ppm, the researchers calculated.

"Additional contributions to sea level rise from the melting of glaciers and polar ice sheets are too uncertain to quantify in the same way," Solomon said in a statement. "They could be even larger but we just don't have the same level of knowledge about those terms. We presented the minimum sea level rise that we can expect from well-understood physics, and we were surprised that it was so large."

Solomon noted that while global warming has been slowed by the oceans, which absorb carbon, that positive effect will wane over time and eventually oceans will actually warm the planet by giving off their accumulated heat to the air.

Alan Robock, of the Center for Environmental Prediction at Rutgers University, agreed with the report's assessment.

"It's not like air pollution where if we turn off a smokestack, in a few days the air is clear," said Robock, who was not part of Solomon's research team. "It means we have to try even harder to reduce emissions," he said.

Solomon's report "is quite important, not alarmist, and very important for the current debates on climate policy," added Jonathan Overpeck, a climate researcher at the University of Arizona.

'Quite conservative' figures
While scientists have been aware of the long-term aspects of climate change, the new report highlights and provides more specifics on them, said Kevin Trenberth, head of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

"This aspect is one that is poorly appreciated by policymakers and the general public and it is real," said Trenberth, who was not part of the research group.

"The temperature changes and the sea level changes are, if anything underestimated and quite conservative, especially for sea level," he said.

While he agreed that the rainfall changes mentioned in the paper are under way, Trenberth disagreed with some details of that part of the report.

"Even so, there would be changes in snow (to rain), snow pack and water resources, and irreversible consequences even if not quite the way the authors describe," he said. "The policy relevance is clear: We need to act sooner ... because by the time the public and policymakers really realize the changes are here it is far too late to do anything about it. In fact, as the authors point out, it is already too late for some effects."

Geoengineering to remove CO2 from the atmosphere was not considered in the study. "Ideas about taking the carbon dioxide away after the world puts it in have been proposed, but right now those are very speculative," Solomon stated.

Co-authors of the paper were Gian-Kaspar Plattner and Reto Knutti of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and Pierre Friedlingstein of the National Institute for Scientific Research, Gif sur Yvette, France.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Reality Check:

I think if you look at what Mr. Obama is doing as opposed to what he is saying you will learn a lot about his methodology handling most all issues. He said he is kicking the California request back to the EPA for review and will decide according to their recommendation. In other words he will let the science and EPA make the decision instead of  just making an executive order out of hand.  At least this is what his press secretary said today. This would still be a refreshing decision making process compared to the brain freeze we had to endure the last 8 years.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Beam me up Scotty:

Climate Armageddon has a catchy ring to it. Be good for a couple dooms day movie titles and may get us some free PR. I would not worry about the Evangelicals and the Rapture theory. Most of the rest of us and about 1/3 of them do not really think we are going to get beamed up but we may have to consider the part of the population that is waiting for the Mother Ship.

Nano Nano....

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

The former Big 3:

The Big Three will cry and scream but this is a good thing if they will get on board. If not Japanese auto workers will.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Kamakaze Mining:

Mountain Top Removal or Kamikazi mining is only done to save a few dollars a ton over having to mine coal underground. Complying with MSHA, Mine Safety & Health Administration regulation cost a few extra bucks on a ton and it takes more labor to mine underground. Also Eastern Coal has been in a tizzy over Western coal ever since they have started stripping out West. Large thick seams of coal just under the surface of flat land, easy to mine and you can use much larger equipment. Cheaper to mine and it is low sulfur and in most cases does not have to even be washed.

A better term for Mountain Top Removal would be Mizer mining only done in the Southern Appalachian mountains to save a few bucks a ton over underground mining. It is also done to try to stay competitive with Western Coal. The 1977 Surface Mining Act requires that you put the mountains back on the original contour. It looks wierd, as the Rocky Mountains above tree line where the trees suddenly stop growing. Only in the east the altitude is much less and you have no natural tree line except the contour strip mined mountains where above tree line you have the grass growing sown by reclamation on the top of the mountain instead of trees.

It cost a little more to put the overburden back on the original contour and sow some weed mix on it. Much cheaper to just blow the top of the mountain off and push the overburden over in a valley.

The thing is stopping Mountain Top Removal won't slow mining down at all. It may drive Eastern Coal underground but the portion of coal lost by stopping Mountain Top Removal in the East will just be picked up out West where the coal is cleaner and cheaper to mine anyway.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

MSN Article on Clean Coal:

 
Off topeic but today there is an MSN Home Page article on Clean Coal.

With comment section.

Jan. 25th.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

McSame:

Randy, I agree!

We did not canvas, contribute to the campaign, work the phones and work for two years to go back to the trickle down, tax breaks for the corporate and privileged, deregulating let em eat cake mentality that destroyed this economy . He will be as Clinton if he continues down this road, he will see a backlash when the mid term elections roll around and if he likes working with republicans he will have a lot more to work with.

Obama can get passed an Economic Recovery Bill that not only is heavy with infrastructure repair but just as important if not more so, new mass transit. The Democrats can carry this bill if they have to and he can go to the people right now to force change.

I don't want everybody jumping on the environmental aspects of all the Roosevelt infrastructure projects or Ike's interstate highway program because we were left with real, tangible projects that served the people of the day and are still in use today. Millions were employed on these projects when no other work was available.

The country's infrastructure is falling apart, bridges are falling into rivers and water mains are bursting all over the country.  When  gas goes back over $4.00 a gallon again and it will, we will be clamoring for the mass transit and alternative fuel.

If he turns out to be just another politician who will promise his base anything just to get them to support him he will see how fast this grassroots organization will disappear. Many as I come out for him that have never been involved in politics before. I have been jaded and jilted since the 60's and if all I get again is another lying politician or one who compromises half of the platform we put him in office to implement support will leave the party in droves.

We voted for change, if we had wanted McSame we would have voted that way.  

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

The Destruction of Space Ship Earth:

I like the emotional response and love to overuse any shameless ploy that might shock or shame someone to their senses.  Destroying space ship earth denotes the perilous predicament humans place themselves in when they destroy the only known place in the universe we can survive.

Murdering Mother Earth with photo after photo and documentary film after documentary film showing the devastation caused by Mountain Top Removal trying to impart an emotional response would not be beneath me. I would hope there would be some psychological association will killing your mother and would post it in maternity wards if they would let me.

I like the over the top and the dramatic, I am working on a rework of Bambi where Bambi and all the little forest creatures are being covered up by a big ol caterpillar bulldozer for a children's book.

What do you think! A little to much maybe?

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Correction:

The B1B B2 Visa would be more accurate to describe the situation where you could hire an Eleictrical Engineer from India for $20,000 a year instead of $65,000 to $85,000 for an American worker.

With the news that Microsoft has just laid off 5000 employee's I would argue the need for B1b visa'a in computer and software sector should be eliminated or drastically reduced for several years.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Preponderance of Evidence:

The coal corporations use a combined force of Madison Avenue "to push the apple pie and nationalistic view", the corporate lobby, coal bought scientist to muddy the water and are cognizant of who they give the megaphone to.  The Obama campaign commercial they are running now with Obama touting the virtues of clean coal was a brilliant move on the part of the coal corporations. A president with an 87% approval rating talking to his base and grassroots organization he built before the election.

The no such thing as clean coal ads are a start in staying even in the ad wars. We need lobby reform to counter the influence of corporations in government and change this corpocracy we live in. We need to use the preponderance of the evidence that coal is destroying the planet and not try to counter every coal bought scientific study that says it is not. We just fought this style 40 year battle with the cigarette/tobacco industry.

Armed with preponderance of evidence we need to target the people whose hands we stick the megaphone in. As I have said in another post when Walter Cronkite stood in Saigon and declared the Vietnam war could not be won Johnson lost the support of the majority of Americans aside from the college campus youth driven sector he had already lost. Johnson said so himself as soon as he had seen the Cronkite report.

Armed with a preponderance of evidence if a Tim Russert could have been convinced to come out against coal he would have brought the same sector of society with him. Society is to fragmented now to pull the majority needed to influence government action against coal. You will have to find people who will have a strong impact on the sector they represent convince them with the preponderance of evidence and put the megaphone in her hand.

What I would not give to have Oprah do a show on Mountain Top Removal. I would also like to see them get into it on the view. When 60 Minutes does a piece on it and Meet the Press I know I will be almost home.

As they say, you know you are having a bad day when you wake up and find a 60 Minutes crew on the front lawn. This will be the least we can do just to counter the Fox Network.  

Sun Tzu `The Art of War" required reading for some MBA degrees and Corporate CEO's

It should become a required reading for all environmentalist.

Know your enemy and all the ways he may come at you, this will allow you to develop counter measures to negate their effect.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Beat into plowshares:

I hope they don't do as Iran,  develop nuclear so they can have more oil for export. Maybe a few nukes to share with Israel.

Solar for sure and desalination. Water will be as scarce as food, make the desert bloom and everyone sit under his own vine and fig tree in peace.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Powder River Basin:

That is probably Western Coal they are using you know the coal the Eastern Coal Corporations have to destroy mountains, valleys and fresh water streams in order to stay competitive with.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Frontal Attacks or End Runs:

Sorry KMP,

I am not one of the chowder heads that thinks someone from the other 53% of the population can not have some answers or provide some direction. Just got carried away and did not think about KMP being gender specific to other than the other 47%.

Obama does have a full plate including all of the above and I am in over my head in another thread trying to mention the above when they write their letter to Obama trashing  the Air Forces CTL program. Plus the fact the fuel has already been tested in B-52's by the Air Force and people in the Pentagon have staked their reputation and carriers on it. The industrial Military Complex sitting right next door to the president and most days right in the same room with him. All the members of and heads of Defense and finance committee's  in the legislative that have a vested interest in seeing this CTL program advanced plus the coal corporation lobby. And the mentality is we will just write a letter and Obama will shut down the Air Force CTL program. They take no heed of the complicated interconnected web spun by the Industrial Military Complex or the power of the corporate lobby.

Luckily Obama as I said kept his grassroots organization together and  has asked input on the agenda and I believe we can finally start work around the powerful interest and lobby in Washington that dominated all discussion.

I do not agree with CTL but would not have attacked it as a coal hater just wanting to kill it for the sake of killing it. Especially since it is already out of its testing phase and has so many powerful people connected to it.

I would have wrote the letter demanding all of the Economic Recovery funding possible for BTL, Bio To Liquid Fuels in the alternative energy portion of the recovery money. When I had a viable BTL I would then as the president as Commander in Chief to order the Air Force to test it. If it is as efficient cost won't matter to the military.

Better yet I would ask UPS to test it in their package/partial Air Fleet. I think this is what he was talking about in his call to service. You can't just dump this stuff on his plate you have to help him work it through the system.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Ditto:

KMP,

Well stated, I have wasted a lot of blog space trying to say just what you put in print.

What he said!

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Is it hard to kick against the pricks:

Simply Amazing:

"is it hard for thee to kick against the pricks" we have no snags, not even the semblance of a forest.

Nitrates by the millions of tons and caterpillar makes a larger footprint on the land than steel wheel chairs.

It is a hard thing to save a forest when even the foundation of it is destroyed. The chainsaw has been silenced in Appalachia except for the clear cutting that ushers in the nitrates before the caterpillar's attack.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Litmus Test:

It was not until the Tet Offensive in 1968 during the Vietnam War when our Embassy was overrun temporarily and it took three weeks just to get the Viet Cong insurgents out of Saigon  the American people turned against the war.  Up until that time Johnson was telling the American people we were winning that war. When Johnson watched Walter Cronkite standing in Saigon and reporting the Vietnam War could not be won he stated it was over. He knew that if Walter Cronkite turned against the war his credibility would turn the majority of Americans against it.

When you get enough scientist on board to convince the Fox Network co2 is causing global warming you may have a chance at stopping it. Don't go ballistic over me using  Fox Network as an example, a little humor there, and yes I know very little.

You get my drift when you get mainstream media on board the battle is won and they will have to have the preponderance of truth.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Whats in a name:

I like the term tree hugger. It just sounds warm and fuzzy and that is what corporate throws around when they want to belittle you or your cause. Enviormentalist are coined as wine sipping elitist who bewail the destruction of the planet just to appear fashionable and are not to be taken seriously.

We need to all buy a copy of the redneck dictionary in order to communicate our concerns to Joe Six Pack.

I kinda like Corona Light, might be able to go all the way and drink a long neck bud.

Hey! its an acquired taste..

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

New World Order:

 I almost forgot Bill,

You had no real corporate lobby in 1941. Ike did not start warning about the industrial military complex influence until 1961. The 30 or so Oil companies of the 50's were not organized into two or three multinational comglomerates until much later.

The multinational corporation lobby did not start yielding its full power until Reagan and George I's New World order of global corporate dominance.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Lobby Reform Now:

BobHenry,

finally a convert, If Obama will use his grassroots organiztion to push for lobby reform and we quit sending back the bought and paid for politicians we will change the system.

One America as the man said, cross over to vote, vote indepemdent ticket even. Vote the person dedicated to taking back government from the corporations and giving it back to the people.

We have to change this corpocracy.

Most on this blog understand the environmental issues far better than I but fail to realize you can't seperate the environmental from the political.

 As distasteful as it is in a politically driven system you have to know how to work within that system to get your agenda forwarded. We have either two choices combine all our economic recourses and every environmental group as one, contributing to hire us some lobbyist and buy us some politicians. This is itself  problematic for it is not within the character or the heart of most the people on this blog to admit to themselves that their government really works this way. Also the corporations will out money you even if we could organize to fight the machine by using their own tactics.

The founding fathers left the work incomplete. They devised a checks and balances system that worked at the time but could not see far enough into the future to see how the multinational corporation could take over government. Jefferson warned about it when he warned about the unwarranted influence of the merchant class "Multinational Corporations".  He never got the safeguard into the constitution that would protect us form it.

Our representative style of government that we hold up as the model to the world is but a shadow of its former self. It has become a corpora.

If we could ever obtain lobby reform the next thing on the agenda would be to get referendums on the national ballot at the times we elect our elected representatives to government. This was not within the technology of colonial times but in the computer age voting  on specific issues on the ballot as they do in California is well within the realm of the doable.

The power elite will never allow this for this would directly put power back in the hands of the people. If you had polled 1000,000 workers from all over the country and ask them if they thought giving tax breaks to corporations for taking their jobs over seas was a good idea how many do you think would vote for it. Their representatives did and it is not within the scope of this blog piece to list you over 100 other things the people would have voted no on but their representatives voted for.

I believe Obama will work for lobby reform and ask the grassroots organization he put together before the election to help him with it. He was so smart not to do as most and disband his organization after he got in office.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Classical Gas:

Why is it they use a country music tune to set this up. Why not classical music or Jazz? Maybe they are trying to target an audience that would be more likely to believe what they are selling!

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

The Air we Breathe:

We have found a point of agreement. The Idea of pumping co2 underground and expecting it to stay there is a coal corporation wet dream they are presently selling as a part of their so called clean coal campaign. It is not a practical or workable solution'

The absorption or to be more exact the feeding of co2 to green algae sounds promising. Large green algae ponds along side the coal ash pond. At least now when a pond fails it will add a little color to the environment. I guess if I thought about it I would rather be slimmed than take a chance on disturbing the gaseous balance of the atmosphere.

When studying the science books and looking at the gaseous content of the air we breath I assume they are giving it as an average.  I have not looked at that average over time but someone should. I have seen where they take ice core samples from the artic and can give you a break down of the percentage of each gas that makes up the air we breathe over time.

I know that what the major concern is now is upper atmosphere concentrations of co2 but I would be interested to know the oxygen co2 ratio of breathable air from 100 years ago. It may just be the pharmaceutical and health care industry pushing their products but I see more lung disorders than I did even 20 years ago. More and more people tied to an oxygen tank or sucking on an inhaler. Granted most of these problems are probably cause by direct or second hand cigarette smoke or other environmental particulate matter. We had that discussion about the Beijing air. I see a lot more early onset childhood asthma.

The point being not the cause so much as the benefit or detriment of higher oxygen verses co2 content in ground level atmosphere.  The air we breath.  I know the school of thought is most of the co2 will concentrate in the upper atmosphere. Will there be a saturation point where the upper level co2 envelope extends downward and you get a higher concentration at ground level.

I know co2 is heaver than some gasses and need to go back and get the specific gravity but the gas in used in the welding industry as a shielding gas. It is heavy enough to shield the molten metal puddle from other gases in the atmosphere until the molten metal puddle solidifies.

Even if the co2 effect on global warming or weather turns out to be insignificant every other effect of higher co2 levels need to be explored. Black lung is a major problem in the coalfields we could use a little extra oxygen.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Old School:

Robco1

You are catching on,

Gonna tell my age here but I remember back in the day when you had to cover you own R&D and bid on contracts against several other companies.  Specs requirements plus deadlines for each phase of construction. Penalties for missing deadlines.

Dick Cheney no bid contracts for Haliburton, military procurement with extended deadlines, cost over runs and systems that don't even work. The corporate lobby has even ruined our government procurement system of anything government funded. Earmarks and pork with everybody at the trough.

Change we need, How about going back to competitive bidding and some transparency when letting these contracts out.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

In the nick of time:

There could not be better news for the Mountains of Southern Appalachia.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Surprise Surprise:

You did not really think the legislative body bought and paid for by the corporations that tore up trolley and destroyed mass transit where ever and when ever they could would push for mass transit did you.

More new roads to run oil consuming, smoke snorting behemoths on. Mass transit, we can't save GM with mass transit:

LOBBY REFORM, LOBBY REFORM, LOBBY REFORM, LOBBY REFORM, LOBBY REFORM, LOBBY REFORM, LOBBY REFORM,
LOBBY REFORM, LOBBY REFORM.

Pay Attention boys and girls..Lobby Reform First or nothing green gets done.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Correction:

Did not mean to take the term your literally or pass owner ship of the cause to you or your organization.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Mountain Legacy:

The weakening of Surface Mining rules and regulations over his 8 year reign of environmental terror allowed for the destruction of thousands of acres of  deciduous Southern Appalachia forest. His midnight rule or regulation changes to the stream portion of EPA clean water act will insure his legacy of destruction for the Appalachian Mountains, valleys and streams of East Kentucky and West Virginia.
I will have to stare out every day at the valley he helped destroy behind my home. My kids or grandchildren will have to look at this scar on the earth. Generations of my family lived in this valley and enjoyed the gifts that it provided us including the fresh water stream that is now under 1000 feet of crushed rock and overburden to get at a coal seam about two feet thick.

What the nation does not know is that it was not just my valley but belonged to the whole of this country. The southern Appalachian Mountains belong to the country at large as much as the Rocky or Catskill Mountains. What was destroyed for me, what will be destroyed in the future by George Bush's gift to his coal corporation friends will be his legacy in Appalachia.

We can only hope it will be someone's legacy to save Appalachia and stop this environmental disaster that is destroying the country's southern Appalachian forest. Destroyed forever for Mountain Top Removal and Valley Filling method of mining can never be reversed. There is no reclamation for MTR that is a big a lie as clean coal.

Yes George Bush's Legacy will be about as long lasting as you can get even when you measure in Geological epochs of time.

A legacy of total environmental destruction of the nations Appalachian Forest

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Musings on Malthus:

Malthus wrote the prescription for population control over a hundred years ago.

Grossly overpopulated planet every tribe in competition for diminishing resources.

The have's exploiting the have not's for centuries and now that their population is putting additional stress on the planets oil, food and water supply you want to neuter them.

Your timing is lousy, since your corporate greed finally destroyed the economic system along with most all the resources you are trying to horde it will be hard to fund the sterilization of the third world.

Not to worry for brother Malthus will come to your aid.

The only natural predator to man is War, Famine, Disease and the fourth horseman fermenting the hate and stirring the fire in the Middle East.

One naturally follows the other so just "cry Havoc and loose the dogs of war"

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

To err is human:

To do it over and over again  is just plain stupid.

Reagan was our biggest mistake, he started us down this primrose path to the corporate destruction of the economy and the planet.

With Bush we doubled down on stupid and put our economy and very existance at risk.

You would hope the country has learned it's lesson by now!

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Marsmobile:

Bob,

It was not my intention to imply that an extra set of batteries should be the standard or the norm when developing the electric car. It is just what is done in some industrial settings to get around the lengthy charge times.

The electric car will have to be what the modern gasoline automobile is today.  Large enough to be practical, get 250-400 miles on a single charge, the battery pack last for at least 100,000 miles and cost around five to six thousand dollars to replace and can be bought for around $30,000 dollars. Oh, yea! It will also have to be able to provide power for such convenience appliances as air conditioning and heat.

It will be done, just as soon as you get Exxon out of the way. It took over a hundred years to get the modern gas automobile to where it is today after the oil and automotive industry killed the battery automobile that was also running around at the beginning of the last century almost at the same time Mr. Fords first car was on the street.

We have a Mars Rover running around on Mars for the last 5 years that was supposed to be only a three month program. The only reason it is the size of a Tonka Toy and not as large as a Mack truck is the expense of getting it there.

People don't generally drive a car all the way to empty before they fill up, no reason they won't do quick charges on ½  to ¼ full charge as soon as the battery technology and charger technology permits. There is no need for a second bank of batteries for an electric car and did not mean to imply there would be.

The same advances in battery technology for automobiles will carry over to the solar home both on and off grid. Converter technology is almost already there, 5000 watts is fairly cheap right now. We need a cheap 15 to 20 kw and it won't be that hard to do. The same extended run/extended charge batteries for the electric car will help solve the nigh and cloudy day problems with solar. The smart grid that allows all types of power to enter the power grid and the provider to get paid for it is the reason for the smart grid Obama is talking about I assume. I know the main thrust right now is the ability to transport power from all points to all points in the country to take advantage of the western wind power. However they will be missing the boat as more solar homes come online and become so efficient they will produce power beyond what it takes for their own use. On grid solar rural can provide a lot of power to the metropolitan areas where roof square footage does not provide enough room for condo's or High Rise apartments solar panels.

It took a while to go from crank to electric start and then from 6 volt to 12 volt for start systems. Today's  R&D and the time it takes to bring innovation to market works at hyper speed compared to the slow development of the gas engine car.

The old oil corporate and fuel driven auto corporate crowd are slowing things down now. As of yesterday I am hoping to see some changes in the way we think about transportation and the innovation needed to develop it green. The technology is just to damn simple not to develop a viable electric car. We can talk it to death but it will always come back around to the battery. All the developments we have made already in power drive technology and computer control are already in place as well as light metal and composite material for the bodies. I will not believe the battery is not just around the corner that will meet the range, charge and construction cost requirements for mass production of an electric car.

There are also different types of energy to take advantage of connected with the braking and drive systems that will augment the power provided by the batteries. These methods are already being used in some early hybrids.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Satire par Excellence:

His rapier wit helps him make the point better than boring stats and figures at times.

I wish he would take off on Mountain Top Removal. It might highlight the laughable absurdity of destroying one of the countries pristine mountain ranges.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Lead Acid Night Mare:

  The battery packs are huge and bulky. We have to switch then out with a chain hoist and yes we have pushed the limits of the lead acid battery to the limit. The charge stations are located both outside and inside the mines and are nothing special. Large diode's convert the AC to DC current much the same as a home auto battery charger.
  What impresses me is the weight of the machine itself plus haulage and getting most times an 8 hour run on one charge. The downside being it takes several hours to charge a large bank of battery's and most individuals won't have the advantage of having two sets or the physical means to pull one bank of batteries out and set the other set in if the car is needed before the bank in the car is charged to full capacity.

As we all know advances will have to be made in battery technology to get us the needed smaller batteries and better weight distribution needed for automobile's. Battery pack life and the expense involved in buying a new battery pack so the electric car will not be so cost prohibitive.

Thus the real advantage of the use of battery equipment in industry. The profit margin eases the cost of replacing a bank of lead acid batteries for industry. An individual may be more cost handicapped keeping that extra set around or battery replacement. In an industrial setting it poses no problem for a user to grap a hoist and set in a bank of batteries. If mom had to before she could go shopping it may pose an inconvenience not acceptable for a domestic end user.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Here's to hoping your findings are correct:

Max,

If this proves to be the consensus and the majority of atmospheric exploration trends this way I will be elated about the findings. The air in Beijing was disturbing to look at and the particulate matter is disturbing to me but I know that is not directly related to the co2 study or ramifications of co2. The health problems to humans notwithstanding I assume if the major problem with global warming is not an eminent threat we may have the luxury of time on our side as far as co2 goes. This will not help my immediate problem of coal costing me my mountains, valleys and clear water steams in the Southern Appalachian coal fields. Of course I will not muddy the original thread topic or mix apples and oranges. Out of an abundance of caution I would like to see what co2 is doing to the cosmic radiation absorption abilities of the atmosphere. Also I would like for the study you refer to duplicated by several sources before we license another 100 coal fired power generating stations.

If it is the way you say this will be the happiest I have ever been being wrong.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Legacy Cost::

    Empirical knowledge in this realm bears out the truth of  your post. The last suit you wear has no pockets and I have never seen an Armored Car in a funeral procession.  We will be reduced down to a name and a date on a piece of rock. Some names in mass on a large piece of rock such as the one in Washington that lists the names of my brothers that never walked away from a war long ago started by such men as Dick Chaney. Most will be as your mothers and mine, one rock at a time.
    Empirical knowledge is all I have to base my existence on. Metaphysical knowledge fails me. The large Hadron particle accelerator in Europe was shut down for repair a few months ago soon after they started it up. It may yield some answers about parallel universes in Quantum Physics or prove or disprove the existence of the other dimensions proclaimed by string theory. I guess that is why they say faith is based on the hope of things unseen. As it stands the most powerful forces in the universe are subatomic and there is yet things we can not comprehend in the portion of the white light radiation band we now call home.
   Everything I see around me is just a reflection and once they break it all down to the most basic of elements the unseen may actually be more real. All I know is men like Dick Chaney reflect light poorly in this dimension. If their negative vibrations effects their Karma at some other point in time in this realm or upsets the natural order in some other universe, I just don't know. But the darkness that has been lifted from the land by his departure will make this world seem a little brighter.
   Yes he will depart but his legacy will be with us for generations to come and we will be reminded of it not only by whatever size piece of rock they carve his name on but by the thousands of headstones carved out for the fallen who gave their lives for his unnecessary war. For whatever its worth in this dimension or another I would rather have your mother's stone and her legacy.  If I had to carry it the burden would be lighter.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Disturbance in the Force:

      The solar earth study of the effects of co2 over time that was just posted is to the heart of what I was saying. It is specifically earth and not other planetary related and our ability to change the solar variable is not part of the equation. Studying a melting ice shelf that is obviously melting and trying to predict when it will stop is another fanciful exercise in futility when considering the saturation rate of the atmosphere with co2 and the shelf life of co2 in the atmosphere. Co2 in the atmosphere is as the study of geology, you don't measure the effect of co2 on the planet in even 50 year blocks of time. Whatever effect the present manmade co2 is having on the planet is what we will be experiencing for the next 100 years. You can't stop the accumulative effects of atmospheric co2 on a dime or predict the long term effects of this co2 even if the ice shelf stabilizes tomorrow.
      The observable effects of what we are already experiencing warrants targeted and specific study relevant to the immediacy of a probable planet killing problem. I will fall back on my original premise that you can't destroy matter but you can reallocate it. The redistribution of carbon from its locked up state in fossil fuel and placing it in the atmosphere may be having other effects on the life sustaining balance of the planet other than just co2 warming. I know nothing of the effects of the atmosphere to dilute the cosmic radiation that bombards the planet or how the man made co2 is effecting that filtering process. I know nothing of the effects of the other particulate and chemical elements we introduce into the atmosphere on ocean acidity or fresh water for that matter.
     My cognitive and scientific environment limits me only to the directly observable. I can see the ice shelf is melting and the oceans are rising. I did not see a honey bee all last year and only about two firefly's. I find mutated salamanders and tadpoles and am missing a couple native species of aquatic life just in my limited environment. Certain evergreen trees are dying out and the winters up until this last one have not been cold enough to kill back some harmful insects in numbers sufficient to keep them under control.
    I witness in real time the effects of DDT on the bird life in my environment and witness how quickly some species recovered as soon as we took it out of the environment. I do not have the scientific background to speak to the hardcore, high-end, co2 theory's and nuances of the atmosphere. I know some about radio wave propagation and have observed some changes in F layer absorption over time but it would be about as relevant as talking about the solar effects of warming on Pluto or the specific point where glacier retrieval stops.
     We desperately need to know now what effect the co2 we have already added to the atmosphere has had and what will be the effect of stopping the man made co2 will have in real time. All scientific study should be directed to earth specific real time related research that will have the best chance of giving immediate and far reaching answers. The ice sheets could stop retrieving in 2020 and enough damage could have already been done to doom life as we know it on the planet by either warming specific or some peripheral atmospheric issue we are not even looking at right now.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Left Behind:

Worst case scenario for Appalachia, co2 sequestering gets done first. Selfish thinking, Maybe! Gasification, CTL methods developed that are cost competitive with oil based fuels and natural gas will also spell the doom of the southern Appalachian mountains.  Highlighting Mountain Top Removal first and stopping the practice will insure we do not get lost in the media again. Stopping MTR now will not put a dent in coal production or hurt coals bottom line. It may drive Eastern Coal back to underground mining and shift the Eastern Production of steam coal for power generation back out West but the overall production of coal will not miss a beat.

The demand for coal in a co2 neutral coal industry or viable gasification or CTL products from coal will finish off the Mountains in Southern Appalachia. The demand for coal will increase and our cause will be buried especially in a region the country has already deemed expendable. We can't shout loud enough to get above the din as it is. We will be lost in the media and we will never be able to get on the front burner of national attention.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Electric Horseman:

Spoofing and goofing about the electric muscle car people. Lighten up!

I have more practical experience with battery powered electric vehicles than anyone on this blog. In under ground coal mining we have had battery powered electric motor haulage and transportation vehicles for over 50 years. They had to b developed for an environment where diesel or gas fumes would be detrimental to human health. With even lead acid batteries we use machines that will haul massive tonnage all day on a single charge. I have even converted large coal scoops from a front bucket haul system to a ram car extending the usable length of time between charges and increasing the haulage capacity.  This equipment with a gear ratio for low speed hauling could obtain highway speeds with lighter bodies for transportation and running a higher gear ratio.

Advances in battery technology for sure and some light composite materials for construction along with advances in construction technology will usher in the electric car. I do not know which will jump to the immediate forefront CNG, Hybrid, Hydrogen or Electric but the combustion engine as we know it will be no more. The end result in time will be a non combustion type of automobile.

It will probably be hydrostatic drive and yes I will miss revving it up to around 5000 rpm and dumping the clutch but the masses will probably require a smooth shiftless power transfer to the wheels.

Not to worry I will still be able to get my ol 55 out and light it up. When I think of all the high octane leaded fuel we burned up at .34 cents a gallon and how much money it took to get the lead out of the environment, society should not begrudge me one little burn out for nostalgia sake. ...JOKING

PS, I don't mine coal anymore and work to see it's demise. Just to stop any anti-coal mining tirade on this thread.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

China syndrome:

The problem may not be China not agreeing to strong emission restraints as not buying any more of our government bonds that will fund Obama's recovery plan. China owns more than a trillion dollars of our debt right now and the word is they are already pulling back on buying our bonds. As much as he would like Obama will not be able to separate the economic from the environmental. Any undo pressure early on by environmentalist on co2 will go unheeded if the problem of sequestering co2 is not addressed first and if the economics of it is not palatable to China. Fortunately manufacturing is manufacturing to China and that is  how they sustained their steady 8 ½% yearly growth for the last 10 years.  If you can sell a manufacturing component to China on co2 capture and they can make a yen off it as well as other alternative/green manufacturing  they will be on board.  Nobody can make a solar cell or a particle scrubber as cheap as they can now.  It will always be a delicate dance with China now since we gave them most favored nation trading status. I thought we should have given it a little more thought before we outsourced all our manufacturing to them by I am not an economist or own any Walmart stock so what the hell do I know. You should really go to all the corporate lobbyist who sold us on outsourcing to get them a cheap source of labor and a way to dump their legacy cost. I think they save a bundle by avoiding our EPA regulations also, "what few we have left". Excuse me but since we are so heavily invested in China now is it only China that is balking at stronger emissions or our multi-national corporations that manufacture there by proxy.

At any rate I think you should include the corporate lobby in the discussion. I know they may seem under the radar and not relevant here but then again if you trace this China problem back to its source 20 years ago when the Chinese lobby was spending millions in congress to get most favored nation trading status you may be able to understand the connection.

The U.S. multi-national corporation proxy manufacturing and Chinese devaluing its currency among other trading tricks has created an inclined trading field. China funding, owning so much of our debt plus threatening to divest itself of to much foreign currency "the dollar" throws the market into a tailspin each time they threaten it.  

We have given away our economic plus our environmental future on the advise of lobbyist.  So why not include them in the conversation now. We are obviously living in a corporacy now why not bring them into the light and the discussion?

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Legacy Cost Bailout:

John I fear the congressional dog and pony auto bailout show was more about so called legacy cost than the restructuring of  the automotive industry. The bailout money was just a cover for congressional blessing to dump the retirement and health care benefits.  No there was no mandate to earmark a portion of the money specifically for an alternative energy automobile or even to increase fuel mileage standards.  

Yes, we all hearken back to at time when you had competitive bidding on not only military procurement but all government contracts.  At a time when several corporations had to risk the R&D cost and bid against others just to get a shot at a contract.  Now at this time of Haliburton's exclusive military contracts and no bid contracts on drugs for the Medicare Prescription Drug Program the mentality for the fiscal conservative running of government seems archaic and old fashioned. No matter it was a time when you could get quality products built on time and most times below cost.

14,000 well placed lobbyist have changed the government procurement model and forwarded the wants of the leading corporations over the needs of the people.

Such is life in a Corpocracy.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Lobby Reform First:

Amazingdrx said it all and validates my old tired concept that corporate lobby reform will have to come first if Obama hopes to make any inroads on any of his recovery, environmenatl package.

No where will this be more evident than Detroit and the electric car.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Muscle Car Era:

Being a certified baby boomer from the muscle care era it would hope we come out of this current recession, soon to be depression with a different outlook on cars, houses and everything else. The trend is smaller houses in present new home construction. The baby boomers 8 miles to the gallon 400 H.P. muscle car was just the first indication Detroit was on the wrong track when creating trends and markets. Although Delorean's stainless steel car years later would have been a good model for a car with a body and chassis that could be upgraded and have a 50 year shelf life. A continuously upgraded auto body would save a lot of energy and raw materials over replacing a car every 3 to 4 years.  I would drive a hybrid Delorean and would love to have a back to the future electric Delorean. The Madison Avenue Ad men can create a market around a steel pot with wheels an example being the Volkswagen  Beetle with a body style that did not have to be drastically changed every two years.  The electric car not only needs to be practical and efficient but be built to last at least 20 years. That concept will not be easily sold to Detroit where building loaded up behemoths with a 3 year shelf life is the model. I don't know how you turn a profit building a car with at least a 10 year shelf life but the concept needs to be explored to obtain the extra saving in manufacturing of energy and raw materials.

An over the top electric car for the nouveau riche that will only be a small part of the Electric car segment would be good advertisement for the electric car segment. I could only dream about that 63 split window vette back in the day  while driving a 4 cyl. Chevy II. All matter of electric automobiles will be run up the flag pole by Detroit and Japan, the hope would be that they can build one affordable and practical enough for the common man that has a long shelf life.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Winner take all:

At the turn of the last century we had three major types of propulsion in competition with each other in the automotive sector.

Steam, electric and gasoline. Of course we all know which one won out. In a capitalist system Hybrid, Electric, and Hydrogen will have to compete for viability and market share. We may have to hold our nose and watch Natural Gas take the forefront for a short time as a bridge or transition fuel.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Disney Land Economics:

The baby boom generation decided they wanted it all and wanted it right now and passed on to the next generation the buy it all on credit mentality.

It is the same as living well on credit and passing the bill off to the next generation.

The banks won't give you air without collateral now or a down payment or at least proving you have the means to pay. Just as it was before deregulation. Yet we give billions to Wall Street and the banking industry with no oversight and give it free with no interest and no requirement to pay it back to the taxpayers.

Of course the trillions they say we need to jump start the economy or the economic recovery package Obama talks about will have to be raised by selling bonds. For the most part to the Chinese. By giving billions to the same people who caused the problem with no oversight and no requirements for a return on our money we bought nothing, for the lending or credit is still tight.

All the things hoped for in the economic recovery plan will be in vain. When the second and third wave of defaults hit on top of the subprime mess that has not yet run its course we will still be looking for the bottom of this economic crisis.  Commercial real estate will be next because it was also funded with the sub prime model, wait for it. The auto default and personal loan defaults brought on by the bottom falling out of the economy and the subsequent unemployment rate will hit us soon, wait for it. On top of all this add credit card default because people are living on them instead of being employed now, wait for it.

All the economic recovery stops when bond sales stop and the bottom drops out of the dollar. The hyper accelerated rate of printing money we don't have on credit will catch up with us as soon as the world understands what a bad credit risk we are.

The special interest and corporate lobby will highjack most of the funding and this in itself will put the recovery in jeapordy. As the market watches most of the money being wasted on projects that neither helps the economy or effects our energy demands bond sales will falter.

We missed our chance when we had our own peak oil crisis in 74. Over 30 years of the oil and transportation lobby maintaining the status quo. Now we think we have a miracle worker who can defeat the corporate lobby, earmarks, special interest groups and protected subsidies while he prints enough borrowed money to spend us out of a depression. All of this with an economy that is 70% dependent upon foreign sorces for energy where neither the production of or the transportation of is secure. I almost forgot and with a bunch of radical terrorist who would like to see our economy fall the rest of the way off the cliff.

The portion of the economy that paid the bills and had some intrinsic value was done away with by a corporate lobby looking for cheap labor, a way to dump their legacy cost and oh! yes avoid the cost of doing business under any sort of environmental regulation. We outsourced the part of the economy that had any real value. It will be hard to borrow on the information and service sector.

I had hopes for the rail and alternative energy portion of the recovery package.

Unfortunately we are just about 30 years to late to pull it off.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Damage control:

Bush has cost us the moral high ground on not only the need to save the planet and quit living for the here and  now but his foreign policy and economic policy has totally discredited this country' leadership ability or right in regard to all of the above.  His super salesman Paulson presiding over the economic shell game that will take down the worlds economic system and selling us the Disney Land Wall Street bailout plan that will leave us with a worthless dollar and our grandchildren indebted to our lenders will be the news story of the century.  The damage this man has done to our credibility on environmental concerns, monetary or foreign affairs is irreparable. The economic situation he has left the country in will make it impossible for us to even address the environmental concerns that have an urgent need for responsible action now.

The economy will dominate the next administrations total attention and will require all our borrowed treasury funds to keep the economy from falling into total collapse.  The billions already allocated to the Markets without any over sight will further erode the worlds confidence in our ability to take a leadership role on any issue. There has been no positive effect on the lending institutions to free up the capital needed for anything  much less carbon capture or sequestering. All the new alternative technology advances will need capital to bring them into fruition. The hyper inflation headed our way at some point caused by the trillions of borrowed dollars and directed to self serving banking and market institutions without any oversight will buy us  nothing but the image of an incompetent hollowed out ex super power with no credibility on any issue. Especially the environment that we are the major polluter of and the major reason no one will have the capital necessary to address global warming or anything else.

We will not come out of this as the major market in the world. We will not come out of this as the country with the leadership role concerning fixing the environment. We have played the obstructionist to long.  I look to Europe and the European Union countries to find the economic and environmental model that will insure both economic growth and environmental standards that compliment each other.  It will be hard for anyone to take us serious anymore because we are still controlled by a corporate lobby that will hang on to tradition and sell it to our governmental officials. What money we borrow for the economic recovery will be corporate lobby influenced to sustain the status quo.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

One mans doom and gloom is anothers opportunity:

The war between cable TV and Satellite TV is a good analogy of going off the grid for me. Early on Cable TV concerns fought tooth and nail Satellite TV distribution. Years ago I had to sign a waver that I could not get or did not have access to cable before I could get my Direct TV satellite dish. Of course I had a cable running right by my house but was not thrilled with the service. It is not even a question they ask anymore and if you are anywhere away from a large metropolitan area you can get your own off line dish and have some competition now in the market so you have a choice even in which satellite company you want to go with. You have a whole industry set up around manufacturing the equipment, installing and maintaining plus providing programming.

You can have the same set up for off grid alternative energy if you can keep the major carbon providers out of it until the market has legs. Of course the network that controls the grid at this time is going to be as warm to the idea as cable was to satellite in the early days. The infrastructure cost for running and maintaining energy transmission lines to non metropolitan area's is a large portion of the grid cost at present. Wireless communications has proven more cost efficient in 3rd world countries where no telephone lines existed.

If you have non carbon entities develop alternative energy off grid plants for individual homes the cost will far less than a large energy concern trying to build a large mega watt alternative energy generation plant and having to build and maintain the distribution system. You will have the added benefit of most the cost being on the home owner and a manufacturing , installing and maintaining industry being built around it. There is a large portion of your 3 million jobs Obama is looking for.

I can see upgrading the present grid for seamlessly transporting all types of  electricity be it carbon or alternative based. You will have to, to  take advantage of large corporate controlled windmill farms or solar banks. I suppose large geothermal and hydro sources will be part of the mix. You will get the added benefit of creating jobs in this economic downturn. In reality energy conservation is one of the most cost efficient programs  needed while we sort this all out. I still feel that it you consider all the area of the U.S. that lays outside the medium sized metropolitan areas and count the added cost advantages of taking them off grid plus the energy savings if you did it with alternate energy it would be a no brainer. Even if you just made it a voluntary choice and did away with some of the corporate and government restrictions in doing so this off grid energy sector would take off. Once you come up with just a few more advances in solar efficiency and cost especially in manufacturing the same conditions will appear as when satellite TV become a cost efficient alternative to cable TV.

Someone will jump on it and a whole economy will be developed around it independent of government funding.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Missing the point:

Linking up a coal sullied I mean supplied grid is not what I had in mind for revamping the grid. I don't see how it helps to link up the four corners of the grid and share the coal produced power. I was thinking of more off grid alternative power with a revamped smart grid that could recoup and distribute the excess power. I know Obama was talking about the upgrading the grid infrastructure but smart grid to me does not mean a nuclear coal loop. Whatever alternative energy source that is predominate for each sector should be developed and a way of selling the excess to the national grid.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Middle Class Status:

I know bourgeoisie is just middle class but after the economic crash that is about all we will be able to aspire to. Nobody down here is looking for social welfare or a windfall just a chance to make a decent working wage in something other than coal mining.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

The black washes off at the end of the workday:

Bob,

I believe the main point you made that led to the discussion on the viability of an alternate economy in Appalachia to replace coal was the buy out and transplant remark. It was not an option when the North East lost steel. I don't remember anyone suggesting we buy out all the steel workers and transplant them somewhere else.  The black unemployment rate for Afro American youth in New York city is still hovering around 50%. We don't mention an option of transplanting them for obvious reasons of racial overtones. Yet the stereotypical hillbilly can just be bought out and moved.  We don't even want manufacturing in the western rocky mountains but the people in the area find segments of the economy acceptable to their quality of life and lifestyle.

The need to get off coal is a given on this site and was not the main point you made that led us into this discussion. On new years eve CNN had a spot on a major rock group celebrating at the Pikeville civic center. We have some industry and a service and tech economy. If you look at this region at this point in time we are not in the depths of an economic recession to extent the rest of the country is. I do regret that is because of coal.

 I am typing on a laptop from a wifi residence and could go down to the restaurant and do the same. We have cable, internet, cell, satellite, water mains to hook up to and most of the other services anyone else has. The main point is we have the people locally that keep them up. I know the manufacturing model has changed and micro and specific manufacturing is heavily dependant on rapid and cheap transportation. However the information, technical and service jobs that people take advantage of in the Catskills or the Rocky mountains are available and viable here plus adventure tourism. We are starting to take advantage of our white water rafting and are promoting trails that highlight historic sites. I don't mind mentioning the hiking and biking trails that have been developed but am hesitant to talk about a 13 county wide ATV trail in Mingo County West Virginia and the 14 or 15 county wide Kentucky  ATV trail on an environmental site.

My main point still being when and if the alternative energy sector takes off we have the people available that are willing and able to switch from a coal based economy. I still believe the suggestion to buy out and transplant a people from their ancestral home land is an indication of how the nation looks at the region and the people as a whole. The remark may not have been purely ethnocentric because we are a mix of English, Scotts Irish and German with a smidgen of Italian and Afro American thrown in at the beginning of the last century to work the mines. We can not help being associated with an energy source that is not popular at this time. It was just the luck of the draw and chance and circumstance that placed us in the heart of the Eastern coal Fields.  I am against coal as much as anyone on this site for myriad and diverse reasons but don't throw out the baby with the bath water.

We transplanted the Cherokee people that were located just a little south of us and history has not put the people who did it in a good light. Like I said before we train and educate a workforce for the entire country, they have been going to every region of the country looking for employment for the last two generations. They go Voluntarily and most do not come back, that fact in itself speaks volumes about the ability of the people to accept gainful employment and the training component already in place. Transplanting an entire region and economic specific workforce would not be accepted as politically correct unless of course you are talking about hillbillies and Appalachia who are further handicapped by their association with the coal industry.

I stand by my statement the suggestions was a stereotypical remark directed toward a people who have for generations have been trying to overcome the stigma of last century's yellow press.  It is not within the scope of this little blog piece to list the specific groups one would not feel comfortable making this suggestion about.  This in itself also speaks volumes about what the nation at large thinks about the people and the region.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Peabody's coal train:

Much the same as the song about Muhlenburg County Ky. Mr. Peabody's coal train has just about hauled this place away also. However you are correct in the assumption we do have a viable rail systems and the C&O and N&W are also making plans for freight. We have some freight now along with a massive pipe line infrastrucure for natural gas. The ARH has brought us some decent interstate highways with in the development stage I-66 and more to come. Overnight,Fedex and UPS center. All we are short of is decent air transportation. The closet airport is a 2 hour drive and it is hard to get CEO's into an area they can't fly into. We have a small airport at Pikeville for corporate jets and light aircraft but it is an ass puckering mountain top airfield. I have flown into boony strips in Vietnam that were less scary.

We have hydro, geothermal, pulp wood for biofuel but more than that we have a well trained workforce. Modern mining equipment is complicated and the electronics, welding, and hydraulic skills needed to maintain them is not low tech anymore. The preparation plants and engineering people are highly trained. We have community colleges, tech schools and 4 year colleges. Get your mind off the pick and shovel mining that was done over 80 years ago.

The developments in battery technology and new solar cell and production development won't do this sick economy any good if we send the manufacturing to China. The wind infrastucture requires some fairly elaborate equipment. What ever is needed to be fabricated for the new alternative energy grid or any other alternative energy related equipment can be built in Appalachia and the shipping will be a damn site cheaper than from China.

Underground maintenance men go underground with laptops in a lot of mines now. The belt lines and pumping systems are computer controlled in large mines. The large preparation plants are run by a guy sitting at a computer and monitoring a bank of computer screens.

Even the heavy surface mining equipment maintenance people crawl up on the equipment with a laptop to do diagnostic work.

When Toyota placed a plant in Georgetown Ky. during a slump in the coal industry a lot of their maintenance people come from East Ky. They made the 3 hour drive down to the flat lands to maintain the robotic assembly lines for Toyota.

I know because I helped many of them cram for Toyota's test they were giving for the maintenance people.

If you can't get past the stigma and the stereotypical image of the Appalachian indigenous people take a look at some pictures of a continous mining machine with a coal miner operating it by remote control. Think about what it takes to maintain a compicated mix of electonic and hydraulic monsters in a very rugged environment. Just 3 hours down the road we build Camry's and toyota trucks.

It seems as if toyota found the infrastructure to accomodate their manufacturing. Mountain top Removal has created us enough flat land to fill the industrial needs of China. You talk roads, look at a map and rail is rail. Williamson W. Virginia rail yard is one of the largest in the East. Freight is being developed as I type.

We have the people, the infrastucture and the skills and training component. We also have the coal corporation lobby and small minded, short sighted individuals who don't know a damn thing about this region and still blog like they do.

The dogwood and the redbud are not just for our nostalgic reminising, they belong to the whole country and the mountains they grow on. A coal corporation should not have the right to deny future generations the habitat. Funny you mention firefly's, I did not see but one or two all summer. Something is killing them off also. I never caught a glimpse of a honey bee either. Couple of wild native bee's but they are about gone also. Hell it don't matter they are all just like the mountains and the people. They are all expendable. I will agree with you they have written this part of Appalachia off as expendable.

You never can tell though maybe the Japanese will save us. I don't sweat it for as the Hank Willaims Jr. song says, "a country boy can survive". I am comfortable here and will not have to move or can be budged.

I'll hang around here and take care of my mountain and document for posterity what happened to the rest.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Also a flawed EPA:

I guess Georges midnight reg changes to EPA and the clean water act was because they were flawed also.

Allowing coal corporations to destroy the Appalachian Mountains excuse me improve the appalachian mountains. Evidently he sees a mountain and a valley and a fresh water stream as flawed in their natural state.

He feels the need to flatten them, fill them up level and cover them up.

His legacy will live on in Appalachia, well not exactly live! Dead mountains, dead valleys, dead streams or as George calls them new and improved clean coal projects.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Smoke Stack Industry:

When the corporat elite determined China was the place to go to reduce their labor and legacy cost the dismantling of the manufacturing segment of our economy was undertaken. I don't miss some of the old dirty smokestack industries but all we did was transfer the pollution and environmental problems to China.

Instead of having to manufacture in an EPA controlled environment and learning how to fabricate in an environmentally friendly manner transferring production to China was just the added cost reduction effect of outsourcing.

We can't just blame the coal corporations for developing markets in China to avoid co2 emmissions and other environmental standards.
All the corporations are to blame for this outsourcing, legacy cost reduction and evading environmental cost model they have sold the American government.

China will burn coal for manufacturing and since they have taken over all our dirty manufacturing this segemnt will increase their demand for coal. When we lost control of the corporate lobby or the shadow government we lost the ability to influence any corporate related legislation. You have to know any legislation that effects the corporate bottom line in a negative manner will have a hard time getting through the legislative process. All Multi National corporations even if they have an American name will fight any efforts to stop the selling of coal to China or pressure on china to clean up the burning of coal.

It has been stated in other blog post that you can't seperate the environmentalist or environmental concern from the economic concerns or plans of action.

I will add that you can't seperate the political from the environmental. Real and meaningful lobby reform will have to be addressed before environmentalist can affect any coal related issue. Especially the selling of coal to China or how they us it.

Be it medical, health care, pharmaceutical, oil, insurance, Wall Street, Medicare, Social Security, earmarks, subsidies, you get the picture, the corporate controll of government by proxy will have to be addressed before any meaningful inroads can be made on co2 emmisions from coal or the other environmental devistaion coal causes.

If Environmentalist join in a concentrated effort to get real lobby reform done first you will find an easier path with less obstruction when tackling coal. The path to alternative energy development will be less steep.

You can not seperate the political from the environmental no more than you can seperate the environmental from the economic but to have a voice in government you will have to get the political done first.

Wrenching the corporate control of government by proxy through the lobby process from these multi-national corporations will have to be done first.

We can be blogging about our conerns in this corpocracy indefinitely. The only way to influence legislation is to either have a powerfull lobby or have some meaningful lobby reform. The environmental lobby is woefully overmatched when it comes to forwarding a legislative agenda. I would suggest lobby reform first.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Exodus:

Mr. Wallace:

I am from Appalachia ,6th generation and right in the middle of the Eastern Coal fields. I was born in a coal company house and my dad had to trade at a coal company store. I worked briefly in the mines myself but never got real comfortable with it, probably because my father died in an East Kentucky coal mine.

I am having a little problem with your suggestion of a buy out package or pay to have all of us relocated. We have already been through that. In the 50's and 60's we had the great exodus from the Appalachian coal fields to the industrial north in order to find employment. The mining industry for us has always a boom or bust cycle. When I was in High School the phrase was reading, riting and route 23. That was the northern section of route 23 that got you headed toward Detroit. We were never allowed to diversify, manufacturing plants were actually killed to insure a steady source of labor for the mines. This added to the overall poverty when the mines and coal mining in general became more mechanized and less labor intensive.

I would rather stay on the property that my ancestors have walked on for over 200 years and since I have become genetically predisposed to live in the mountains I would rather like to stay where I am. The auto industry is going bust in Michigan do you suggest we pay to have all the displaced auto workers relocated also. In fact their exodus has already began to the southern states with right to work laws and no Union. The auto industry has figured out how to dump their legacy cost.

You have been watching to many Grapes of Wrath re-runs.  I am going to stay here as my people have for generations and slug it out with the coal corporations. It is still a beautiful place to live between the Mountain Top Removal strip jobs. I had the notion of staying here and try to save the land of my fathers from being destroyed. I really do quite well here and thoroughly enjoy being a thorn in the coal corporations side. That is my vocation and reason for getting up in the morning.

I have had to move before but usually I am back by the time the redbuds and the dogwood is in bloom. You can send me the money for the price of a ticket however. I could use a little vacation.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Supporting People not Coal:

Hapa we are on the same page, I think.

I believe that Obama's recovery program that deals with infrastructure especially a more efficient power grid and energy conservation projects will produce sustainable jobs with the real effect of reducing our energy demands. I feel a full 20% reduction in energy demand is obtainable over the next twenty years and it will be the most cost effective action we can take to reduce energy consumption and create some of the 3 million jobs he talks about. I feel new green manufacturing jobs will be created by technical advances in solar and battery technology. Demands can be created and the timing has never been better.

I may have misunderstood the remarks that I felt were callous about the miners losing their jobs and only having to be retrained for some other line of work. That part of the post was framed to only cover the miners who are but a small percentage of the people employed in and around the coal industry. No need to repeat the peripheral industry and employment that makes up the total mining picture.

I will add the states that depend on  coal severance tax, coal corporation tax, taxes on coal reserves plus the taxes paid by the citizens employed in the coal industry is significant and part of the overall coal economy. Not to mention that every one in the coal industry that loses that job becomes an unfunded liability to the state instead of a tax contributor. These states are heavily influence by state legislatures from the coal counties who remind the powers that be of the money coal contributes to the states coffers. The coal states representatives promote and defend coal at the national level and yes even representatives from some of the Northeastern States defend and support coal.

Almost all of the coal interest in Kentucky and West Virginia is owned by out of state corporations and interest. The energy market is about the only sector solvent right now and Wall Street is involved in every energy sector. When George Bush penned his midnight regulations to weaken the clean water act to insure the practice of Mountain Top Removal I doubt if the influence come from a state lobbyist. The portion of the economy and markets that involves coal is what I am getting at. It is just more than the handful of men who actually mine the coal. If it were I would grudgingly agree with the poster they will just have to find another line of work and we will need to retrain them to sooth our conscious.

Point being when attacking coal we need to look at the whole of the coal based sector that will include not only the Coal Corporations, the coal producing states and their economy, Wall Street the real mover and shaker in the coal economy, plus all the federal departments and employee's who regulate the coal industry.
Some environmentalist who like me never look at a mutual fund would probably be shocked or embarrassed to know they are probably invested in coal. It is just an over simplification to think only a few miners will be effected if we took out the coal industry without coming up with something viable to replace it with. It is to simplistic to think you  can unravel a multi billion dollar sector with its tentacles in multi layers of state, federal and Markets in a short period of time. The real over simplification for me was just reducing it down to a few expendable miners being the only casualties in a switch to alternative energy sources.

I am not totally pessimistic. The free market thrives on a demand being created and we will meet the technological challenges of creating the green engineering and manufacturing base needed to fill this demand. Coal I feel will become so cost prohibitive because of environmental and market concerns we will see it's demise. I feel that energy conservation short term is the most cost effective job creating act we can take and I am strongly behind this portion of the recovery plan. The mass transit and infrastructure job creating projects to me are just icing on the cake.

I will reiterate the over simplistic targeting of just one portion of the coal sector when attacking coal is short sighted. Coal will have to be attacked at every level. Corporate, state, federal and especially the market sector not just the worker. Create the demand for viable alternative energy sources and the market will dismantle the coal infrastructure over time as it creates new alternative energy jobs and markets to replace it with. I do not know if we can  go cold turkey and do it in twenty years. I do know that targeting the bottom rung of the ladder "the miners is nonproductive and ineffectual'

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Free Speech:

The reason he is allowed to talk on this or any other subject may have something to do with the 1st. amendment. You know the same piece of paper that allows people to call him a knuckle dragger or an idiot.

Like it or know he has a megaphone called cnn and as long as he has a following of knuckle draggers and idiots and the ratings he will be able voice his opinion. I don't agree with nothing he says about the environment and very little on immigration or the economy. I will defend his right to have an opinion and his right to free speech.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Legislated Out of Existance:

The reason black lung disease miraculously disappeared from the coal mines of Appalachia is was because of the bottom line cost of underground mining. The labor intensive underground process takes a back seat to strip mining that can be done with fewer men and reduced cost from having to meet strict underground mining MSHA regulations. Simply put less underground mining is done and what little is left is done by machines like continuous mining machines that replaced several other types of conventional mining machines that required operators and helpers in some cases. It takes fewer personnel now to underground mine thus reducing the number of men on face equipment where most of the coal dust is generated. The mining regulations for coal dust control are more stringent on coal cutting equipment and respirators are required now.

The other reason the black lung rolls declined is workers comp legislation in states like Kentucky and West Virginia. The initial black lung program was abused.  If you had ever been close to a coal heater or drove by a coal preparation plant you qualified for black lung and it was a growth industry for teams of lawyers who specialized in getting you your draw check. There is a mansion  here in Pike county called compensation hill built on the 33% cut plus expenses the lawyer got for each miner he got qualified for black lung. You just about have to cough up a lung now to get workers comp in Kentucky. As with most programs they go from one extreme to another. I know miners who got out of the mines with a black lung check when they were just 29 years old from the early program. I also know miners now with 2nd stage black lung and still working after already having spent 30 years in the mines.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Conservative Environmentalist:

     The separation of environment and our national economy is part of the problem not the solution. The fossil fuel based transportation and power generation sector with the reliance on foreign oil and coal is a large part of our economic woes. The high cost of fuel at the time we were entering the sub-prime mortgage mess only exacerbated the problem.
      Environmental market ideology could put us on the road to a sustainable economy and break our reliance on foreign oil. Markets are created by demand and green manufacturing could lead us out of this economic funk and fast track the renewal of our manufacturing base. Manufacturing to fill the demand for alternative energy products and construction materials for rebuilding the power grid and developing an alternative energy infrastructure.
      The government has killed the free market the Federal Reserve and the patient office being a large part of the problem. The immediate gratification on credit based economy bled over into the markets that also bought on the margin on credit the financial instruments called derivatives that had  no intrinsic value in and of themselves. Now the government is skipping down the same sunny path expecting trillion dollar deficits for the foreseeable future.
      The major and more devastating problem looming on the horizon is the collapse of the dollar. When we went off the gold standard all we had left was the fiscal conservativeness and the integrity of our market to keep the dollar solvent and the world standard for monetary exchange. When the world looses faith in the dollar and we can't sell the bonds necessary to run this wet dream on credit the system will break down.
China will probably be the last one to stop funding our economic fantasy but I really hate to be obligated to them.
    Liberal Economist keep winning Nobel Prizes for economics while the economy goes to hell in a hand basket. Massive budget cuts could offset the money needed for the stimulus package and middle class tax cuts but special interest lobbyist groups will insure that does not happen. The foreign portion of our Federal Budget buys us nothing but trouble in most cases and should be the first place to cut. We just watched the Soviet Union collapse trying to sustain Empire and learned nothing. If the cause is worth fighting for the funding portion be should sold along with the reason to invade. If we were as successful at selling green manufacturing products as we were at selling the world high tech armaments we could obtain the healthy 33% of our economy that builds a strong middle class, manufacturing paid the bills before we adopted outsourcing as an economic model to put downward pressure on wages and benefits.
   The U.S. looks like a heavy weight fighter who has just went 15 hard rounds and knocked out his opponent just seconds before the bell and then collapses himself. Over 750 military bases in 130 different countries, the Soviet Union could not fund the Soviet bloc countries and fight their Afghanistan war. They collapsed under the weight of trying to sustain empire. We are headed down the same path. It takes politicians billions of dollars to get elected by promising billions of dollars worth of programs we have to fund on credit. With each successive run for president the promise gets larger and so does the borrowing on credit. Our current style of democracy will have a limited shelf life under these conditions. If individuals living on credit can face economic ruin and the market that exists on artificial bubbles based on credit can face economic ruin it would be foolish to believe central controlled economic empires or nations exiting on credit can not also fail. The Soviet Empire taught us that.
    There is nothing wrong with a conservative free market guided by an environmental and quality of life ideology. The problem being is we have neither and may be to far in debt to obtain either.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Price of Citizenship:

Citizenship should mean something, if you kick the doors wide open and let just anybody in the state of citizenship means nothing.. Millions of immigrants come through Ellis Island and were assimilated learned English and had to learn something about the constitution we all live under. To be a citizens means you have some unalienable rights that non citizens do not enjoy. We have a legal and lawful method of becoming a U.S. citizen. No one ethnic group should have any special advantages over another as far as moving to the front of the line.
I admire and respect the Mexican people and have many Mexican friends really most are Americans since they are citizens and are no more Mexican than I am English. They work hard, sometimes two jobs just to make ends meet because of undocumented workers keeping wages and benefits low. I am of English decent but do not want  to compete with 20,000,000 undocumented Englishmen for employment.
The old argument we stole the South West is ridiculous. The Spanish displaced the Aztec, Mayan and other indigenous people who in turn displaced the Apache and other indigenous Indian tribes of the South West. The original South Western People were not Mexican. If we tried to go back and untangle the complicated mess or who displaced who we all would have to leave the country except for the original indigenous people or what we call Indians.
It is well documented how the Mexican people treated the Apache as well as the
Anglo Americans who replaced the Mexicans. Richardson would have kicked the boarders wide open and in desperate economic times the Mexican American "I hate that term" citizens would be under more dire economic pressure having to compete with the undocumented.

The drug wars are leaving 10 to 20 dead every morning on the streets of towns just across the boarder and the violence is starting to spill over the boarder. The Mexican government has lost all control of the drug cartels and L.A. is losing control of the gang situation especially MS 13. The terrorist threat dictates that we have control of our borders and ports. Every other nation has this including Mexico. If we are to call ourselves a nation of laws all immigrants should take the legal path to citizenship. The illegal or undocumented workers are exploited here to sustain an industrial farming process that is an environmental nightmare that has been alluded to on this site. Cheap labor to sustain a type of agriculture that is destroying the land and killing the rest of us with chemicals. I have no problem with an amnesty program that requires the immigrant to learn English and take the standard citizen test.

I do not believe in fines for a hard working and industrious people who are just here to work and find a better life. Cruel and inhumane to fine the poor and destitute. The legal immigration route or quota should be doubled and half the slots should be reserved for undocumented workers who are already here. I am not ethnocentric or nationalistic I just hate to see the economic exploitation of an ethnic group. Just as tax breaks for outsourcing jobs is a corporate ploy to keep wages low the open border policy is just another ploy to keep downward pressure on wages and benefits and hurts the Mexican American citizen that is trying to raise a family and own a home much more than it does the other  ethnic groups in this country.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Corpocracy:

Government of the people, Ha! We have not had a representative style government in decades, that has been relegated to the dust bin of history. Now we are finding cash in freezers and the revolving door from government to lobbyist makes a stark statement about the shadow proxy corporate government we are now living under. From the deregulation of wall street and banking to the tax breaks for taking jobs and production overseas. They corporate lobbyist hand can be seen in about all legislation. Who among us would think it was a good idea to not let the government bid on prescription drugs for the medicare prescription drug program. The cost of that program would have been cut in half if the pharmaceutical companies had allowed competitive bidding.
   George Bush' latest midnight rule change to EPA concerning streams and in fact the weakening of the 1977 Surface Mining Act to allow MTR has coal corporation lobbyist hands all over it.

Of the Corporation, by the Corporation and for the Corporation. 14,000 registered lobbyist roaming the halls of government ursurp the will of the people.

If lobby reform is not the first thing tackled by Obama the rest of his agenda is doomed to failured.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Prehensile Tale: or is that tail

Liberal, left wing environmentalist may be the prime source of global warming as methane gas is more the culprit than co2 when considering the gas blanket that is presently warming the planet. It is yet to be determined if the excess methane is being caused by the flatulence from this mostly vegetarian crowd or if it is just all the hot air they release about saving the environment while really getting nothing done about the problem.

It may not be a question of eat a possum and save a tree. It may come down to save a tree and eat a possum to cut down on all the methane gas produced by the vegetarian tree huggers who are simply put "full of it"
.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Can't get enough mass transit:

How about putting passenger rail service back in East Kentucky and West Virginia all we have now are coal trains. We have to drive 3 to 4 hours in most cases to get to an airport. This is one reason we can't diversify and are kept as a coal only region. This is the reason we don't have rail freight hubs that can support any type of heavy manufacturing . We would not be so isolated and maybe more people would come in here and notice the devastation caused by Mountain Top Removal and coal sludge and slurry impoundments. Passenger rail service and bus service would help open up an isolated area of Appalachia and let the rest of the country see how much destruction they are causing each time they flip a light switch on. We would of course experience the fuel savings and less environmental damage provided by mass transit.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.