Obama, Clinton woo coal vote in upcoming primaries

[jpak]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080419/ap_on_el_pr/democrats_coal_4;_ylt=ArEzWPgpqgVWgWeGNWdZshRrAlMA

WASHINGTON - Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are walking a delicate line as they promise to aggressively tackle global warming while trying to assure voters that they continue to believe in the future of coal.

In states like Pennsylvania, where voters will cast ballots this Tuesday, and in West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana and Montana — upcoming primary states — coal sways voters.

While increased mechanization has produced a dramatic decline in coal industry employment, the numbers remain substantial. There are 47,000 coal workers in Pennsylvania and West Virginia and 21,000 in Kentucky, according to the National Mining Association. The three states are the country's biggest coal producers after Wyoming.

Both Obama and Clinton have rallied environmentalists with their promises to develop windmills, solar power and other renewable energy sources and order mandatory reductions in greenhouse gases from power plants to counter global warming.

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[Nihil]

1. Surprise, surprise ...

... politicians are self-serving, two-faced liars.

So what else is new today?
:shrug:

[phantom power]

2. I have a question...

are there a great number of people employed by the coal industry who really like it? The coal industry workers, more than anybody else, must be aware of how damaging it is, both to the environment and to the workers themselves.

If a presidential candidate came along and promised the residents of coal country that they would end the coal industry devastation and address the employment issue with post-fossil industry, would that lose them a lot of votes?

Not that post-fossil industry is necessarily going to be good either (as I love to point out), but coal is just so damn bad in so many ways. It's hard to avoid improving on coal extraction even if just by luck.

[GliderGuider]

3. This is precisely why nothing will change until after TSHTF

No politician can get elected if they threaten the paychecks of their voters. And for some reason, for most voters paychecks trump soft-headed concerns over the end of civilization. When the choice is between the loss of physical security or burning coal, guess which one wins?