Future historians -- if there are any future historians, that is, if civilization doesn't collapse --

[kpete]

Future historians — if there are any future historians, that is, if civilization doesn't collapse — will be astonished that we let the planet burn for the sake of an industry that employs less than 3 percent of workers even in West Virginia

Link to tweet

?s=20

[femmedem]

1. Yes. He is costing us our best shot at preserving a habitable planet.

My fury at him will never die.

[Irish_Dem]

2. It is not about the workers. It's about the bigwig profit and bribes to a US senator.

[hunter]

3. Very few people talk about banning fossil fuels entirely...

...even here on DU.

We could probably ban fossil fuels in fifteen or twenty years but most people, including the renewable energy enthusiasts, are still in denial about global warming.

Coal is no longer the most dangerous fossil fuel because most people understand it's dirty. They've seen pictures of strip mines and ash pond failures, they've smelled the smoke from coal power plants.

The fossil fuel that will end the world as we know it is natural gas because most people still think it's an acceptable alternative to coal. It's not.

[paleotn]

5. Banning isn't realistic. Phasing out is.

Phasing out for most transportation needs that is. Petroleum is a very useful material and not just to put in our gas tanks. Same with nat. gas.

[hunter]

6. Well, then we are cooked.

When natural gas is used to make nitrogen fertilizers, for example, the carbon ends up in the atmosphere.

When petroleum is used to make plastics that are later incinerated, the carbon ends up in the atmosphere.

We have to block all industries that turn natural gas, petroleum, and coal into materials, especially fuels, that will end up as greenhouse gasses.

For any process that requires carbon based chemicals, including fuels, we need to create an industry that synthesis them using carbon dioxide captured from the atmosphere or sea water.

The most minimal fossil fuel use by 8 billion humans still overwhelms natural carbon cycles and leads to increasing amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

If we took this problem seriously, recognizing fossil fuel use as a threat just as dire as Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan was in the past, then yes, we could shut down the entire fossil fuel industry in fifteen or twenty years.

The odds of us setting that kind of deadline any time soon are not good. Things will have to get a lot worse before most people recognize the problem. It will probably take something horrendous like the extinction of a major city obviously caused by global warming.

[Binkie The Clown]

4. It's about the energy.

We just don't have renewable capacity yet to replace coal.
Look at what's happening in China right now.

[fescuerescue]

7. Coal will be the energy source of last resort far in the future

After we have ran out of oil, uranium, rare earth metals (solar, wind).

The last of humanity will be huddled around coal fires.

But they won't be historians. They will be hunter/gathers