Hillary Clinton should not apologize about shutting down coal mining.

[MineralMan]

No way. Coal is one of the worst possible fossil fuels there is. Coal-burning created the acid rain that screwed up freshwater resources in the eastern part of this country. It's a dirty fuel that should no longer be used for any industrial purpose. It's a major contributor to global climate change. No other fossil fuel is more damaging to the environment, both from mining and use as a fuel.

What about those coal mining jobs? Well, when coal mining is shut down, they will be gone. We can, and should, find ways to help miners who lose those mining jobs find alternatives, but we should not continue to mine and burn that climate-changing, environment-destroying fuel.

Thinking people want to end coal mining and the use of that fuel. That it will hurt an industry that has damaged so much is no reason to move away from that position. Politics are no reason to move away from that position.

Coal is filthy fuel that creates great harm wherever it is burned. We need to stop mining it and stop burning it. Period.

That's my opinion. Thanks for reading it.

[NWCorona]

1. I happen to agree

Hard choices have to be made.

[MineralMan]

5. Yes, and politics shouldn't enter into such decisions.

I hope those coal mine workers can be assisted in finding new ways to earn their living, but those mines still need to be shut down. They are a plague on the environment, both during mining and when the coal is burned as fuel.

Some things simply have to be done. That's one of them.

[Baobab]

31. Hillary cannot hydrofracture and export natu ral gas till its gone AND ban coal TOO

Since she is so pro fracking in T-T-IP, she's got to leave coal or millions in cities where there is no room for solar will freeze.

[Garrett78]

2. Yeah, an end to coal mining is certainly called for.

But that requires a major investment in alternative sources of energy. Right now, we're nowhere close to being prepared to replace oil and coal. Look around you and virtually everything you see is the product of those sources.

[MineralMan]

11. That investment is already underway, and will be expanded

under Hillary Clinton's plan. Coal is being phased out as a fuel. That has caused many jobs to be lost already, as has new mining technology. It has also lowered the number of new cases of black lung and deaths in mining disasters.

We can't simply shut down coal production instantly, of course, but we will shut it down and are already scaling it back. We need to accelerate that process. Will people in West Virginia and other coal mining areas face economic challenges? Of course, but we can plan to mitigate those challenges. And we should. But, we should not back down from the plan to stop mining and burning coal.

That it will not happen tomorrow is no reason to pretend it will not happen.

[Garrett78]

19. The phasing out needs to be fast-tracked and the investment in alternatives greatly increased.

I agree with your reply. I just think people underestimate how reliant we are on fossil fuels and how far we are from being able to replace them while maintaining any semblance of our current lifestyle (perhaps we ought to question that lifestyle, but that's a whole other discussion).

Electric cars seem great, but the batteries are toxic and what do folks think is responsible for electricity? Hint: it rhymes with "foal."

[MineralMan]

22. Yes. It's not going to be a comfortable transition.

And it's going to take longer than any sensible person wants it to take. I'm not knowledgeable enough to really discuss how it will happen, though. Here's what I'd do, if I were a lot younger and an engineer. I'd come up with a new roofing technology that could turn every roof into a solar site. From residential to industrial buildings, we have an enormous amount of available space on structures that face the sky. Right now, they're just designed to shed rain and snow. We need to change that.

I know such systems are under development, but it would help if some grants in aid were available to encourage faster development and implementation. It's one solution to part of the problem.

As for vehicles, we're simply going to have to scale down our individual transportation methods. A full-sized automobile is horribly wasteful of energy, and most of the time, they're just going to a job or shopping. Turning full-sized autos into EVs makes no sense at all. Scaled down vehicles could be powered easily with much less drain on our power grid.

In fact, that solar roof on your house would keep a small EV charged without the owner even noticing the cost, really.

My wife and I put only about 5000 miles per year on our vehicle. Most of its trips are under 5 miles. We work at home, and have since 1974. The people we work for aren't even nearby. We've been telecommuters for decades. We still drive a gasoline-fueled vehicle, mostly because of the high cost of EVs. We'll switch when we can.

[Baobab]

33. Do you know she also wants to export natural gas until its gone?

making it irreversible in Tafta

[Baobab]

32. WTO requires all those jobs be globalized now, or soon will.

It wont create any jobs for Americans unless wages fall a LOT.

US firms wont win the bids.

[tularetom]

3. Indeed she shouldn't but she did, what does that tell you about her character?

She's a political coward and a liar and she should never be given the responsibility to commit the country to wars, or to set policy on climate change issues.

[MineralMan]

8. She did not back down from her position.

Her apology was for not putting it in terms that were understood correctly. That's a different thing.

[tularetom]

24. Parse it however you wish, I saw the exchange and it looked awfully weaselly to me

We're treading too close to "the meaning of is" territory here.

[whatthehey]

28. Everybody always smirks at that one and forgets Clinton was 100% correct

It's not even a technicality or triviality. Anybody claiming "there's a war going on between Germany and Britain." would be loudly dismissed as a blithering idiot, as would one who claimed it was a true statement simply because such a war existed in 1944.

[tularetom]

29. Grammatically he may have been correct

But what not everybody forgets is he made that statement to try to explain why he lied to a grand jury about whether or not he had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky. It was an ambiguious remark, designed not to clarify, but to obfuscate and confuse. Sort of like the way Hillary tried to explain her previous anti coal statement.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/chatterbox/1998/09/bill_clinton_and_the_meaning_of_is.html

[whatthehey]

30. No it's not a grammatical nicety or ambiguous at all

"there's nothing going on between us." is not ambiguous. If your current SO asked you about a previous flame for example, it would be a perfectly fitting and perfectly acceptable answer. It would take an entirely new tense or the spontaneous revision of the present tense's meaning to imply even to the thickest questioner that this referred to any past entanglement in any way.

[tularetom]

34. That's just disingenuous

"Are you having a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky?"

"No, at the moment I'm sitting in a chair responding to your questions. Miss Lewinsky is nowhere in sight."

Can you not see how ridiculous that sounds?

Don't bother to reply, this is going nowhere.

[fun n serious]

23. She stood FIRM!

She is far from a coward. Wow! Being a Senator for decades and staying in a comfort zone environment is cowardice.

[BootinUp]

4. She apologized for being misunderstood, she did not back off on her policy. nt

[MineralMan]

7. That's exactly right.

She didn't say she wanted to back off shutting coal mines down. She felt bad for the workers who will be displaced, but has a plan for that, too.

Some things are basic, and should not be politicized. Coal needs to be no longer used as an industrial fuel, both in the US and worldwide. Period.

[LonePirate]

6. Yes, hard truths about the reality of coal need to be communicated.

The decline of coal based energy production will only continue. The jobs are never coming back and politicians need to stop sugar coating this reality.

[berni_mccoy]

9. If she were a strong candidate she wouldn't have apologized.

[Jitter65]

26. She apologized out of compassion for the feelings of those who have been negatively affected.

She apologized for using insensitive words not for telling them the truth.

[baldguy]

36. So, what would you tell the 40+ yr old guy with a house payment & 3 kids in college?

"Suck it up, bro"?

[Nye Bevan]

38. What if he's working in the fracking industry?

What should Bernie and Hillary tell him then?

[Skink]

10. She's got the GE to worry about remember.

She's got to do what it takes to win.

[MineralMan]

13. Believe me, she's not counting on the coal mining vote.

She knows she's not going to get that. That goes to the Republicans.

[Orsino]

12. Right. She shouldn't have waffled.

She should map out the path, and a bold plan for paying the citizrns whose jobs will vanish.

It's change we need.

[EndElectoral]

14. Waffled? Her answer was the most confusing, convoluted response I've ever heard. What's her position

[MineralMan]

15. The plan exists, already. Go to her website.

It's not a plan that can be outlined in a few words, however. She mentioned it, but couldn't provide the details quickly and simply.

Stuff's complicated.

[EndElectoral]

20. "we're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business." - HRC, Columbus, Ohio

Now, she says it is a misstatement. Which is it?

She's never mentioned it was a misstatement before, but now when it's politically expedient in coal country she's trying to back away from that statement.

God knows what she beleives. It all depends on who she is talking to at the moment.

May be a good idea for her to read her own website.

[scscholar]

16. But she said the opposite...

this time.

[MineralMan]

17. No, actually, she didn't.

She apologized for being misunderstood, not for her position on coal. Listen to what she said again to that coal miner.

Bernie Sanders also wants to end our dependence on coal and other fossil fuels. That coal miner wouldn't like his position any better. What's needed is a transition plan for those workers, not a surrender to the coal industry. That's Hillary's plan, and I'm sure it is part of Sanders' plan, too.

But, Hillary Clinton will be the nominee, not Bernie Sanders.

[qdouble]

18. She didn't want to come off as gleeful about destroying people's jobs

She didn't waffle. I really don't see what the big deal is.

[EndElectoral]

21. Obviously the coal miners see it differently.

[Ash_F]

25. The fracking boom is probably more responsible

http://www.npr.org/2016/05/03/476485650/fact-check-hillary-clinton-and-coal-jobs

[nadinbrzezinski]

27. Yet she did...

[brentspeak]

35. You're right -- HRC's new investment vehicle, fracking, is much better. n/t

[HumanityExperiment]

37. HRC is republican light...

She's backing fracking and NG special interests, this is well documented and easily validated so it's political calculation that the 'blow back' from making such a statement is already been 'tested' through the 'focus group political optics machine'...

Odd the writer of this OP doesn't mentioned HRC's stance on fracking, which is much more devastating to environment than coal...