re: Coal company sues HBO's John Oliver for defamation

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This is bullshite. What is the nature of this "decline"?

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Supply and demand.

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I know you won't, but watch the piece.

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You may be brainwashed.

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I bet you worry about "climate change" too?

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....Yeah. I do worry about it, and so should you.

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The air is cleaner now than it was 100 years ago..same with the water.

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Yeah, sure. So haven't we been emitting more hazardous waste? The air is cleaner in India, China, and Los Angeles than it was 100 years ago? There isn't a fricking continent made out of plastic in the middle of the ocean? Species aren't dying off at a rate that hasn't been seen since the Ice Age? Yeah, that's like everything is cleaner.

I would ask for a link, but you don't believe in them.

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Some things have no context to the finite concept of "living in the past". What works...works. Period.

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Living in the cave worked great as well. No major food shortages, plenty of animals to eat, we should have just stayed there. Why take the risk of leaving it and making civilization?

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What do you mean..there is a decline in the demand for cheap and reliable energy???

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There absolutely a decline in coal. Watch the fricking piece.

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No..thats not what I'm saying....actually..what "hazardous waste" are you referring to? The air is cleaner now than it was considering the massive increase in population. The problems in China and India are regional and geographic and , in a large part the result of a lack of cheap and available fossil fuel based energy. Those rural , large populations are still burning wood, dried animal dung, etc, for daily heat, cooking, light etc. A centralized fossil fuel based energy distribution system would change the air quality problems to a large degree. Geographical conditions like being surrounded by pollution trapping mountains, etc, have nothing to do with the viability of the source of the energy produced.

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As I said, give me the link, because anyone with a partially fricking brain can see this is ridiculous to claim that the planet is in a better state than it was 100 years ago.

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You're spinning. I was referring to all sources of fossil fuels.

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This whole thread is about coal! And of course we're still using fossil fuels, but natural gas is the only one that is increasing. Coal is dead.

https://www.tigerdroppings.com/rant/display.aspx?sp=70796132&b=50&s=1&p=70794493

RA this one too. I called someone a mean name

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This whole thread is about coal!

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Then why bring up solar or wind?

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I agree. NG is a fossil fuel. I was responding to those who believe fossil fuels are the "old way" and no longer viable or sustainable.

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They aren't going completely away, but they are both environmentally harmful and being propped up in a way that deeply distorts the market.

For instance take oil:

Between 1976 and 2007 we spent 7.3 trillion dollars in defense spending protecting the global oil supply chain, primarily in the Persian Gulf. And that is just peace time spending.

Accounting for some inflation but not interest on any associated debt, that is roughly 250 billion a year. Which if you reflected that in the price of oil we pay in this country, you would have to add roughly 40 dollars to every barrel of oil we consume to accurately reflect that cost to the citizen. Which would basically double the current market price we pay in this country from $42 a barrel to $82. Instead we just hide it in the morass of the budget inside the morass of defense spending. There are some that try and pin it at a smaller total of spending, but even those pin it at 70 billion a year. Which would still raise the price notably.

Natural Gas is a bit less problematic. They just don't really pay much in externality costs and have gotten a lot of below market prices specifically offered only to their industries on federal land. Which helps hide the cost.

But since it is political suicide to try and fully address all those market distortions and externalities, the way we tend to even the playing field for green energies is to subsidize them. Basically a backdoor way of evening a distorted playing field. Which of course just means we get left with an enormous bureaucracy and more distortions that get shifted to the tax payer.