Nobody is suggesting we pollute our country like China and India. The biggest polluters in the country are the everyday citizens. We could cut our carbon emissions significantly if everyday people tried to consume less. But we already know you dont care about that. What we dont need to do is shackle our economy and pretend we are going to stop polluting all together.
I didn't vote for him and he ran a devisive campaign but the guy certainly is not lazy. I mean you have to recognize that. Trump's campaign schedule was insane especially for a 70 year old fat man. Second, there is simply no going back to coal from an economic standpoint. It isn't worth the cost. Nat gas is cheaper. Lastly, Trump is a democrat at heart. I think he will continue to show his true colors as the months go on. I think he will start fighting with Mitch McConnell in under 3 months. He isn't a wannabe dictator either. He is childish though. He knows he will get nothing done if he doesn't compromise. He's already walked back from his major platform points.
I think that's Democrats reading far too much into his statements as a president-elect and desperately deluding themselves. Kind of like how they did to statements he made during his campaign.
Thats a gamble. Judge him by his words. Limit the press. I won't accept the results if I lose. Putin is a great leader That judge is a Mexican thus unfit to judge me You can do whatever you want to them Bring back torture Lock her up Etc ad nauseum. These are the words of a military strongman. "Hes not really gonna do all that stuff" was said about every modern autocrat taking over a democracy ever. Chavez, Putin, Hitlet etc....which is what they wanted, and then they did it. I'd like to hope that American institutions are strong enough to stop this,but what precisely about the last 16 months of failing to stop Donald freaking Trump from becoming the President of the goddamm USA gives you this faith? If all that stands between us and throwing dissenters in jail is Trump's self restraint and weaklings like Paul Ryan, it's one he'll of a gamble.
I'm going by the statements he has made most of his life. He's pro-weed, pro-abortion, pro-LGBT and pro-universal healthcare. How many Republicans are all of those things?
I guess only time will tell. I have zero expectations for Trump, but I am slightly encouraged based on his start. I think the most likely scenario in a Trump presidency is tax cuts then gridlock considering how much of a baby he can be. All of this dictator talk is too melodramatic for me.
Out of the 4 you've posted, it's really only healthcare that he really made a campaign platform of. Far to say that he's already betrayed his campaign promises.
How do you get them to consume less? Shackle the economy? Why the hyperbole? Texas is a leader in renewable energy in the US, I don't feel shackled.
Trump's positions really haven't changed that much, except now that people are forced to read them they see them for what they actually were and not as literally Hitler's positions.
In fact Texas is shutting down coal plants for natural gas, wind, and solar. Educate yourself folks, coal's global demand is stagnation in the wake of a large increase of global electricity demand.
He just had to use a very divisive and dishonest campaign to win. That's all, his policies are crap and aren't possible.
Coal is the short term answer but if you want a long-term energy solution it's nuclear.[/QUOTE] Yeah because we're in such an energy crisis right now that it totally makes sense to push people to use coal.
Its natural to look for silver linings, i know i have. The problem is that it tends to normalize the shock and horror of what just happened (we enabled an openly incompetent racist buffoon who wants to be king) And the authoritarian/autocrat regime always starts out with a pullback. Erdogan in Turkey is a good example. Worst case scenarios do sound melodramatic - but we're already in one that nobody thought could ever happen. What happens in 2020 if Trump loses and refuses to leave the white house? Sounds far fetched but the fact that it's not completely implausible is disturbing. The big danger though is really more of a slow descent. Do you trust a Trump appointee led DOJ to enforce the Voting Rights Act? Or to bar employment discrimination? Of course not. They will say they will, but everyone knows they won't, and the bar will be lowered. How about ethical rules? How much money do you think Trump controlled businesses are going to make from this? How many things that would previously have been scandalous conflicts if interests will be ignored? What about Russia? is a Trump led apparatus going to do anything when they continue hacking & leaking his opponents? Remember, the last formal check on most of this, are judges. and we know how Trump treats them. This is a long, slow slide, and there isn't a whole lot now to prevent it. Happy Sunday!
I highly doubt we'll see a resurgence of coal. Worst case scenario, life of the remaining plants will extend a bit, but no power producer is going to invest in more coal plants, just to have another policy change in 4 years. Too risky. Nat gas is so cheap they'll just choose those plants first. The issue will be moving our focus away from green energy and allowing other nations to lead the charge. Investing in green tech will allow for long term manufacturing jobs in the US. In additio, the last thing we need is keystone pipeline to be bbuilt in $50 oil.
In my humble opinion, when Trump remembers to, he'll still spout platitudes to those struggling in Coal Country, but nothing substantial will come of it. They will continue to decline in numbers and job opportunities until they are helped to learn new jobs in other industries. That's what Hillary Clinton had in mind. I'll be surprised if Trump takes that route. I feel sorry for those people. They were given false hope by an unscrupulous compulsive liar.
I won't get into all the points, but I think you are far over estimating Trump's political capital. He didn't exactly win a mandate with this election. The republicans backed into this victory because the dems blew it. Further, the relationship with the republicans and Trump is tenuous. Also, you've called Trump an incompetent lazy buffoon, but yet you fear him being some kind of political mastermind that would be able to masterfully manipulate everyone and become the first American autocrat. Those two don't really seem to match up. I can't figure out why you think Trump would try to stay in power if he was voted out. To me that's as ridiculous of a thought as some right wing nut jobs thinking Obama would declare martial law to prevent the transfer of power to Trump. One of my mom's friends was talking about that idea. I don't even see him wanting to run for a second term to be honest. I guess we will see what Trump turns out to be, but I think he will fall back to his northeastern/New Yorker/democrat political tendencies since he has much more in common with those people than the supporters who voted for him. I am a little worried with what I have seen from the Supreme Court justices he is looking at. That said the world didn't end with Scalia in the Supreme Court and a more conservative court would seem to hold in check a power hungry president. Do you have any opinions on the people he is looking at Sam?
Clean coal would be nice and all since we have a lot of it. It's not economically viable. Maybe some day if the commodity markets move and innovations make clean coal cheaper, there will be a place. Right now there's no place. Even dirty coal struggles to compete. Man, if only we could get together with China and India, maybe in some world-class city like Paris, and hammer out an accord on environmental policies so that no one is at an economic disadvantage for trying to reduce carbon. Now that I say that, it sounds so obvious I wonder what's wrong with Obama for refusing to do it. Hopefully, Trump takes care of this the right way. Refuse to believe he's a democrat in any meaningful way. I think he's mostly agnostic on the subjects you listed, and won't spend any more energy on supporting them than he would on opposing them. Unless, of course, there was a political reason to do so for allies and constituents, so that he can get votes 4 years from now. His allies and constituents right now are anti- all those things.
What is clean coal exactly? I was under the impression that "clean coal" is the added process of capturing the CO2 emissions at the power plants, storing them deep underground as liquefied CO2, and eventually hoping & praying to whatever deity that they don't leak in the coming decades.
There are actually a couple of different approaches, so I've probably been speaking too generally. There are emissions scrubbers at coal plants, also attempts to gasify coal or concentrate the energy content. I don't know any of them to be economically viable though, and some like sequestration still carry question marks on actually solving the carbon problem. Its hard to justify when natural gas already solves most of coal's problems.
