Here's my issue with the government decision to allow for pollution and increase coal production, coupled with a decision to deny science.
And I can assure you this is not going where you think it is.
I'll look at coal first. The coal industry is dying. While it's nice to say that you want to bring back jobs the reality is that companies in the US have moved on from coal into other things. While you could make a case for it being environmental, it was economics.
Companies - bigger ones that might burn coal - invested in more efficient and less costly items. To go backward to coal would be costly and it's unlikely they will.
Second is the demand for coal from other countries, namely china. Sure you can sell them coal for now. But they announced their plans to move on from coal within the next decade or so, so any gains made in the sale of coal there will be short-lived. Plus, undoubtedly there would be some trade negotiation that would have to happen to make it worthwhile for either side.
And third is that while there may be a demand for coal, the ability to extract it has seen some technological enhancements that require less labor than in years past. And thinking about trade negotiations, supposing a Chinese company bought some mines; would they be content to hire US labor or would they try to outsource it?
And now let's turn to science. Our government has decided science isn't so important. I could go on here and talk about environmental science, but I won't. Instead, I want to talk about the broader sense of science. For some reason, our government doesn't feel science is important on pretty much any level.
It's basic science here. If we are a nation that truly wants to prosper, we should embrace science, scientific evidence, and really promote its growth. Don't muzzle places like the CDC, NASA, and others simply because you don't like some of what they say.
Our prosperity. Our future. Those should hinge on science and evidence based findings. We can ignore them at our peril.
So here's what's likely to happen in the next decade: the US will be backward and uneducated. While other countries that invested in science will prosper. We will be playing catchup to the world - all while having a very short term prosperous moment, because we chose to invest in coal.
No. I say don't muzzle scientists of any sort. Encourage them. Back them. Support them. Let their findings help us develop our future. I don't care if it's climate science or technological advances.
Suppose the next great scientist who revolutionized the world comes from somewhere else? Wouldn't that suck because we're not the greatest? How can we take that chance?
