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Fluffeh writes:
"For a few years the National Research Council, National Science Teachers Association, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science have been working to put together a set of standards for teaching science in public education schools. So far, nine states and the District of Columbia have adopted the standards. Wyoming doesn't appear to have issues with evolution. Instead, climate science appears to be the problem. That's not because any of the legislators have actually studied the science involved and found it lacking. The issue appears to be solely with the implications of the science.
State Representative Matt Teeters had this to say '[The standards] handle global warming as settled science. There's all kind of social implications involved in that that I don't think would be good for Wyoming.' Specifically, Teeters seems to think that having citizens of the state accept climate science would 'wreck Wyoming's economy,' which relies heavily on fossil fuel production."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by GungnirSniper on Monday March 17 2014, @05:35AM
Who's going vote for a politician who puts in place a curriculum that teaches children that their profession is harmful to the world?
Whenever we move off coal, Wyoming, West Virginia, and a whole lot of other places are going to need new employment options or face local depressions. Until then, it's not just an energy program but a jobs program as well.
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(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 17 2014, @06:04AM
Fossil fuel production is not evil - it produces highly valuable products, and jobs that put food on the table for many many families.
But it also leads to the unfortunate byproduct of pollution and other environmental damage. These by themselves are good enough reasons to try to move away towards alternate energy sources, but the idiots demonize the work and people who make living doing it because of the AGW zealotry.
For the sake of environment, including maybe the climate, I hope the AGW jihadi faction gets squashed down good and proper.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by zocalo on Monday March 17 2014, @07:44AM
Still, I can't help but feel this is just another case of people sticking their heads in the sand because they don't have an answer and hoepfully the next generation will. Trouble is, with this approach, the next generation won't be widely aware there is an issue either, so how is that going to help inspire them to think of a solution? The real solution would be to embrace the issue head on; "the coal is harmful and is going to run out anyway, so what are we going to do about it?"
I've been to Wyoming; an unusual destination for a European since many don't realise that the Tetons and Yellowstone are essentially within the state. It's a fantastically beautiful part of the U.S. that is largely unspoilt and scarcely populated. It's as much "big sky country" as Montana over the state line, and has those fantastic National Parks. Other countries have transitioned to tourist based economies in a carefully managed way (you need to avoid the mass influx to avoid ruining everything), perhaps Wyoming could do the same.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Reziac on Tuesday March 18 2014, @01:05AM
Tourism has a basic problem as your economic base:
It depends on other people having disposable income, that they are willing to spend on your tourist attractions.
When others' economies dip, the tourism economy dies. And the only jobs it provides are in the service industries.
Tourism is fine as a secondary industry, but relying on it is folly.
(I speak as a resident of Montana, having watched swaths of this state's economy go to hell when the gas crunch killed "See the USA in your Chevrolet" as everyone's summer vacation.)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 4, Informative) by VLM on Monday March 17 2014, @11:49AM
"Whenever we move off coal, ... West Virginia, ... going to need new employment options or face local depressions."
"Nobody" mines coal in WV anymore. First thing to realize is WV is nearly unpopulated. I live in a metro area of 4 million people, in a state with a lot more people, far enough away from Chicago not to be considered part of CHC, but not rural either. The entire state of WV only has 2 million people. Its more like Wyoming that you'd expect, in that way.
Coal mining is all mechanized, like farming, so whereas a century ago, or even just a couple decades ago, practically everyone labored in a mine, practically no one does now. Like 20K people outta 2M people or roughly 1% of the population.
Coal isn't very profitable. About as many people work in the chemical industry, but that accounts for about half the total GDP of the entire state. So anyone who can get a job at a chemical plant, ranging from cubical dweller to laborer to engineer, already has. WV people love their chemical plants and love their chemical plant jobs, even if practically none of them work there, its the alpha job in the area.
Another transition area would be forestry, about twice as many people work above ground harvesting renewable lumber and sawing it up, as work underneath the ground "harvesting" nonrenewable coal.
The oil industry already collapsed and almost no one works w/ oil in WV although historically it was a very big deal. Once its removed, its gone; WV people have a pretty good understanding of that.
About three times as many people work in tourist traps vs mining coal. The pay is supposedly about the same. You'll get to hear a lot about the highest paid most experienced longest tenure miner at the highest paid mine is very well compensated, but most of the grunts clear about as much as a waitress, or so I heard. Its much like being a public school teacher... if you can stand 40 years and suffer thru a PHD in Ed you can in fact pull $100K for your last couple years, but that in no way means the majority of the just hired / soon to burn out are making more than $30K.
According to her, most of the "dirt poor farmers" are actually expert grade tax evaders who actively encourage the stereotype of WV people being pretty stupid. And there's a lot of them. So on paper, trackable rural financial transactions make WV look very poor, but when accounting for untraceable cash they live at least as well as your average state. Or I guess rephrased the state is absolutely crawling with small scale entrepreneurs who only declare the absolute minimum required income to avoid IRS hassle, so the state is full of people who only make $10K/yr on paper, yet somehow drive nearly new trucks and live in nice houses and pay cash for absolutely everything they can pay cash for. Its kind of un-banked. They need to declare income for titled property and taxes and a few other things, and that's coincidentally about all they declare.
Culturally poor and lower class smoke tobacco, but in WV everyone in that category does meth. Like everybody at the bottom 10% or so. Or prescription pills. So thats weird. Like locally everyone who's poor and/or uneducated smokes cigarettes, but in WV the same people ALL do meth. Its like a style or fad kind of thing. Some do smoke tobacco, of course, especially old people. I just thought that was interesting compared to where I live where meth is not cool at all. Apparently the coolness is extremely regionalized.
Source: I got friendzoned by a hot chick from West Virginia a long time ago.
(Score: 3, Informative) by bucc5062 on Monday March 17 2014, @01:08PM
You got me curious so I walked about the 'net a little and discovered that you are basically correct. [workforcewv.org] only 4.4% of non-farm labor goes to mining and logging. Kind of changes the perspective when you see that kind of number compared to the largest employer in WV, the government (20/1%). However, the Mining/logging numbers did increase from 2000 to 2012 so is that revitalizing the industry, or just minor fluctuations.
If does call into question that idea that WV is a mining state. Wyoming has a stronger mining percentage at 27.6% in 2012 and that has been a growing percentage. In one way I can then see that WY would not like to negatively impact it's mining industry for it is jobs. What is odd, when people connect global warming with "taking my wallet"? Is it just not another business opportunity? Seems to me that entrepreneurs have gotten lazy in this century, or are such greedy fucks that they get in their own way. There was a time when people took risks, spent money to get in on the next best thing. Now I just watch industry "captains" grip the wheel of their sinking ship even tighter and keep believing the all will remain the same.
Life is change. Now is the time to invest in solar, wind or other renewable energies. Now is the time to invest in changing how we transport ourselves and our goods. Now is the time for now it is still new and the market is wide. Instead, if I can't make double digit profit, if I can't increase my value by another billion in a year, it is not worth it.
I think if I had 1 billion dollars I have more fun spending it all trying to finding new, better ways to do things then playing Scrooge McDuck and go swimming in my bank vault of gold.
The more things change, the more they look the same
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday March 17 2014, @01:57PM
"discovered that you are basically correct."
I should point out that my post does not accurately reflect my dating game, even a long time ago, although all the generically discussed trends came from hanging out and talking. So yeah, WV is the chemical plant state not the coal state, and the best and brightest, like her, go out of state, get that chem eng degree like we both wanted (at that time), come home and work at the alpha employer for like six times median household income. If not more. About of third of grunts work in mining or related, about two thirds work in logging or related.
The "taking the wallet" thing is because of confusion. One side wants the wallet and cheaply and disrespectfully uses science as a distractor (look over there, not at the hand grabbing your wallet). They don't care at all about the science in and of itself other than as a convenient distractor. The other side is pissed off about the whole "wallet thief" thing, so when they say they don't care about the science (which is only being used as a distractor) the thieves go all PR rep on them about how culturally we all worship at the altar of STEM as a magic source of jobs and how can you disrespect science like that and BTW ignore this hand reaching for your wallet while we're talking about how we all worship science.
Neither side cares about the science, one side uses it as a distractor to commit a theft, and the other side gets pissed off about someone trying to distract them so as to better rob them.
The actual science of it, of course, is true, or as true as any reasonably non-controversial scientific theory can be. The totally separate question of if its a great idea to use it to help steal money, or even if it really matters in the long scale geologic picture, are two totally different topics. Or another great question is if its morally acceptable to troll people trying to steal from you. I don't do it but I admit to laughing out loud at some of it.
Personally I am pretty sure climate change is real, because the climate certainly never has been constant before, so expecting it to be constant in the future would be pretty dumb, and I'm also pretty sure on the big picture it is just noise that doesn't matter that we have little control over, and eventually the thieves will find a new FUD PR campaign to pick our pockets with anyway, so just be patient till the noise dies down.
In the long run, non-renewable costs have been so heavily optimized they are horizontal to increasing as we burn the cheap stuff up, and renewable seems on an inevitable long term collapse in price, so it seems like a pretty dumb idea to build a coal plant today instead of a solar plant, much less after another decade of coal prices going up and solar prices going down.
Also most of what we can economically burn, has been burnt, so there seems little point in worrying about it. Like it or not, we're going to stop soon enough, and there's not must we can do about the past.