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<p align="center" style="margin:0px 0px 10.66px;text-align:center;line-height:150%"><b><span style="margin:0px;color:black;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia",serif;font-size:12pt">Season's Greetings:</span></b></p><p align="center" style="margin:0px 0px 10.66px;text-align:center;line-height:150%"><font color="#b00000" face=""Georgia",serif" size="3">For those who do not take the Daily News this is my Christmas column. This is the longer version that appeared in the Sandpoint Reader and Pocatello's Idaho State Journal. I've taken it easy during my recovery from back surgery, but I'm determined to make my column deadlines.</font></p><p align="center" style="margin:0px 0px 10.66px;text-align:center;line-height:150%"><font color="#b00000" face=""Georgia",serif" size="3">The very best for the new year, Nick</font></p><p align="center" style="margin:0px 0px 10.66px;text-align:center;line-height:150%"><b><span style="margin:0px;color:black;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia",serif;font-size:12pt">Smaller
Lumps of Coal in Some Christmas Stockings This Year</span></b></p>
<p align="center" style="margin:0px 0px 10.66px;text-align:center;line-height:150%"><a name="_Hlk532808200"><i><span style="margin:0px;color:black;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia",serif;font-size:12pt">Every mine safety law is written in a miner’s
blood.</span></i></a></p>
<p align="center" style="margin:0px 0px 10.66px;text-align:center;line-height:150%"><span style="margin:0px"><span style="margin:0px;color:black;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia",serif;font-size:12pt">—Phil Smith,
United Mine Workers </span></span></p>
<span style="margin:0px"></span>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 10.66px;line-height:150%"><span style="margin:0px;color:black;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia",serif;font-size:12pt"><span style="margin:0px"> </span>Initially, I could not find a
connection between the 40-year decline in coal consumption and Christmas, and
then suddenly it came to me: there will be smaller lumps of coals in the
stockings of those who deny climate change. They are definitely on Santa’s
Naughty List.</span></p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 10.66px;line-height:150%;text-indent:0.5in"><span style="margin:0px;color:black;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia",serif;font-size:12pt">Way up north Santa has had to strip down to
his long underwear during the warmest five years since he started delivering
presents in 1832. He has experienced first-hand the recession of the glaciers
and the permafrost around his workshop has melted for the first time and has
not yet re-froze this winter. </span></p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 10.66px;line-height:150%;text-indent:0.5in"><span style="margin:0px;color:black;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia",serif;font-size:12pt">Despite Trump’s claim that “the coal industry
is back,” estimates are that 2018 will experience the largest ever decrease in
coal consumption. This is mainly due to the closing of 250 coal-fired power
plants since 2010—three in October alone.</span><span style="margin:0px;color:black;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia",serif;font-size:12pt"> </span><span style="margin:0px;color:black;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia",serif;font-size:12pt">Cleaner
natural gas and renewable wind and solar are gradually edging out coal in the
nation’s energy equation.</span><span style="margin:0px;color:black;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia",serif;font-size:12pt"></span></p>
<p style="line-height:150%"><span style="margin:0px;color:black;font-family:"Georgia",serif"><font size="3"><span style="margin:0px"> </span>Of course Trump has blamed Obama and
his alleged “War on Coal,” but the decline in consumption has been fairly
steady since 1979, and the recent steep drop started during the second Bush
administration. Furthermore, Obama’s Clean Power Plan never went into effect
because of a court challenge, and now Trump has rescinded Obama’s executive
order.</font></span></p>
<p style="line-height:150%;text-indent:0.5in"><span style="margin:0px;color:black;font-family:"Georgia",serif"><font size="3">Even the easing of
regulations for coal-fired plants has not stopped their removal off-line nor
has it encouraged the building of new ones. “Ironically,” says former Obama
official Joe Pizarchik, “the new tax law approved by the Republican-controlled
Congress has encouraged coal plants to close, as utilities use a provision that
allows them to accelerate depreciation costs for closing plants.” </font></span></p>
<p style="line-height:150%"><span style="margin:0px;color:black;font-family:"Georgia",serif"><font size="3"><span style="margin:0px"> </span>Last July, blowhard Trump claimed
that he had created 45,000 new coal jobs, but the actual number was 1,001 for
2017. This year the 4 West Mine in southwestern Pennsylvania is slated to close
and 400 jobs will be lost there. Furthermore, over 1,000 miners were let go in
Kentucky, Texas, and Ohio, reversing all the gains in 2017. </font></span></p>
<p style="line-height:150%;text-indent:0.5in"><font size="3"><span style="margin:0px;color:black;font-family:"Georgia",serif">Mine deaths have
nearly doubled, from 8 in 2016 to 15 this year, the highest since 2014. During that
time there were 60,000 more miners, but the Obama administration still brought
the death toll down below 20. Safety rules, now under attack, were strengthened
significantly after </span><span style="margin:0px;color:black;font-family:"Georgia",serif">29 miners lost their lives in the Upper Big Branch mine
in 2013.</span></font><span style="margin:0px;color:black;font-family:"Georgia",serif"></span></p>
<p style="line-height:150%;text-indent:0.5in"><span style="margin:0px;color:black;font-family:"Georgia",serif"><font size="3">Black lung disease
is also on the rise, and the Trump administration is revisiting regulations
regarding coal dust put in place by the Obama administration. Mine safety
lawyer Tony Oppegard believes there’s only one reason for this move: “To raise
the amount of dust miners can breathe in or to create other loopholes where
operators could violate the standard.” In June of 2018, no doubt feeling freer
to ignore existing rules, a Kentucky coal company was fined for not reporting
the correct readings on its mine’s dust monitors.</font></span></p>
<p style="line-height:150%;text-indent:0.5in"><span style="margin:0px;color:black;font-family:"Georgia",serif"><font size="3">Former coal
lobbyist and climate change denier Andrew Wheeler has replaced the completely
corrupt Scott Pruitt at the EPA. He is determined to de-regulate the coal
plants even more. He has proposed that any new plants could emit up to 500 more
pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour of electricity than the 2015
standard. </font></span></p>
<p style="line-height:150%;text-indent:0.5in"><span style="margin:0px;color:black;font-family:"Georgia",serif"><font size="3">With Trump-like
denial of the obvious, Wheeler claims that this would not increase carbon
dioxide emissions! He boasts that that these were down 2.7 percent in 2017, but
they have been decreasing since 2007 and have nothing to do with his EPA or
Trump. </font></span></p>
<p style="line-height:150%;text-indent:0.5in"><span style="margin:0px;color:black;font-family:"Georgia",serif"><font size="3">This year
emissions have gone up 2.5 percent because of oil use and greater demand for
cooling and heating. This is just under the 2.7 percent across the world,
pushing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 405 parts per
million, the highest in 3-5 million years.</font></span></p>
<p style="line-height:150%;text-indent:0.5in"><span style="margin:0px;color:black;font-family:"Georgia",serif"><font size="3">Major health
authorities have condemned the EPA proposal declaring that it is “a major
threat to the health of all Americans, particularly those most vulnerable.
Power plant pollution and climate change endangers the health of every
American, but certain groups are more at risk—including children, older adults,
pregnant women, low-income communities and communities of color.”</font></span></p>
<p style="line-height:150%;text-indent:0.5in"><span style="margin:0px;color:black;font-family:"Georgia",serif"><font size="3">A bill to shore up
miners’ pensions funds has been held up in the GOP Senate, and Trump has done
nothing to promote its passage. Former Obama official Pizarchik says: “Trump
talks tough to the coal miners to get their support, but he doesn’t deliver for
them.”</font></span></p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 10.66px;line-height:150%"><span style="margin:0px;color:black;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia",serif;font-size:12pt"><span style="margin:0px"> </span>Nick Gier of Moscow taught
philosophy at the University of Idaho for 31 years. Email him at
<a href="mailto:ngier006@gmail.com">ngier006@gmail.com</a>.</span></p>
<font size="3"></font><font color="#000000"></font><font face="Times New Roman"></font><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div> <div style="width:auto;height:auto"> <div> <div><div><br></div></div></div></div></div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><font size="2"><span style="font-size:10pt"><div><span style="font-size:13.33px">A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. </span><br style="font-size:13.33px"><br style="font-size:13.33px"><span style="font-size:13.33px">-Greek proverb</span></div><div><br>
“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.
Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance
from another. This immaturity is self- imposed when its cause lies not
in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it
without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! ‘Have courage to use your
own understand-ing!—that is the motto of enlightenment.<br>
<br>
--Immanuel Kant<br>
<br><br></div></span></font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>