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Town That Helped Power Northwest Feels Left Behind In Shift Away From Coal

S

ShadowSwordmaster

Banned
Colstrip, Mont., is about 750 miles away from Seattle, as the crow flies. Politically, the two places may be even further apart. And yet, they're connected.

If you're turning the lights on in the Pacific Northwest, some of that electricity may be coming from Colstrip. And if you're in Colstrip, wondering how long your own lights will stay on, you're likely looking west.

America's energy system is a web, connecting inland to coast and urban to rural. And as that system shifts, people are starting to ask: What — if any — support should a town like Colstrip get from places like Seattle or the federal government as the town enters an uncertain future?

Despite the recent promises from the Trump administration to bring the coal industry back, America's energy system is shifting increasingly toward natural gas, wind and solar. Economics are driving the change. But so are politics.

In the week since President Trump announced that he would withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement, a broad coalition of cities, states, businesses and universities have promised to uphold the agreement and reduce their carbon emissions. "We're still in," is their motto. Washington state was already in. It has a commitment to use less coal.

Colstrip is a coal town. And even though the challenges it's facing existed long before Trump's announcement, people there are angry about the push to change America's energy demands. They feel like they don't have a say. And they fear they'll be left behind.
Click to expand...

More in the link.
http://www.npr.org/2017/06/10/531789870/town-that-helped-power-northwest-feels-left-behind-in-shift-away-from-coal
 
H

Horns

Member
Heard this on NPR and the people they interviewed made never to want to support coal again. It was like they felt owed.
 
Trojita

Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
They feel like they don't have a say. And they fear they'll be left behind.
Click to expand...

What say do you think you should have? That we should continue to use a black rock that poisons it's own miner? Even when it isn't even economically sound? That you would be replaced by robots in 5-20 years?
 
B

BrutishMrFish

Member
These people are ignoring the economy and screwing the rest of us over just so they can keep their increasingly irrelevant jobs. If they're so worried about being left behind they should do something about it instead of making their fears a reality.
 
I

iammeiam

Member
I get that it's hard for those people. I get that they're facing a change to their very way of life, and it's scary. But at the same fucking time:
"Well the concern with that is, built into the Clean Power Plan was [a section] about transitioning, taking care of the workers and those parts of it," Rogers says.

Rogers is referring to Obama's Power+ Plan, which aimed to give resources to "assist communities and workers that have been affected by job losses in coal mining, coal power plant operations, and coal-related supply chain industries due to the changing economics of America's energy sector."

It was the Obama administration's way of saying: We know the market is changing; here's our plan to help cushion the fall.

Now, Rogers says, the cushion is gone and there's nothing being proffered by the new administration to replace it.

"Even though we won the 'war on coal,' it doesn't appear that there was anything in that for the workers," he says.

Rogers' opinion of the Clean Power Plan is not widely shared in Colstrip. Most people in the town are happy to see it, and other Obama-era regulations on the coal industry, gone or on their way out.

"With Trump in there doing some of the things that he's doing to eliminate some of those needless regulations, I think it's going to make a positive impact here," says Colstrip Mayor John Williams.

If nothing else, he says, it's nice to have a president who supports coal.
Click to expand...

It is incredibly hard to feel much empathy for people who, when confronted with a plan to move to cleaner energy that took the human cost into account, took it as a war they needed to win, then won, then realized they can't force people to buy their shit.

There needs to be an answer for people in these towns, but at the same time if they're going to fight any and every attempt to move away from coal, they're ultimately going to block attempts to help them.

These towns didn't spring up out of altruism and provide coal to the Seattle area out of the goodness of their hearts; there was a need and profit and they jumped on it. It paid well and was successful in general until people realized that what they were selling was literally bad for the environment we live in. We need to move away from coal as a power source, and if you're going to kick and scream about excessive government regulations it's a little ridiculous to expect freebie support from cities that look at the free market and decide not to buy your shit.

I get that it's an actual problem, but maybe figure out that coal isn't the way forward before you stomp your feet and sue over something that tried to handle the fallout from that.
 
R

reggieandTFE

Member
No surprise that the only person who sees the bigger picture is the Union president.

Fuck these assholes for asking for handouts while simultaneously waging a war on common sense.
 
D

Dali

Member
They make it reeeeeeeaaaaaalllllly hard to not just be compelled to smile and laugh while their ship crashes and burns.

Feeling entitled to money from Seattle because they prospered as though your town didn't reap the benefits of the relationship.

Hating on Obama when his admin had a plan to help with the fucking inevitable transition and would have apparently given the handouts you're wanting from your clients in Washington.

Yeah... sorry. No sympathy.
 
E

Enduin

No bald cap? Lies!
iammeiam said:
I get that it's hard for those people. I get that they're facing a change to their very way of life, and it's scary. But at the same fucking time:


It is incredibly hard to feel much empathy for people who, when confronted with a plan to move to cleaner energy that took the human cost into account, took it as a war they needed to win, then won, then realized they can't force people to buy their shit.

There needs to be an answer for people in these towns, but at the same time if they're going to fight any and every attempt to move away from coal, they're ultimately going to block attempts to help them.

These towns didn't spring up out of altruism and provide coal to the Seattle area out of the goodness of their hearts; there was a need and profit and they jumped on it. It paid well and was successful in general until people realized that what they were selling was literally bad for the environment we live in. We need to move away from coal as a power source, and if you're going to kick and scream about excessive government regulations it's a little ridiculous to expect freebie support from cities that look at the free market and decide not to buy your shit.

I get that it's an actual problem, but maybe figure out that coal isn't the way forward before you stomp your feet and sue over something that tried to handle the fallout from that.
Click to expand...

Another tidbit I think is important to all this:

Colstrip isn't some dusty, dreary, down-and-out town.

There's an 18-hole golf course, a 32,000-square-foot recreation center and 32 parks that are all free to the town's 2,300 residents. The streets are wide and clean. The estimated median household income in Colstrip is $84,145. In Montana overall, it's $47,169.
Click to expand...

They had the good life and now they're facing changes, which is certainly scary, but instead of seeing the writing on the wall and doing what's necessary to roll with the punches they want everyone else to accommodate them and not disturb their cozy life.

And despite that they're looking to the wrong Washington to fix their problems.
 
F

Fuchsdh

Member
Yeah, everyone comes off a bit pissy there.

"There would be no Facebook. There would be no Bill Gates. None of that would be in Seattle without low-cost, reliable power that comes from Colstrip, Mont.," says Duane Ankney, a state senator who represents the town in the state legislature.
Click to expand...

You sold the power, right? So that business transaction is done. They don't innately owe you anything because they've used your power in the past.

I think the Montana professor hits the nail on the head—these are towns that were specifically founded for coal. It's wrapped up in their entire identity, and the thought of that changing has led to a lot of these people to hurt themselves in the confusion.
It's not very effective
 
S

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
These people are making decisions based on poisonous lies fed to them by candidates who don't give a shit about them. They are not without agency but they are immersed in toxic falsehoods and cheered to their fate by Republicans in power. And the occasional blue dog. But both sides are the same.
 
A

Atenhaus

Member
"There would be no Facebook. There would be no Bill Gates. None of that would be in Seattle without low-cost, reliable power that comes from Colstrip, Mont.," says Duane Ankney, a state senator who represents the town in the state legislature.
Click to expand...

I can almost fucking guarantee nearly all of Puget Sound's power needs come from hydro, nuclear, wind/solar, and LNG. Go fuck yourself, Duane Ankney.
 
J

jwhit28

Member
Why are they asking another state for help instead of their state and federal government? Are they content with electing people that don't give a damn?
 
C

Chumly

Member
jwhit28 said:
Why are they asking another state for help instead of their state and federal government? Are they content with electing people that don't give a damn?
Click to expand...
Greed and being self centered. For 40 years they have been making twice the Montana household income in the middle of nowhere. Now they want Seattle to continue that lifestyle for them. That's not how it fucking works.

Honestly reading the article just made me annoyed. These people are entitled and have their heads stuck in the sand
 
S

Shadybiz

Member
If only there was a candidate they could have voted for, who clearly saw the industry going away, and wanted to make it so that people could go to school for free, to learn a different trade or profession. Man...that would have been good.
 
G

gaugebozo

Member
"We made it successful and now these prima donnas out there can just walk away? Well, no. Pay your way out of it now."

Hmmm, if only there was a candidate for president in 2016 who wanted to help coal workers transition to new industries, I bet all these guys would've voted for them 100%!

Edit: lol, beaten.
 
H

hobozero

Member
There would be no Facebook. There would be no Bill Gates. None of that would be in Seattle without low-cost, reliable power that comes from Colstrip, Mont.," says Duane Ankney, a state senator who represents the town in the state legislature.
Click to expand...

Huh, almost sounds like he's saying "You didn't build that." But that's unpossible.
 
C

Chumly

Member
These people get one thing fundamentally wrong. They think they put Seattle on the map with "their" power. Which is absolutely fucking ridiculous to think. In fact it's the exact opposite. The west coast gave them a pampered lifestyle for the past 40 years. They owe literally everything them own to them. Seattle etc would have just gotten their power elsewhere if they hadn't built that plant.
 
Y

Yazzees

Member
Trouble said:
Seattle is almost 90% hydro, less than 1% coal.

http://www.seattle.gov/light/FuelMix/

We don't owe them shit.
Click to expand...

Word.

Fuck Montana. One of the states I'd genuinely fear for my life staying in. The white supremacist shit going on around there and in Idaho is no joke.

"So we can put up with all the pollution and they get the gravy," Mannix says. "And that's gone on for 40 years. And we took it. We run with it. We made it successful and now these prima donnas out there can just walk away? Well, no. Pay your way out of it now."
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The actual welfare queens. Delusional ones, at that.
 
F

FyreWulff

Member
See, the logical thing to do would be to pay for retraining. Those that can't be retrained due to age or whatever, we simply just pay them a pension for the rest of their life as a "we've moved on, we're not leaving you behind".

A bit of money to spend over the next few decades is worth it for the thousands upon thousands of years it will save the Earth, but people can't seem to register that.

Instead, you have coal workers and companies that just want to mine coal forever and have a government prop up coal through falsehoods and subsidy, but also won't take a "buyout" because "dur hur that's living on government"
 
R

royalan

Member
How many of these "Oh poor coal country!" articles are we going to get?

Not to be completely unsympathetic, but the country continues to be held back catering to this one group that refuses to move into the future with the rest of us.

Not that they can entirely be blamed, so long as there is an entire political party that is invested in making sure they continue believing in a fantasy.
 
S

Slayven

Member
royalan said:
How many of these "Oh poor coal country!" articles are we going to get?

Not to be completely unsympathetic, but the country continues to be held back catering to this one group that refuses to move into the future with the rest of it.

Not that they can entirely be blamed, so long as there is an entire political party that is invested in making sure they continue believing in a fantasy.
Click to expand...

As many as it takes. And you know why
 
V

VariantX

Member
Well, they did have something to help those people transition in the clean power plan, but they didn't want it, and now current administration doesn't give a fuck as the economy transitions to more plentiful and renewable sources of energy. You cant stick your head in the sand and pretend shit's not changing around you. All you get is a sunburned ass crack and no new career to transition to.
 
U

umop_3pisdn

Member
I'd like to say 'too bad', but the situation doesn't actually seem all too bad. Adapt or die is the maxim for life, in a humanistic society the penalty doesn't have to be so harsh, but there has to be some effort to join the rest of us otherwise nothing is going to happen.
 
J

j_k_redtail

Member
Rogers is referring to Obama's Power+ Plan, which aimed to give resources to "assist communities and workers that have been affected by job losses in coal mining, coal power plant operations, and coal-related supply chain industries due to the changing economics of America's energy sector."

It was the Obama administration's way of saying: We know the market is changing; here's our plan to help cushion the fall.

Now, Rogers says, the cushion is gone and there's nothing being proffered by the new administration to replace it.
Click to expand...

and yet --

Rosebud County
100% Reporting Tweet
R D. Trump 65.6% 2,211
D H. Clinton 28.7% 969
L G. Johnson 4.3% 146
G J. Stein 0.9% 31
A R. De La Fuente 0.4% 15
Click to expand...

Elections have consequences. If they wanted help from Seattle, they should've voted from someone else.
 
A

Averon

Member
What makes these people so damn entitled and selfish?

Why should we prop up their dying industry that poisons our air and water? Why should we prop up an industry that kills its workers via black lung? Why do they think market forces should not apply to them?

Why do they not "pull up their bootstraps" and retrain in a new field?
 
L

LinkAndEpona

Banned
Are these fossil fuel based energy companies really not investing into other sources like solar and wind? What a shame if they aren't, it's just societal and technological advancement after all.
 
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