....Mayor Peduto slams Trump for using Pittsburgh in anti-Paris accord speech...

[charley]

PITTSBURGH Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto said he took personal offense to President Donald Trump's reference to the Steel City in announcing the United States departure from the Paris climate agreement.
In remarks Thursday afternoon at the White House, Trump said, in part, that he was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.
Peduto said the phrase marked really sloppy speechwriting that portrayed his city as this dirty old town that relies upon big coal and big steel to survive.
He completely ignores the sacrifices that we made over 30 years in order to get back up on our feet, in order to be creating a new economy, in order to make the sacrifices to clean our air and clean our water, Peduto told reporters in his Downtown office.
He said that Trump used us as this example of a stereotype in order to make a point and it missed completely.
Further, Peduto said, Pittsburgh will continue to follow the principles of the nonbinding Paris accord, which aims to slow global warming. The Peduto administration will announce Friday an executive order that will guide the city through the (Paris) agreements and follow Pittsburgh's own plans for carbon emissions and renewable energy, he said.
Earlier Thursday, Peduto landed widespread attention on social media for tweeting initial responses to Trump's Pittsburgh reference. He pointed to Hillary Clinton's substantial support in the city in the November general election, adding that Pittsburgh stands with the world.
Some of Peduto's remarks had been retweeted 54,000 times by 6:40 p.m.
Trump didn't come anywhere close to winning Pittsburgh, Peduto told reporters. If he would've said Fayette County or he would've said Greene County yeah, sure. But what he said was Pittsburgh, and the people of Pittsburgh voted for Hillary Rodham Clinton 80 percent.
Earlier, Peduto responded on Twitter within the hour, posting first that Hillary Clinton received 80 percent of the vote in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh stands with the world & will follow Paris Agreement.
He followed up a few minutes later: As the Mayor of Pittsburgh, I can assure you that we will follow the guidelines of the Paris Agreement for our people, our economy & future. As of 5 p.m., that remark had been retweeted 29,000 times.
Peduto, a Democrat, has publicly countered the Trump administration before, including at a midday news conference Thursday that reiterated Pittsburgh's emphasis on civil rights and welcoming immigrants.
The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, responded to Peduto's tweet, agreeing with what the mayor said. She wrote: Once again @realDonaldTrump is wrong. #Paris & #Pittsburgh do stand together for the #ParisAgreement #Cities4Climate. It's just another Trump lie..




........#covfefe

 

[charley]

Why Trump's Promise to Save the Coal Industry Does More Damage Than Good


... Experts say Trump's plan, to the extent that he has has one, is removed from the tough economic reality of coal, which has been forced to compete with the declining price of alternatives like natural gas and renewable energy sources, even as federal regulations push the U.S. away from fossil fuels. And many believe that Trump's possibly futile focus on saving the coal industry detracts attention from the real proposals needed to help coal workers transition into new jobs in a new industry. "We really want the solar industry to come to the table now and find ways to get more jobs going in some of these communities that need jobs," says Van Jones, an environmental activist who served as President Obama's first-term green jobs czar. "If we?re concerned about coal country, and I am, we have to do a lot more than just yell."

U.S. mines produced about 900 million tons of coal last year, a nearly 25% decline since 2008 and the lowest amount of production since 1986, according to data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA). The change has come as energy companies have built up their natural gas and renewable capacity. The decline in coal production has led the industry to hemorrhage workers, with 50,000 coal-related jobs lost between 2008 and 2012, according to a study from last year. And that's just the latest in a downward slope in the industry since the 1980s due to mechanization that displaced human labor. The coal mining industry directly employed more than 140,000 in 1989 and and only 85,000 a decade later, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report.

Experts agree that reversing that trend would be next to impossible without huge subsidies for the industry, as it is changing market factors more than government policy that has driven the decline in coal production. The development of fracking has expanded dramatically the availability of natural gas, making the largely cleaner fuel source cheaper than coal in most cases. And, in recent years, renewable energy sources like wind and solar have become cost-competitive with coal in many places.

There is hope for coal workers losing their job or at least there could be. The number of jobs in renewable energy, particularly wind and solar, has skyrocketed even as the number of coal jobs has dwindled. The solar industry alone employs more than 200,000 people and has been growing at a rate of 20% annually, according to a report from the Solar Foundation. Another 80,000 were employed in the wind industry with similar levels of growth, according to data from the American Wind Energy Association.
"There are not that many more jobs coming in the coal mines, period. There aren't that many jobs coming on oil rigs, period," says Jones. "At some point we have to accept the fact that the clean energy companies are growing faster than everything else."


......#covfefe

 

[Arnold]

... lol ...

 

[charley]

..... #covfefe

 

[Swiper]

it's nice to see we have a president that actually puts America first in most cases and it's not a total globalist like obama.

 

[Arnold]

it's nice to see we have a president that actually puts America first in most cases and it's not a total globalist like obama.

yup.

 

[charley]

it's nice to see we have a president that actually puts America first in most cases and it's not a total globalist like obama.

... enjoy your drink .. ..

 

[Swiper]

... enjoy your drink .. ..

lol.

I chose my words carefully "in MOST cases" "not a TOTAL globalist"

but thx it does taste good would you like some?

 

[charley]

lol.

I chose my words carefully "in MOST cases" "not a TOTAL globalist"

but thx it does taste good would you like some?

,,,, no thx swiper , maybe a 'cup of mud' would be cool... I get so involved in responding , there's a ratio of 50 to 1 here in AG , when it comes to right/left... there's only a couple of 'lefties' here, or it seems that way, ... I don't mean to offend you bro... ...