West Virginia’s climate change disconnect continues

[theHandpuppet]

1. Coal and climate change politics: How elected leaders make West Virginia’s disconnect worse

The Charleston Gazette
Coal and climate change politics: How elected leaders make West Virginia’s disconnect worse
May 7, 2014 by Ken Ward Jr.

(excerpt)
The climate change disconnect in West Virginia was certainly on display yesterday, as the nation’s scientists and policymakers again made clear the urgent need to act to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, while our state’s elected officials talked more of the same about rejecting science to protect the coal industry.

This disconnect is really nothing new. One of the reasons I started this blog in the first place was to try to bring together the completely different discussions that were going on about the coal industry. In West Virginia, some residents and almost all elected officials were focused only on trying to preserve coal jobs at all costs. Everywhere else, people were talking about the downside of the coal industry and practically begging for some action, especially on climate change.

And in some ways, West Virginia isn’t as unique as we might think. Check out this report from The Upshot, a new feature of The New York Times:

Perhaps more than people in any other rich nation, Americans are skeptical that climate change is a dire issue. In Pew Research Center surveys conducted last spring, 40 percent of Americans said that global climate change was a major threat to their country. More than 50 percent of Canadians, Australians, French and Germans gave that answer. More than 60 percent of Italians and Spaniards did. And more than 70 percent of Japanese did.... MORE at http://blogs.wvgazette.com/coaltattoo/2014/05/07/coal-and-climate-change-politics-how-elected-leaders-make-west-virginias-disconnect-worse/