Coal Pollution making White Guys Dumber!!!? True.

In the rabid age of Trump, this is all starting to make sense...

National Geographic: Breathing in dirty air damages our lungs, but new research is showing it might change how we think, too. A study published earlier this week in the Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences found that long-term exposure to particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide led to cognitive declines in study participants as they age. Less-educated men were particularly impacted and had low verbal and math test scores.

Oh, but that's not all knuckheaded white Trump fans:

Previous studies have found that female brains on average have more white matter than male brains, meaning damage to white matter would put males, with lesser white matter, more at risk of experiencing cognitive declines ... associated with language ability.”  Studies have also linked air pollution with poor heart health and diabetes.

Coal Country Kamikaze Trump Supporters Rejoice? Let's build on the idea of cognitive decline, and the response by coal country Trump supporters like Steve Knotts:

“People here have had it with other people telling us what we need. We know what we need. We need a job,” miner Steve Knotts, 62, said at lunch hour at a Circle K in a tiny town between two coal mines, and 9 miles down the road from a coal power plant, the Grant Town plant. He says the last thing people in coal country want is the government slapping down more controls on coal — and the air here in the remote West Virginia mountains seems fine to him.

Yes, but they do care about telling everybody else what they need, like lung disease, damaged white matter of the brain, diabetes, and asthma.

EPA analysis says those pollutants would increase (and) 350 to 1,500 more people would die each year under Trump’s plan. But it’s northern two-thirds of West Virginia and the neighboring part of Pennsylvania that would be hit hardest, by far, according to Trump’s EPA … kill an extra 1.4 to 2.4 people a year for every 100,000 people in those hardest-hit areas, equal to at least a couple dozen additional deaths a year.

Another Trump voter chimes in:

About 160 miles to the south of Grant Town, shop owner Doris Keller figures that if Trump thinks something’s for the best, that’s good enough for her.

“I just know this. I like Donald Trump and I think that he’s doing the right thing,” said Keller. She lives five miles from the 2,900-megawatt John Amos coal-fired power plant. “I think he has the best interests of the regular common people at the forefront.”

It's better that people are killed than business, says "do the right thing" Trump:

“I’m getting rid of some of these ridiculous rules and regulations, which are killing our companies … and our jobs,” Trump said at the rally.

Walker/Trump Coal Revival Dead, thanks to Big Energy/Changing Market.

Is the coal industry the victim of liberal green energy attacks? Nope.

One publication headline read, "Tweedle Dumb" to describe a recent tweet by Trump. Yup. Which brings me to Trump's promise to not just bring coal back from the dead, but to bash liberal Democrats and Hillary Clinton for trying to kill coal industry jobs.

Reality - like the facts - just keep getting in the way: "Free market" guys Scott Walker and Trump want to bring coal back, by using big government deregulation so they can kill green energy jobs.

Their grand scheme has been exposed...by market forces. Go figure...:

For decades We Energies' coal-fired power plant in Pleasant Prairie ... announced it was closing the plant permanently as the company moves to cheaper natural gas and other energy sources. The decision is the latest sign of coal’s diminishing status as a source of electric generation as utilities turn to natural gas, surplus wholesale power and renewable sources such as wind and solar.

That's not all folks, you can' make this up:

Another Coal-fired Plant Will Close in Wisconsin: WEC Energy Group continues to move away from coal-fired power in its portfolio ... Wisconsin Public Service (WPS), a WEC subsidiary, to close the Pulliam Power Plant in Green Bay, Wisconsin, as early as next fall.

Will Republican voters notice they've been played? Duped? Will they want to believe these con artists again?

Reversing Clean Power Plan like Reversing Time, not happening...

When Scott Walker brags about keeping energy costs low in Wisconsin by doggedly standing by the coal industry, keep this amazing fact in mind:

"Electricity rates paid by businesses and residents of Wisconsin now rank highest among eight Midwest states."

and...

Industry analysts are warning that Trump administration efforts to support coal and nuclear energy by repealing the Clean Power Plan could upend wholesale markets and drive up electricity rates for Wisconsin consumers.

Wisconsin Slammed the Door on dangerous Wind Energy 5 years ago: Wisconsin Republicans turned away an entire industry and the massive jobs it is now creating elsewhere, long before Trump stepped in to save the dying coal mines. The rhetoric below seems idiotic, and almost funny now: 

Sheboygan Press Sept. 2012: State Sen. Glenn Grothman plans to introduce a bill that would freeze renewable energy requirements for Wisconsin utilities at 2012 levels in an effort to stop wind farm development throughout the state. The announcement comes as a developer is looking to build a wind farm in the West Bend Republican’s senate district in southwestern Sheboygan County. Officials with RENEW Wisconsin said Grothman’s proposal would be “profoundly detrimental” … “It would send a big message to the wind industry that Wisconsin is not open for renewable energy business,” said Michael Vickerman, program and policy director with RENEW Wisconsin.

WPR April 2013: People who claim that wind turbines make them sick would be able to sue wind developers under a proposal introduced by Republican state Senator Frank Lasee's (la'-say) ... bill would allow families that claim to be physically or economically affected by wind turbines to sue the companies that own them and property owners hosting them. Chris Kunkle represents the American Wind Energy Association in Wisconsin says Lasee's bill is par for the course: "This is just another attempt from Senator Lasee to install a level of uncertainty across the industry. It's another piece of his ongoing hostility towards an industry that creates manufacturing, construction, operation and maintenance jobs all around the state."

Message sent:

Sen. Lasee's concerns about nearby wind developers harming local citizens does not transfer over to those who will be near mines, where Republicans are pushing a bill that would harm local towns and villages. their roads, water and air, by eliminating local control:

The repeal of Wisconsin's so-called mining moratorium would limit public opportunities to contest DNR decisions ... Repeal a law requiring the DNR to deny a mine's request for a high-capacity well that would unreasonably harm the ability of others to have drinking water or enjoy lakes and streams.

And while we spend billions of taxpayer dollars for up to 13,000 possible jobs relating to Foxconn, look at what Iowa did by simply supporting wind energy:

Iowa had about 30,400 clean energy jobs last year, nearly 7 percent more than in 2015, an industry group estimates.
Iowa is already a renewable energy leader. It gets 36.6 percent of its energy from wind, leading the nation in the percentage last year. It ranks second nationally in the amount of wind energy generated, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency. Wind is second only to coal as a source of energy.

Brenna Smith, a spokeswoman for Gov. Kim Reynolds, said Iowa's large renewable energy portfolio has been a leading factor in landing economic development projects such as Apple and Facebook data centers. But without the Clean Power Plan, environmental leaders say Iowa's wind-energy manufacturing industry — building wind blades, nacelles and towers — will lose out on business and jobs if other states are no longer required to adopt wind, solar and other clean energy technologies.

"Iowa sees significant economic benefits from wind and solar development that would have only increased with implementation of the Clean Power Plan," said Nathaniel Baer, the Iowa Environmental Council's energy program director. "Manufacturing jobs would have likely increased ... as Iowa and other states in the region shifted to renewable energy," Baer said.

Costs are declining for both wind and solar energy, Baer said, adding that wind is the cheapest form of new energy capacity installed today — even without federal production tax credits (that end in 2020).

Trump and Pruitt's Clean Power repeal is time wasting Republican wheel spinning, since even big energy has moved on from coal, considering Trump's move just a blip in time:

MidAmerican says its construction of 2,020 turbines across 23 counties has created about 3,800 jobs with $230 million in payroll. The wind farms support 320 permanent workers earning an average of nearly $69,000 annually, a total of $22 million a year. The investment and jobs help keep hospitals and schools open and pay for county roads and bridges, said Michael Fehr, who leads MidAmerican's wind development. Wind revenue helps counties "maintain their rural way of life."

...or this "free market" renewable movement ignored by Republicans:

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: EPA proposes killing Clean Power Plan, but market already cutting carbon. Market forces continue to push down the cost of renewable energy and keep natural gas competitive with coal, the most carbon-intensive fuel used by power plants. And there’s still almost no interest among utilities to invest in new plants as old ones retire. And after President Donald Trump was elected and signaled he would repeal the carbon regulations, Ameren opted to make the biggest renewable energy announcement in its history. Just two weeks ago, the utility said it planned to spend $1 billion on some 700 megawatts of new wind power by 2020. That’s about three-quarters of the capacity at its Sioux coal plant in St. Charles County. “For Ameren, the markets were penalizing them for being not diverse.”

By next June, Dayton Power and Light (DP&L) will close two coal-fired plants in Adams County, Ohio What’s happening in the two Ohio River counties, little more than an hour’s drive from booming Cincinnati, illustrates how powerful trends in technology and finance are quickly reshaping American electricity markets, Kabel of DP&L said that the proposal did not sway the utility. “The company has not made any changes to its previously announced plans,” she said.

Pfeffer, of Mason County, said he is not surprised. “What I’m seeing from generators, they see whatever measures that happen in this administration as a blip. They don’t see it as something that is long-term.”

Here's a timeline projection of what we can expect from renewable energy: