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The Day America Left

John Kerry addresses the UN, 2015

The future is about natural resources, just like the past.

Most wars and population shifts are due to natural resources.  History is shaped around them.

I learned this in grade school.


A major US oil refinery

Oil is still king. It makes plastics, lubes, and gasoline, among thousands of other daily products.

The Saudi’s, Venezuela, Iran, and Russia have most of it now.

The oil for the 21st centrury is in Iraq, Russia, and under the north pole.

Either way, renewables are the future power play. Not needing to buy energy from foreign interests and not poisoning your people is where you want to be as a country.


Coal is for grilling. If you want to power an entire city with it you have to poison the air to do so. Trust me I know. I grew up 5 miles from the last urban coal power factory in america in Cleveland. Our buildings are grey with soot and our cancer rates as high an anyone.


The coal load/unload area at Collinwood Rail Yards, Cleveland OH, 1950’s

I’ve also visited a few other cities around the world that had urban coal plants. Guess what they had? Darkened buildings and high cancer rates.  This is really simple stuff.


Don Drumpf, the imbecile con-man running the white house these days, works in the world of marketing. His message is all he is. His brand is paramount to everything, including basic fact and reason. He openly lies to anyone and everyone.

It’s breathtaking. It’s constant.

It’s the thickest line of bullshit ever laid upon this amazing land of bullshit.


This dude golfs EVERY SINGLE WEEKEND. Maybe that’s good, considering what a disaster he is at being president.

His message this time around is that the Paris climate treaty is bad. USA Coal power is good.

Caring about renewable resources is bad. Picking sides is good.

The Paris Climate Treaty is voluntary. Each country gets to set their own goals. There is no punishment if they don’t achieve them.


Mining coal has been big business.

It’s an Obama-era feel-good we can fix this! type of document.  If every country just agreed to curb knowingly poisoning the air and water, we can incentivize all renewable research as well as conservation efforts.

This confirmed to the fine people of West Virginia and other coal regions that they indeed needed to pursue a new line of work.

The writing had been on the wall for decades, but finally the US government agreed that coal power production needed to come down and be replaced by something cleaner.

Many countries don’t use coal plants anymore. The US would become one of those countries.

Thanks Obama.


Trump sees these kinds of things as opportunities to score message points.

As opposed to actual improvement —

such as reinvestment into coal regions for conversion to other industries or services —

such as reinvestment into community colleges and education in those areas so dependent on coal mining for economy —

such as straight-up reparations for the coal regions: here’s 2 billion dollars, rebuild and reimagine your region around a different industry —

any or all of these would have helped the fine people of West Virginia.


Instead he blames the Paris Climate Treaty for the woes of all americans in all regions. He claims it costs jobs (it doesn’t) and is somehow anti-american (it was a signature achievement of Obama, working with the UN, and includes 195 fucking countries!),

He also ignores the fact that it’s completely voluntary because it kills his narrative.

The world leaders following Obama’s lead on the Climate Treaty.

Too much detail.

Trump works in 150 characters or less, so complex becomes simple.

Pick your team. Team Trump against the world. #Sad.

Details are a bitch though. Trump can squawk but the earliest america actually gets out of the Treaty is 2020. That’s partly how treaties work since you can’t just change your mind when a charlatan is in charge.

The native americans know all about that.


The Treaty of Greenville, promising some local tribes that America’s western border would stay in Ohio country. It was broken before it was even signed.

Non-compliance of Paris Climate Treaty is not punished though, so Trump will just stick his middle finger up and poison his own citizens.

Our lakes, rivers, and air really need more american jobs? Our water supply just needs coal miners working to clean itself?

As of this writing, thousands of american cities, towns, counties, and corporations have agreed to follow the treaty guidelines, regardless of their clown president.


Nations in the Paris Climate Treaty in orange. Trump went green just like his buddies Russia.

America has now ceded leadership on global climate change, hence ceding leadership on the future of natural resources.

America has not died by Trump’s ham-fisted, short-fingered ways. But it has left the world stage. Trump sided with Russia over Europe, Saudi over Israel, and West Virginia over the other 49 states.

America has left the building.