US government halts study on health effects of coal mining

Post by tanilama » Sat, Sep 02, 2017, 1:51 AM UTC

parzivalm wrote: post #15

koolba wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue of reducing wasteful spending across the government, at all levels, is near and dear to many of us.

I'm still waiting for us to actually cut wasteful spending in areas like defense. Too bad that will never happen. The Gov can just keep cutting science spending.

Post by airza » Sat, Sep 02, 2017, 1:57 AM UTC

vondur wrote: post #8

I assumed it was widely known that coal mining was hazardous to ones health. My grandfather died from black lung before I was born.

Post by rgbrenner » Sat, Sep 02, 2017, 2:12 AM UTC

cjslep wrote: post #2

"But think of the freedom of speech!" In all seriousness though, the most important bit wasn't even clarified by the article: The agency says it is reviewing spending on all projects that cost more than $100,000. So is it actually true and I'm supposed to be manipulated into outrage due to cherry picking this one project? Or is it false and I'm supposed to be actually outraged at this shadowy deceitful action?

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Sep 02, 2017, 2:34 AM UTC

stevenwoo wrote: post #27

godzillabrennus wrote: post #7

Do they really need to conduct a study to determine that spewing black smoke into the air hurts human beings? The Coal lobby must love Trump. Glad millennials won't work for Coal or Oil.

You're probably premature on the oil bit, the latest oil boom is over but it was a good run for high paying, manual labor without any education requirements. Coal jobs had the double whammy of cheaper energy sources for power reducing demand and replacement of mining veins to mechanized mountaintop removal reducing need for manual labor. Oil demand will probably come back for the same jobs - until they can mechanize…

Post by eat_veggies » Sat, Sep 02, 2017, 2:50 AM UTC

novia wrote: post #21

tzs wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This study is on the health risks of surface coal mining (also known as mountaintop removal) on the surrounding communities, not on the miners. As the article notes there is some evidence of unusually high lung cancer and birth defect rates in communities near such mines.

I was eating dinner with two doctors about a month ago, and they were discussing this. They said it was difficult to prove that coal mining causes things like lung cancer in the miners themselves because it is just about impossible to find a coal miner who doesn't smoke.