RICHARD BRANSON: Moving America’s coal miners into clean energy jobs would be good for the world

Yahoo! Finance ^ | July 17, 2017 | Julia La Roche

[2ndDivisionVet]

President Donald Trump has pledged his support to revitalize the coal mining industry and create more jobs through deregulation.

Billionaire serial entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, the founder of the Virgin Group, argues that the U.S. government should take a different approach.

“Coal mining is not the nicest of jobs, and coal mining disappeared in Britain many decades ago, and pretty much every single one of those coal miners went into jobs which were far more pleasant, far less dangerous, far better for their health, and I doubt that there’s one coal miner that looks back thinking, ‘God, I wish I was down in a coal mine,’” Branson said in response to a question from Yahoo Finance.

Instead, Branson believes that creating hundreds of thousands of jobs in clean forms of energy such as wind and solar would be “good for the coal miners, good for America, and it would be good for the world.”

During an earlier panel discussion at the DS Virgin Racing Innovation Summit on Friday to promote the inaugural Formula E ePrix held in Brooklyn this weekend, Branson argued that the Trump administration’s approach to energy is the wrong one.

“Obviously, what’s happened in America, having an administration that put out the most bizarre statement on [the Paris climate agreement] is not good news because you do need governments to set the rules,” Branson said. ”And, you do need to make it clear that clean energy should have a leg up over dirty energy. And you have a government that’s not setting proper differentials, that’s going to be tricky.”

As a result, American cities and companies will have to come forward and step into the breach where the government is lacking, he added.....

[faucetman]

Oh, STFU Branson, you pompous arse.

[chimera]

A good number, if not most, of the ruinous (renewable) energy “jobs” are pretty crummy. It takes maybe 30 or 40 people to run a wind farm or solar array. Even those jobs are pretty lousy, riding around in pickup trucks cleaning solar panels, or climbing 300 foot tall towers that may burst into flames if the generator or power train catches fire. A lot of the other “hundreds of thousands” of jobs are salesmen, often door-to-door types, trying to convince elderly retirees to part with their nest eggs because they can get a 50% rebates on their taxes to pay for half of their PV or solar thermal system, and maybe realize a 20 or 30 year payback period, by which time the senior citizens will be dead.

[eyeamok]

As a result, American cities and companies will have to come forward and step into the breach where the government is lacking, he added..

I expect he will soon announce All virgin Airlines planes will be Solar or Electric powered right??

Frikkin idiots.

[liberalh8ter]

Meanwhile, he's making a fortune off the emissions his Virgin planes are spewing throughout the globe. Typical elitist.

[MayflowerMadam]

This Brit telling America what WE should do that would be good for the world. America is, and always has been, the country that’s saved most of the world on many levels. STFU, Branson.