Smiling Faces

Remember all of those smiling faces at the oil/gas/coal rally down in Houston the other day? Remember how they were smiling and laughing like they were having the time of their life? Well, they were. It was like a company picnic. Most of those folks were employees of the energy companies mentioned above. So, if you're getting paid to ride a bus to a picnic and wave a sign that shows you to be a complete moron, what the hell. You got paid.

Did you also notice that there were no rough necks? Or, miners? Pretty obvious there. Who in the hell wants some ill dressed, dirty faced, profane kinda guy/woman messing up there pretty picture.

Just a couple of thoughts about all of that. First, as concerns mining. There are 27 deaths per 100,000 workers per year in that industry. That would be roughly nine (9) times higher than US industry as a whole. That would sure as hell make you smile. No?

How about, lots of those folks live in areas where they can hunt and fish and live the good life. Well, lets see here, fully one quarter of the fish tested in 291 streams had mercury levels above the safety levels set by EPA. That'll get your smiley faces splashed all over, won't it? Everybody likes feeding their families high levels of mercury, don't they?

Hmmmmm. Where is the connection RB? Well by golly, says here that emissions from coal fired plants are the largest source of mercury contamination in the United States. Boy, Howdy. No wonder those folks were all smiles.

One more little add on here. A report out in the past couple of days says that aerosols have increased in the stratosphere in the past decade. They're getting a big boost from coal burning. Especially in China.

Perhaps, I should change that title to Lying Faces.