Word: coaling
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Ruckelshaus professed surprise at the strong public reaction. After all, he pointed out, "we can't say any of these things for certain." Scientists noted that researchers have been cautioning for nearly a century that the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas) is steadily increasing the atmosphere's CO2 content. The invisible gas itself is not dangerous. In fact, it is vital to green plants, which combine CO2 with water in the presence of sunlight to produce carbohydrates...
Land Leasing. The leasing of coal lands during a market glut (at a loss of $100 million, according to the General Accounting Office) prompted the creation of a coal-leasing review panel, and Watt's insensitive description of the panel's "balance" precipitated his exit. Overall, the federal land leased to coal-mining companies more than quintupled under Watt. Conservationists fear that many leases were granted hastily, without proper environmental impact studies...
...other fuels, the report said coal use is up more than ten-fold; natural gas consumption is up 25 percent, and generation of nuclear power rose 180 percent...
...seriously, folks: What about James Watt? Is it simply a matter of a fellow with poor comic delivery? That most recent remark, the one about the new coal-leasing review commission consisting of "a black, a woman, two Jews and a cripple." It nearly got Watt ousted a few weeks ago. It might yet. Why? Surely the substance of his remark is not taboo. In the right hands, with the right tone, a joke about the overexacting demands of affirmative action could result in genuine, harmless hilarity. But not with Watt. When he tells a joke, the prisoners start...
...Watt makes jokes such as his latest, he becomes an object of contempt, because it is clear from his timing, context and formulation that he feels no sympathy whatever with the viewpoint of his critics nor with their having an opposing viewpoint. In truth, the wisecrack about the coal-leasing commission could have amused only those who see affirmative action as a wrong idea that is not funny, rather than as a right idea that may also be funny. One cannot know without inspecting the Interior Secretary's interior if he personally abhors minority representation in government...