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> (a) Move to Wyoming and outvote the existing population

Pollution and global warming are not a local effects. Therefore it should not be solely their decision. It should be regulated at a national or international level instead since it affects everyone. And well, obama tried but it didn't last.

So we should escalate:

(e) The international community takes action and imposes trade sanctions on wyoming or america. And if that fails resorts to an invasion.

> (e) The international community takes action and imposes trade sanctions on wyoming or america. And if that fails resorts to an invasion.

ha, try that after meeting your 2% military budget requirement for belonging to NATO.

>invasion

Nukes. Have you heard of them?

Well, that's an option, but I think reducing the radioactive fallout of coal plants by dropping nukes on them would be counter-productive.

No, no one can invade the US because it would trigger nuclear war.

>And if that fails resorts to an invasion

It always astonishes me when statists are so clear about their violent propensities.

Destroying the earth is violence.

Let me see if I understand: Industries are destroying the environment, which supports human life, and you want to stop this presumably because human life has some intrinsic value.

Your answer to this is to use the force of the state to destroy those industries, and if they resist you will literally kill the people opposing you. Do those lives have less value than others? Or is this a twisted greater good type of thing, where you think climate change is happening so quickly that we should jump to dropping bombs to stop it? (hint: it's not)

Really? You've not been paying attention then. Further the risk exists that we cross a tipping point before we even know it. There are sensible arguments for stopping polluting industry now, by any means necessary. Glib rationalization isn't a counter-argument. Science would be, if we had good enough models to know.

Nobody said anything about killing people. I merely proposed an invasion as last escalation step (escalating it to the national level already failed).

Of course if it comes to that we will have a clean war where only the worst assets are targeted without taking a human life. It is quite similar in design to clean coal.

> statist

Using derogatory terms that supposedly describe the vast majority of human makes good-faith discussion much more difficult. I know it can feel good to write, but it's not productive.

Also, a bit of a bikeshed since energy usage in Wyoming isn't all that significant.

That said, the use of the all too common dismissive comment stating that if you are not physically doing something about it then you are part of the problem is caveman thinking.

Actively fighting and protesting can do more harm than good. Freedom of speech is sometimes more about combined civil public discourse as opposed to aggressive and manipulative tactics of seizing power and pushing propaganda as you have suggested.

(e) Wait for Wyoming to lose their coal industry as renewables from nearby states undercut their export of electricity market. After a while this law acts like a tariff, and local people will simply pay higher prices to support an inefficient industry. This might take longer than it should, as there is no carbon tax, but it will happen. It's already cheaper to build renewable plants now, and with a marginal cost, once built, of $0, the renewables will win in the coming price war.

https://understandsolar.com/solar-energy-vs-coal/

Is this actually a majority choice, or is this just something the state government has decided to do?

It's a fight between Wyoming counties that get revenue/jobs more from coal mining and/or combustion and those that are less coal-dependent. Wind is newer and smaller so coal has the more powerful voice at the whole-state level.

http://www.wyomingbusinessreport.com/newsletter_am/proposed-...

House Bill 0127, sponsored by Reps. Scott Clem, R-Gillette, and Michael Madden, R-Buffalo, as well as Sen. Cale Case, R-Lander, states that in addition to the current $1 tax per megawatt hour on wind energy, there will be a tax of $4 on each megawatt hour.

The revenue collected from that $4 hike would go directly into the state general fund, while the original and current single dollar rate would remain in its current 60/40 split with the state. Wyoming is the only state in the nation that taxes wind.

“Changing the rules this late in the planning and permitting process seems like retribution,” Carbon County Commissioner Lindy Glode said at a meeting of the Carbon County Council of Governments, where discussion of the bill was on the agenda.

Note that this is a separate but similar-in-spirit bill to the proposed $10/MWh tax on wind and solar. The county commissioner from a wind-friendly county is naturally angry that the state is trying to quadruple the wind tax and ensure that none of the increase goes to counties where the wind projects are located. The game is pretty transparent: coal's defenders are trying to ensure that counties with less coal-centered business don't "defect" to hosting renewable projects that could decrease the market demand for coal-fired electricity. Heaping on taxes and not permitting host-counties to get any of that extra tax revenue is how they're trying to do it.

I wouldn't be surprised if it were the majority voice. If my career was coal and my entire life was coal, I would care a lot more about my life than the environment in 100 years. I think the rational thing to do in fact would be what they just did. Fight renewable and encourage coal.

This is not to say that very locally rational choices can not be horrible on the global scale.

Which is why I think a strong federal /global team effort is needed to make smart choices for the planet. The federal level could likely shut down this kind of law. I suspect Obama would have, but that Trump would not (hence the timing of the bill).

Even if something is a majority choice, that doesn't automatically mean that it isn't silly. And silly choices absolutely deserve ridicule.

Have you ever heard the phrase "One million lemmings can't be wrong"?

>>I work in renewables, and I encourage this community to not to ridicule people in Wyoming for their very clear majority choice. In their point of view, they are making the best choice for their interests, so calling them stupid only deepens their resolve.<<

Your comment explains why they are making the current choice and I guess it makes sense. They are giving themselves a lifeline. What they should do now is have a plan to decrease their dependence on coal in case the price of coal collapses, which currently seems to be heading in that direction.

Otherwise it looks like they are setting themselves up for something similar to what happened in [1]. The whole thing will collapse and they will not be prepared for it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_Atlantic_north...

People have already tried B. I seriously doubt there are a lot of people in Wyoming who sincerely don't know why renewables exist.