By Max Smith

July 23, 2017 - Consistently helpful billionaire and Shoe-Button Complex clubhouse leader Richard Branson made the wonderful suggestion this week that coal workers should just be magically shifted to clean energy jobs.  Virgin will continue to operate railways, airlines, large cruise ships, racing cars and sell mobile phones requiring huge amount of crude, palladium and silicon under Branson’s plan.

U.S. President Donald Trump has been vocal in pledging his support in revitalising the U.S. coal mining industry to create more jobs through deregulation and rolling back the Paris Accord.

Branson decided to be confused or just lie a bit about British history at the DS Virgin Racing Innovation Summit to get his point across:

“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.’”

Actually, the problem, which is still complained angrily about today and sparks annual marches, is that pretty much every single one of those coal miners went into NO JOB AT ALL, and were all in fact thinking “God, I wish I was down in a coal mine”, as were all of the shops in their towns.

Branson claims 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.”  Branson did not offer to create them with any of his own billions.  He also didn’t mention the huge number of rolling blackouts that would immediately occur when the country no longer has enough power.

Branson joined many actors and billionaires who will change their lifestyles not at all in claiming 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. 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.”

The number of facts ignored and ludicrous arguments made to defend the Paris Accord in the hope of having the Obama’s visit your private island or Victoria’s Secret models join Leo on your jet are out of control.  When you’ve made your billions, who cares if 2.7 million Americans lose their jobs?

China are allowed to build hundreds of additional coal plants, and India are allowed to double their coal production.  Poor people can still shit in the river.  14 days of carbon emissions from China would wipe out the gains from America’s planned Paris Accord reductions might have made by 2030.  The argument being made by nagging billionaires and actors isn’t about the environment or global warming, or either of these countries’ emissions would be top of the list of problems to solve.

You don’t get invited to become UN Ambassadors for Things, or get invited to the cooler Davros and Sun Valley meetings if you don’t line up to pretend Trump and global warming are bad. Ignoring history and facts are just the price of admission.