CBS News | Montana's Coal Cowboy | February 26, 2006?21:05:04

Montana's Coal Cowboy
A 'Collapse' Retort


Last night, the CBS show, 60 Minutes had a feature story on Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer whom was described as the "Coal Cowboy". Gov. Schweitzer all but claimed to have the solution to the United State's energy problems with strip-mined Montana "clean coal". Per Schweitzer, coal gasification and liquification can solve the country's energy needs with less pollution. (Although the production of synthetic oil and the burning of the oil and the gasification causes at least twice the carbon dioxide, the leading "greenhouse" gas, per Schweitzer, this isn't a problem because the carbon dioxide will be stored underground.)

CBS News | Montana's Coal Cowboy | February 26, 2006?21:05:04

I have a hunch that author Jarod Diamond would disagree with Governor Schweitzer on just about every count on what's best for Montana, and possibly what's best for the nation and world. For at least six months I've been wrestling with Jared Diamond's book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.

This book is brilliant and vital to the key issues of the day, but it is also unecessarily repetitive and obtuse, and it could have used a heavier hand in the editing department. If any book could use the PBS NOVA treatment, this one could.

Mr. Diamond's central theme is that many human societies have over-used their resources and either collapsed outright (Easter Island) or ended up with systematic poverty and blight (Haiti). Montana is profiled as an area where unchecked mining has reduced the carrying capacity of the land and reduced living standards. This is a vast over-simplification of the book. I'm linking the Amazon.com page for the book.

Collapse

Here's Hof's simplifified version as it relates to Governor Schweitzer:

How do you tell a mining spokesman is lying to you?
His lips are moving.