Right on time, I was starting to feel slightly optimistic about life.

Fun fact, here in Appalachia miners got tired of being exploited and tried to unionize. The mining companies hired thugs to bully them into submission. The army eventually got involved to break it up and start straight up shooting miners. The army even dropped literal bombs on coal miners to break up the strike. Today, most of that has been swept under the rug and Appalachian communities are still the poorest in the nation, despite decades of sacrifice. My grandpa gave his literal life to coal mining, got black lung, which turned into leukemia and took him.

"Clean coal, meaning they're taking out coal, they're gonna clean it" lmao

"Clean Coal" was picked as a slogan because "Watching-Your-Kids-Choke-To-Death-On-Sulfur-Fumes-While-Destroying-The-Planet Coal" didn't roll off the tongue in quite the same way.

As a Pittsburgh native, coal absolutely destroyed the city and the health of the people who lived here. We still have terrible air pollution, but it’s nothing compared to sky blackening clouds of coal pollution that turned the skyscrapers black.

glencore literally sounds like one of those comically evil coperations that the main character has to fight at the end of the movie

I have friends in the industry and it's crazy to hear about the unreported deaths on site. People being crushed by machinery, rocks, falls or accidents. It's nuts

This guy actually touches german hypocrisy, I love it

I love a good dose of sobering existential despair with my comedy.

"There's a reason that 'power' and 'energy' basically mean the same thing." Absolute banger of a line.

What I got from this video: -We're fucked. -We're so fucked.

This is the kind of video I expected to watch while I was still in school. Perfect and clear presentation, interesting topic, godly amount of research, and the jokes.

I know these videos take a long time to make because you put in so much effort but they are always so good I wish they came out weekly!

As an Australian, thank you so much for including all of our struggles when it comes to coal! I live in a town where just about every man is either in the agricultural or mining industry, so everyone turns a blind eye/ flat out refutes climate change. One important thing to note, however, is that the mines are all in the literal middle of nowhere, and with our population almost all living on the coast, miners have to drive 10+ hours or fly to get to their work. That’s why I’ve always been fascinated by the ‘mum and pop’ business model coal propaganda has you believe- the small communities they base themselves in are often halfway across the country from the actual mines.

I love how you provide your sources as you go. Glad to know these videos are well researched.

kentuckian here, i will never forget the "coal fairs" they had us do which was like an art contest but it had to be coal related. very wild

Ordinary things is one of those "Internet Historian Tier" KZfaqrs, He doesn't make videos that often but when he does you can see why they took so long to make.

I live in Kentucky, and the funny thing about the "friends of coal" plates is that a lot of people just buy them because they're the only black license plates on offer. Very often you see the "friends of coal" and "coal keeps the light on" logos covered up with stickers of the vehicle owner's own personal flavor.

Fun Fact: The UK government just approved a new coal mine in Cumbria, the first new coal mine in 30yrs.

What I absolutely love about your videos is not only that they are extensively researched and backed-up by evidence that anyone can corroborate for themselves. Nor that they are delightfully entertaining and peppered with witticisms. What I find very enlightening is the moral lesson underpinning your work. Truly, this is journalism at its best.

You’ve got such a great sense of humor. I can watch your vids five times over and still pick up on new ones. Keep up the good work (or don’t it’s your life)

I like that instead of trying to hide any greenscreen outline you've turned it into a style choice. A nice touch.

The part where he showed an historic german church being destroyed just for more coal mining broke me this vidéo hammers in well how much coal took from us

This channel is so underrated . The humour , the topics , the editing .

Excellent video mate, striking just the right balance between humour and fact.

Enjoyed the cameo from the devil at the start! What high profile guests you have here!

The jimmy saville joke was perfection.

As an Australian I already know we’re going to get a special feature in this one! Hope we did a good job!

You know, this Devil guy is pretty charismatic. He should start a show talking about evil businesses or something

I love your show. It fills me with hope. It brightens my day. It makes me feel like there is a light at the end of the tunnel, attached to an electric train that is running, indirectly, on coal. ❤

The Caterpillar company actually had 'CLEAN, CARBON NEUTRAL COAL' signs up in West Virginia of a few years ago. I thought it was satire when I first saw it.

An important note on Germany's nuxlear exit, it was actually decided over a decade ago by the conservative and the libertarian parties, after the Fukushima catastrophe.

My first reaction to a new OrdinaryThings video is always: 'Oh neat, time to learn something!' And it always ends in an existential crisis

I am from Kentucky. I remember in Kindergarten when Friends Of Coal in partnership with KU (Kentucky Utilities) did a presentation for our class. I remember them showing us with a model set how downed power lines are dangerous, and I remember them talking about how important coal was to Kentucky. And they talk about “indoctrination in schools” now, wow.

The energy situation in germany is very complicated. France had half it's nuclear plants offline this year, forcing us to supply them with more energy. The main reason these plants shut down, were low water levels in the rivers. Germany is one of the most impacted country in europe In regards to draught. So can only realy use wind and solar. Which are mostly produced in China :(

As an Australian, we don't just have an excellent setting for renewables. We also have some of the largest Uranium reserves in the world. We also don't have any serious earthquakes, volcanoes, or tsunami's, that might make a case for not building any reactors. We also literally got nuked by the British in exchange for this technology. And we made nuclear power illegal. This, (and Brexit), is why I don't have faith in democracy.

The fact that you used Crash Bandicoot music when introducing Australia is perfect. Might as well be the outback anthem

Always a pleasure to watch Stede Bonnet's new videos! That turn away from the pirate's career did you a lot of good.

That sucks. Anyways, let's reap the benefits today and leave the problems to the next generation!

Cobson wants a word.

Glad to see Australia talked about here. It's wild how successful the corporate advertising has been. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills talking about how easy and beneficial it'd be to switch from coal and retrain workers into new industries

The section on appalachia really hit home. We’ve been used and abused by basically everyone who has set foot on our soil.

Every day, the guillotines look more and more underused.

I've always been confused why coal miners are so protective of what sounds like a filthy, dangerous, hard job

I would love to see a video on the Idol Industry if you ever get a chance, I don't think I know any other business that has such dirty laundry or treats its public celebrities as slabs of meat at an art show

As a footnote to your Appalachia segment, coal lobbying has pretty much all but expunged the Mining Wars and Mother Jones from educational history, with global warming itself being a highly taboo subject. One of the things being voted on quite soon is, more or less, the elimination of school boards to be replaced with a direct extension of the state legislature. You can probably imagine why that’s being proposed.

4:45 I just love how as soon as he say clean coal everyone just puts their signs down.

I get the sense there's an ulterior motive to nuclear fearmongering in that it's such an efficient energy source that switching to it would put the vast majority of the energy sector out of work. And renewables are talked up as the acceptable 'green' alternatives because the coal/oil people know that solar/wind/hydro aren't nearly productive or reliable enough to actually compete.

“Coal released enough energy to build the modern world, but it also holds enough to destroy it.” Great conclusion to a great video!

“In other words, the astroturf grew roots and became real grass.” Poetry. Literal poetry.

When the Crash Bandicoot music came in, right when you started talking about Australia, it made me chuckle.

perhaps building robots that run on human blood isn't a bad idea after all

This devil doing a power point presentation bit plays off super well! I'd love to see more videos in this style!

As an Appalachian Kentuckian, I can remember when Friends of Coal was everywhere in my elementary school education. I even see pictures in this video of things I see almost every day (including my university’s basketball court) with coal all over it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a staple of our history and still employs people, but we should have not been quite literally indoctrinated like that. I hope you read this comment ordinary things, because this one really hit home

My sister also burned coal for a while and her husband now says her biotope is completely wrecked because of that

Truly appreciate your hard work, research and all wrapped ina gorgeously edited package.

Omg dude, I was loving this. As it went on however, I wondered, how much of this is factual or opinion. And then you got to the topic of Australia. It blows my mind that you managed to properly examine a foreign culture, criticise it appropriately, and still make me fucken laugh about it all. Well done mate, really did your homework to make sure you know what you are reporting. What a world we live in that the best reporting comes from fucken comedy videos

Got the next few videos lined up. But what would you guys want to see more: Nuclear Video, TikTok Video or Amazon Video? Oh and if you check out my comic and register if you're interested, that'd be very cash money of you: justordinarythings.com/

Just got an ad after hearing "a commitment to clean", even youtube doesn't approve

Coal being a 100% green is probably an argument someone used out there and now im more unsettled about our possible future.

Ordinary Guy's way with words is frighteningly good.

A couple nice thing that could have been mentioned in the german section: - We used to lead in solar panel production and development. But because certain energy producers could not figure out a way to milk decentralized energy production for their profit, they instead used their influence to end the entire industry. - those same energy producers then got the rights to disown people and dig up centuries old churches, private homes, and forests without having to compensate for the damages they caused. They sort of do, but undervalue houses massively. - The coal they dig up is called lignin. It’s the poorest quality of coal, and is recovered as surface coal which leaves large areas uninhabitable - The Green Party has some footing in reality. Most nuclear power plants have discontinued after the most recent meltdown in japan. Back then most people were already like “yeah we don’t really get earthquakes and tsunamis here. But it might still explode and throw around fallout, cause places to be uninhabitable”. Which is ironic, because of the goddamn coal mines

Burning coal is much better alternative than what’s happening in my country, Canada. Our forests are being cut down, mainly in British Columbia for wood pellet production, which is shipped across country and over seas to United Kingdom to provide electricity rather than air. It is ludicrous insanity. The emissions from these pellets are greater than coal and less efficient per BTU. Pellet burning mills are pure evil, like you briefly mentioned about 10:00 into the video London area cut down their forests and became reliant on coal. The alternative is clearly not cutting down some other country’s forest and this is what is happening.

I work at a coal mine in Wyoming, and I have to say, the cognitive dissonance among the people I work with is staggering sometimes. Hoping to move in to a better mining job, hopefully in Alaska soon...

OMG YES THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR MEANTIONING AUSTRALIA!!! :) everything you said was so acurate. my only qualm is that you didnt go far enough. but thats ok. you still did an extremely good job. let me tell you more about it. about skynews, gina rhinheart and the IPA. i promise you it is an interesting read, even if you are not australian i promise you its good. (or just watch friendlyjordies) the IPA is an australian think tank that is basically the legion of doom! they are all funded by all the evil companies; gambling, tobacco and of course coal/fossil fuels. their entire job, is to distort the facts, make bs stats that favor these companies and attack the opposition and its constituence (unions). they are the main go to think tank of the liberal party. like how the republicans get their ideas mainly from the kato insitiute the libs get their ideas from them. The co-founder was Keith murdoch. if the name sound kinda familiar that is because keith is the father of rupert murdoch. the man that owns newscorp and SKYNEWS is is the child company of newscorp. its a circle jerk. the IPA now likes to claim they are a grass roots, traditional, small business funded blah blah blah but it was exposed that gina rhienheart gave 4.5 mill in donations to the IPA over a 2 year period. and of course they have the usual cope of "not showing who their donners are because they respect privacy" kzfaq.info/get/bejne/otR2lc-HttHNl40.html&ab_channel=friendlyjordies at 2:00 to give an example of how these guys make bs to satisfy their constituence this is an actual report that they made about "Unions are a waste on state budgets and what they can be used instead of" its 8 pages long. 3 pages are decoration, 1 is a bout the author only 4 pages are a "report" and its just a bunch of pictures ipa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/IPA_Report_The_Impact_Of_The_Prohibitive_Cost_Of_Building_In_Victoria_GR_170203.compressed.pdf dispite the report saying all the public service that money could be used for the IPA constantly shits on the public service. only doing so just to break the unions now enough about that lets go to something funnier. gina rhrinheart. gina is a woman who inherited her wealth. all that cope most billionaires use of "we worked hard to be where we are" she didnt earn it. thats to just give an idea about how sigma this woman is. gina also stated that australia should take example of 3rd world african countries and have workers get paid 2 dollars a day. yes the woman who worked hard all her life wants australians to work for 2 bucks. www.abc.net.au/news/2012-09-05/rinehart-says-aussie-workers-overpaid-unproductive/4243866 and if that wasnt sigma enough gina rineheart wanted to NUKE western australia... why? because she thought it would make mining easier. what a nice lady am i right? finaly skynews. skynews is a anternative universe. everything they say is completly deranged and far from reality. friendlyjordies has a myriad of examples of skynews hypocricy. but basically skynews and newscorp for that matter are extremly pro liberal party platforms and in aus pretty much all media is controlled by newscorp. the pittly few that arent are either hevily influenced by them. for example the project is supposely a "left wing news" but here is a clip of them using that ipa report presenting it as fact kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ad6YecWD18fGqpc.html&ab_channel=friendlyjordies once when i was watching skynews for a laugh one of the ads that played was one about gina and hancock basically saying how great and nice gina is and hackcock are. blatant propaganda. bit of a long read i know. not really related to the topic of coal but still. it had to be said

Since not enough people have pointed it out, love this video's framing device of the devil's powerpoint! It's always cool when you format a video as something other than a video essay (even tho video essays are cool too)

I wanna add on to the "China hydro-power is failing" thing, because it isn't just because of global warming. Like that's a factor, but really, the most major reason is that they're over-harvesting their rivers. Imagine the Colorado river problem, where the states that use it for water are using more then it actually has, but across like 10 rivers, and also all the rivers are all dammed up and also all of them have been cut off into multiple poorly built canals that make the water undrinkable when its point is to transport drinking water, and also the dams can't even hold enough watch to actually be dams, meaning they have to release water often, which decimates the villages built in the lake beds they dried up. Oh and they don't tell anyone they're doing that, because then it counts as a natural disaster and no one gets compensated. Hydropower is failing in China for many, many reasons, with warming temperatures only being one of them.

Astrophysicist here, almost all energy is “just vintage solar power.”

dude that red suit actually looks so good on you, you gotta rock that full time now

This channel is the definition of quality over quantity.

This is literally the best video you've ever done. I really enjoyed your presentation of it, and I think it's an important call to action to what we can now before our total extinction is all but certain. Also, nice Jimmy Savile jab; I can't believe he actually got away with it his whole life

I love seeing the growth of this channel. So well researched and naturally hilarious, reminds me of old school Charlie Brooker. Love you ❤️

My father whom worked for a power company as a senior plant operator always called "clean coal" a sham, but never elaborated as to why. This cleared things up a bit. Something I wanted to look into but you beat me to the punch. Nice Job Ordinary Things!

Don't know if it fits your interests, but an entire series on energy in this style might be a good idea. Another video on Nuclear, LPG, Green. Could be a nice series. But you do whatever, you're doing very well so far!

Great video mate, I really enjoy the charcters you play when talking about meaningful and serious subjects

"England closed it's last coal mine in 2020"... yeah, about that, would be a shame if they'd just approved a new mine to open...

"There's a reason that power and energy basically mean the same thing" _I felt that_

This video hits so close to home growing up in WV you really hit all of the great points. This really means a lot tbh and had me crying a little

The enthusiasm IMMEDIATELY dying when biden said clean coal had me dying

Remember when Germany had multiple nuclear plants and eco nuts got them all closed down, resulting in Germany now being in a severe energy crisis and now being forced into mining coal? Crazy.

I think the best product to come from coal is the coal miner’s songs. That shit SLAPS!

I remember mining shit loads of coal back in the day in runescape to afford a full set of rune armor. It ain't easy but it's honest work.

You know that’s actually Satan because he’s British.

Giving the talk as Satan was a brilliant way to portray the information.

I grew up just south of the Kentucky coal mining towns (East Tennessee), and not only have I seen and met plenty of people who's lives and health were wrecked by coal and coal companies, I also remember back over a decade ago when that big coal ash spill happened in Kingston TN. I've also seen the abject poverty created when coal mines closed. Visiting Eastern Kentucky is like walking into a third-world country right here in the US. And the towns in the shadows of the Appalachian mountains in Eastern Kentucky and East Tennessee are still some of the most poverty-stricken and drug-addicted places in the US. The politicians from both parties don't even bother to come here. They won't do shit. Thank you for making this video, man. This needs to be spoken about way more than it is.

As a South African its weird to think that we export masssive amounts of coal but can't generate enough electricity to keep the lights on🤣. #Loadsheddig🇿🇦 P.S. My electricity is shut off as I am watching this masterpiece👍🏻

I sure do love it when a KZfaq video has 3 different titles

Wow, you're using fire and smoke I made and used to sell at videohive. I'm touched! Love your videos

This is literally more thorough than my energy policy class from college. As always, thanks for the hard work!

the jazz singer remake was one of the few times I actually had to pause a video because I was laughing too hard, actually impressive by you, thank you for bringing joy and information at the same time

Nuclear power is clean and kills far less people than coal. I understand the fear of a nuclear meltdown, but it’s nothing like an actual bomb. And because those incidents are rare and very public the standards constantly change and improve for safety. Coal on the other hand kills way more people, affects air quality (when operating correctly), doesn’t provide nearly enough jobs/livelihood that they open like about l, and the standard for safety have hit a point where most people don’t care.

Also I live in Eastern Idaho and it’s weird because I grew up in Appalachian coal country. In eastern Idaho they are very proud about the arco reactor. Arco Idaho became the first town in the world to be powered by nuclear power.

This is fantastic, proud to be a Patreon supporter because of how damned brilliant the content is here.

your videos help me twist my cynicism enough into bearable humour so I don't end myself. I thank you for that. We cannot continue to turn heads and ignore all the horrific acts of greed that take place in the world, or they'll continue to get worse.

17:00 You on right on point, a society where 95% of the population have to harvest energy is the long story of humanity... Before the steam/coal revolution. Energy cost of extraction isn't pay in dollars, but un energy...

Glasen "berg". Every single damn time.

this video was legitimately informative and genuinely scary

Man, this script is positively laden with clever jokes. Awesome work, Ordinary Things, you're killing it!

In Australia.. lets just say that most of the country is sold out. Most of our "Australian made" products are just Australian put-together, made from China. We don't own our own iconic products such as VB and majority of our re-sources and land is owned by mostly CHINA. When they decided to shut off sources from wheat and wine the government blamed China..as if it was their fault for not buying our crap anymore, not blaming themselves for selling out. This Country has no traditions, culture, no staples, its just a cheap knock-off from England and stays on its knees to china. -Pavlova is French... -Waltzing Matilda is not "waited till his billy boiled"..It was "brew"..Billy Tea is another sell out.

The use of Crash Bandicoot music on the Australian Segment is genius. Loved that. Awesomeness!