Democratic government isn’t really designed to highlight the individual achievement of unelected officials.
Even the people who win an award will receive it and hustle back to their jobs before anyone has a chance to get to know them
— and before elected officials ask for their spotlight back.
Even their nominations feel modest.
Never I did this, but we did this.
Never look at me, but look at this work!
Never a word about who these people are or where they come from or why it ever occurred to them to bother.
Nothing to change the picture in your head when you hear the word “bureaucrat.”
Nothing to arouse curiosity about them, or lead you to ask what they do, or why they do it.
@cdarwin Indeed, I've lived in WV coal mine country for 18 years now. I pulled the mine maps and studied them after wondering why my house shook when a heavy truck drove by. I've been to Monongah and examined it, studied the aftermath. One of my best friends was a member of one of the wealthy families that owned the mines in Southern WV 100 years ago. I made friends with two present day underground miners that still practice the room and pillar method, and learned a lot from them. (I'm not a mining engineer but I am an engineer.)
All very interesting history and engineering. I learned a lot of things that surprised me.
Basically, there are two ways of mining coal. You can do it underground, which is dangerous and has some long term effects. Or you can strip mine, which is less dangerous but destroys the landscape.
The solution is to stop mining coal to produce energy. Using coal to produce steel is okay. It's the most efficient way to produce steel and only consumes a tiny fraction of the coal mined today.
We have to stop burning things to make heat and electricity.
