By Garrick Hoffman
Liberal Arts Major
“Jobs” and “economy” are words that, despite their degree of truthfulness and merit, have essentially become thought-terminating clichés, and no one seems to use these words more than the League of Climate Change Doubters, also known as the GOP. Many of the doubters, including prominent Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, actively defend the coal industry, saying that Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency is a declaration of “war on coal.” Special interests, much?
Another prominent climate change doubter, Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe, wrote a book titled, The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future. In addition, remarking on global warming, Inhofe was quoted as saying, “God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is, to me, outrageous.”
Thankfully, a recent New York Times article has presented the general public with some degree of reassurance.
The article presents poll results from a Stanford University study, which illustrates that “Americans are less likely to vote for candidates who question or deny the science of human-caused global warming,” and that an “overwhelming majority of the American public, including half of Republicans, support government action to curb global warming.” However, despite the increase in Republican support – no doubt a positive sign – “47 percent of Republicans still said they believed that policies designed to curb global warming would hurt the economy.”
The fallacy with the “economy” and “jobs” defense is that it’s neglecting the fact that with a new energy sector comes new jobs and an economy thriving from new industry. It’s also declaring that protecting the Earth from further carbon emissions and destruction is not worth the loss of jobs. Furthermore, it’s a profoundly myopic point of view, even if combating climate change can or will damage the economy within multiple coordinates. Ironically, our fossil fuel-dependent economy is already showing signs that it can cannibalize itself: with carbon emissions potentially contributing to ocean acidification, this is actively en route to atrophy Maine’s fishing industry – that is, if it’s not already underway – which brings in hundreds of millions of dollars every year.
What jobs will exist in the midst in an apocalyptic world of climate cataclysm? One can only envision the coal plants being swept away by hurricanes. Then again, most of the climate change doubters or individuals who are apathetic towards the issue won’t see what the future has in stock if no action is taken – or they “receive huge sums of money from…the fossil fuel industry, and they are not going to stand up to the people who contribute to their campaigns,” as Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent, said.
A new energy industry means that the archaic jobs – such as the ones in the coal industry – will become obsolete, and many people who have known that trade for the majority of their career would either be (temporarily) out of work or would have to be re-trained altogether; further, the economy might be injured, but only to ultimately unfold a quasi-reformed economy. Indeed, Senator McConnell’s home state of Kentucky would take a considerable blow, as it is “one of the country’s top coal producers, and coal generates over 90 percent of the state’s electricity,” according to a related New York Times article. But anyone who knows business knows that you need to break a few eggs if you want to make an omelet – that is, you need to make sacrifices and investments if you want a successful outcome.
So just what is it about coal, specifically, that is so threatening? Here are some facts about it, presented by the National Geographic:
It’s the dirtiest of fossil fuels. We burn eight billion tons of it a year, with growing consequences. …Coal provides 40 percent of the world’s electricity. It produces 39 percent of global CO2 emissions. It kills thousands a year in mines, many more with polluted air.
Additionally, we can examine whether the coal industry truly is a pillar for jobs. Sociologists Shannon Elizabeth Bell and Richard York conducted a significant study on the coal industry in West Virginia, titled, Community Economic Identity: The Coal Industry and Ideology Construction in West Virginia, published in 2010. The findings were jarring and they illuminated the economic and environmental impacts of the coal industry that otherwise go unseen.
The $3.5 billion coal contributed to West Virginia’s gross state product in 2004 represented only 7 percent of the total gross state product, ranking behind retail trade ($4.0 billion), real estate and rentals ($4.6 billion), health care and social assistance ($4.8 billion), and government ($8.4 billion). Very little of this coal severance tax actually goes to the coalfield towns, which must bear the brunt of the numerous social, economic, and environmental injustices related to coal-mining practices. The town of Sylvester, for instance, which sits next to the enormous Elk Run Coal Preparation Plant and a mountaintop removal coal mine and beneath an enormous slurry impoundment with the capacity to hold 769 million gallons of coal waste, received only $701.42 in coal severance tax during the 2006–2007 fiscal year.
…Coal employment in West Virginia has steadily declined since the 1940s. This reduction in mining jobs has caused a massive exodus from the state: Since 1950, West Virginia has experienced a net out-migration of 40 percent of its population. In 1948 there were 131,700 coal miners in the state, while in 2006 there were only 20,100. Health care, hospitality services, retail trade, professional and business services, and local, state, and federal government were each far more significant employers within the state than coal. Job losses were clearly due to the ongoing processes of the treadmill of production where workers are replaced by machines. Changes in coal-extraction practices meant that the same amount of coal could be extracted in the twenty-first century by employing only one-sixth the workers required in the mid-twentieth century.
…A more recent coal-slurry [a toxic byproduct of coal washing] disaster occurred in 2000 in Martin County, Kentucky. The impoundment collapsed, spilling 250 million gallons of coal waste (20 times greater than the Exxon Valdez oil spill), polluting more than 70 miles of West Virginia and Kentucky waterways, killing wildlife, and razing habitat. Homes were destroyed by the thick, black sludge. Although there was little national media coverage, the EPA called it “one of the worst environmental disasters in the history of the Southeastern United States.”
Although this may seem like an isolated case in West Virginia, we can nonetheless speculate on whether these facts are similarly mirrored in the home states of Mr. McConnell and Mr. Inhofe.
If we were to continue to attach to the whole jobs and economy argument, how could we ever phase out our dependence on fossil fuels? How could we ever see a renewal in our energy industry? How would we ever shatter the status-quo in the interest of cleaner, renewable energy – the very energy that has the potential not only to generate our power efficiently, but to help produce a prosperous economy as well?