Coal: Hemorrhaging American Jobs Since the 1980s
by Stacy Feldman - Jul 14th, 2008
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While you’re reading about the US economy’s tumble into recession, think about this: The US coal industry -- which powers half of America and is currently riding a sizable export boom -- has been hemorrhaging home-grown jobs for decades.
From a new report by the Worldwatch Institute:
In the United States, coal output rose by almost one third during the past two decades, yet employment has been cut in half.
The US coal industry employs about 80,000 individuals -- and dropping.
Meanwhile, renewable energy, which provides just six percent of US electricity needs, employed 200,000 people directly in ’06, and another 246,000 indirectly. And that's just a sliver of the sector’s potential.
For that untapped promise of green jobs growth, we have the federal government to thank -- and its persistent failure to adjust US energy policies to the twin threats of climate change and oil dependence.
Imagine the possibilities under a new presidency, as the United States Department of Energy has.
In its May 2008 report, the agency found that the US could feasibly produce 20 percent of its power from wind by 2030 -- up from one percent today. Doing so would support roughly 500,000 new jobs, with an average of more than 150,000 workers directly employed by the wind industry alone.
Germany’s been on that track for years.
The government's steady policy support for clean energy incentives has created some 259,000 direct and indirect jobs in the renewables sector, in a nation about one-quarter the size of the US. That’s as of 2006. Those numbers should climb to a half a million by 2020 and 710,000 by 2030.
Here’s why. From the Worldwatch report:
Renewables tend to be a more labor-intensive energy source than the still-dominant fossil fuels, which rely heavily on expensive pieces of production equipment. A transition toward renewables thus promises job gains.
With our without the transition, fossil fuels will fail the people:
Even in the absence of such a transition, growing automation and corporate consolidation are already translating into steadily fewer jobs in the oil, natural gas, and coal industries-sometimes even in the face of expanding production. Many hundreds of thousands of coal mining jobs have been shed in China, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and South Africa in the last decade or two.
All said, it would be pretty staggering to elect a president in 2008 who is not committed to building a clean new energy economy.
No?
And the promise of "clean coal?" That's called re-branding rather than actually changing anything.
(Hat tip: Coal is Dirty)
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this is absolutely absurd.
this is absolutely absurd. I would appreciate it if solveclimate.com put something other than obviously biased opinions on their website.
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