They’re at it again. The cries of wolf are being raised by the right wing with full throats. This time it is the new regulations put out by the EPA for the regulation of CO2 from power plants. A stake through the heart of the middle class is what we are told. But power plants have always been an ill wind in the lungs of our children and those with compromised pulmonary and circulatory systems. Think of all the middle class will save in health bills with cleaner energy production.
We have heard the cry of wolf from the right so often we should learn to take this with a great deal of skepticism. When the clean act and the clean water act were passed we herd it. When seat belts and air bags were required the cry was heard. When we protected the ozone layer and acid rain reduction was implemented doom we were told was in our future. We need good regulations to protect us from the greed which is ever present in our ruthless form of capitalism. The right will fight every regulation on their corporate sponsors no matter the cost to the health of “we the people.”
The right is never as disingenuous as when they express their concern for “jobs”. The coal industry has done all it can to eliminate jobs. International trade deals opened the doors for the millions of jobs that have left our country. Corporations eliminate jobs all the time even when profitable to increase the bottom line. Never a cry of concern has been heard from the right and too many on the other side of the isle when these jobs are lost. They don’t even recognize that clean energy provides three time the jobs that dirty carbon jobs provides.
The pure ignorance of what is said by those on the right with regards to climate change is almost beyond belief. These are not people of limited intelligence, yet they are so blinded by their almost religious fervor for their political and economic ideologies that is allows them to out of hand reject the evidence of objective science. We like to think of ourselves as rational beings yet our emotional self can blind us to empirical evidence.
EPA’s actions regarding coal power plants is but a modest first step. The economic costs of climate change will present us with a much greater challenge than acting to mitigate its effects. Economic transition is never easy. What did the buggy makers in Mifflinburg think about the transition to automobiles? Economic transitions will always be with us as new technologies are created. We need a strong safety net to help all workers who are affected by this change. Unfortunately, the right wing is doing all they can to tear holes in this safety net.
Is there a war on coal? Many certainly hope so when you consider that everything about coal is dirty and destructive. The term “clean coal” is a joke. 60,000 people die prematurely in this country every year from particulate and ozone pollution. Mountains with an area as big as the state of Delaware have been flattened. Power plant pollution costs us $100 billion in health care every year. You should know that if you catch a fresh water fish in this country it will be contaminated with mercury from power plants. Too many steams in Pennsylvania flow orange. Our streams, lakes, and drinking water are contaminated by massive coal ash waste piles. It is time that coal burning be put in the dust bin of history.