The Wall Street Journal recently published a remarkable editorial titled “The Carnage in Coal Country,” which accused President Obama of destroying jobs by implementing terrible, horrible, no-good regulations on coal: “According to the National Mining Association, 40,000 coal jobs have been lost in the U.S. since 2008,” the editorial said.
That’s a bigger number than the figure from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, but never mind. You might want to put that number in perspective by remembering that the American economy has added 14 million private sector jobs since 2010. You might also want to note that coal has been declining for a long time.
But what really struck me about the editorial were two things. First, The Journal sneers that we’re “still waiting for all those new green jobs Mr. Obama has been promising since he arrived in Washington.” Well, look at the chart.
Yes, the solar numbers are from the Solar Foundation, a private group, but The Journal’s figure on mining jobs also comes from a private group. And while you might want to quibble over specific data points, the boom in renewable energy in the United States is very real, as is the surging number of jobs in occupations like solar panel installation. I can’t imagine any calculation under which the number of green jobs added doesn’t exceed the loss of jobs in coal mining – an industry that was already a shadow of its former self before Mr. Obama took office.
The other striking thing about the editorial is that it takes as a given the notion that any regulation is bad, including regulations on mercury and coal ash (which itself is also loaded with mercury and other heavy metals like lead). Let’s see: Mercury is a neurotoxin, which can impact intellectual ability, and other heavy metals can cause cancer and poison people in a variety of ways. In what moral or even economic universe is it obviously wrong to limit emissions of neurotoxins?
I know that this article wasn’t intended as any kind of rational argument – that it was just an Anti-Obama Two Minutes of Hate piece. But this sort of thing is still amazing to see in a paper that sometimes pretends to be a cut above the conservative commentator Erick Erickson.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy