Meekly accepting blame for
climate change dooms the industry and the greater economy.
But then, police find eyewitnesses who place you miles from the
scene of the crime when it occurred. Your lawyer even discovers that the
victim’s body has yet to be found — and there is now some question as to
whether the child ever existed. With a sense of relief you head to court,
confident this new information will lead to the case being dismissed.
But to your astonishment, your lawyer does not even bring up
evidence of your innocence. Instead he pleads for leniency, which gives the
court moral authority to punish you for a crime you never committed and perhaps
never even happened.
This insane scenario is analogous to what is happening to one of
America’s most important industries and the source of 40% of the nation’s
electricity: coal. Accused of causing dangerous climate change due to its
carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, coal-fired electric power is in the crosshairs
of a president anxious to be seen as taking action to stop global warming and
extreme weather.
That global warming stopped 17 years ago, and extreme weather has
not increased despite an 8% rise in CO2? This is never referenced by President
Barack Obama or his Environmental Protection Agency.
That even the United
Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is now backing away from
several of its most important claims of human-caused climate Armageddon? Also
ignored.
Coal-fired electricity must be replaced with “clean energy” to
save the climate, they still say. This approach completely disregards what
happened in Europe when that approach was tried: economies collapsed and
people froze to death, driven into poverty by unmanageable energy bills.
You would think the coal industry would launch an all-out media
blitz, taking full advantage of the current temperature plateau and the IPCC’s
retreat on the science. They could also reference the thousands of
peer-reviewed scientific papers cited by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate
Change, which clearly demonstrate that the science backing the EPA’s
position is rapidly disintegrating.
A reasonable person would expect coal to proclaim their industry’s
innocence of the climate crime of which they stand accused, using the
overwhelming evidence that global warming fears are greatly exaggerated.
But, no, with only a few exceptions, coal leaders plead guilty to
producing “climate-change emissions,” as Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) labeled
CO2 at the massive coal rally in Washington, D.C., in October. Rather than
contest the science propping up climate fears and the anti-coal movement, they
throw themselves at the mercy of the court of public opinion, complaining that
hundreds of thousands of coal sector workers will lose their jobs and that
prices will skyrocket as the nation’s least expensive source of electricity is
turned off.
The relaxed response from climate activists to these messages
tells us that this approach has no chance of working.
Groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council clearly
recognize that the arguments presented at politically correct coal rallies
can’t hold a candle to “saving the planet” in the eyes of the press, not to
mention in the eyes of the public and politicians outside of coal-dependent
areas of the country.
In fact, the Obama administration has already accepted that
employment in the coal sector will be ruined and that energy prices will soar,
especially in states that currently enjoy low electricity costs due to
extensive coal usage. Appearing to be on the side of Mother Earth trumps
concerns about the welfare of people from regions of the country that generally
oppose the president already.
The only way to save coal is to convince opinion leaders, and thus
the public, that the administration’s excuse for killing it is misguided. There
is no climate crisis happening. The science that supports climate fears is
unreliable.
Most industry and political leaders who support coal understand
this very well. So why do so few of them bring this up?
Apparently, they stay quiet because they would rather see the coal
sector in America die than risk serious conflict with activists and their
government and media allies. Many leaders in the coal sector are wealthy enough
that the end of coal will not significantly hurt them personally. They can
simply retire or quietly move to other sectors of the economy as coal mines
close and miners are forced into unemployment and poverty.
Dedicated coal sector workers must demand that their leaders
defend the sector vigorously, or pass on the responsibility to those who will.
They need to remind their spokespeople that you get the most flak
when you are over the target. If climate activists are not mounting
counter-demonstrations to rallies and other meetings in support of coal, then
sector spokespeople are not doing their jobs properly.
A quote from Patrick Henry’s speech in 1775 at St. John’s Church
in Richmond, Virginia, sums up the inevitability of intense conflict with
climate activists if coal is to survive:
Gentlemen may cry, peace, peace but there is no peace. … The
war is inevitable and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come.
Dr. Tim
Ball is a Victoria, British Columbia-based environmental consultant
and former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg. Tom Harris is
the Executive Director of the International
Climate Science Coalition.
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