Pulse of the Peninsula: Trump ‘energy plan’ invites disaster

Karen Rubin

I just returned from the Great Allegheny Passage, a rail trail accommodating biking, walking and other recreational pursuits, built over a defunct railroad. 

The rail trail stretches 150 miles across Pennsylvania into Pittsburgh, a city that was built, then blighted, by steel mills and coal mining, but now is rising like a Phoenix from those ashes.

The railroad collapsed with the decline of steel and coal mining (though another railroad operates virtually parallel to this one). This happened before Obama’s Clean Power restrictions, indeed before Obama’s presidency. 

Coal mining no longer makes economic sense, and burning coal proves to exact a terrible price on the planet and public health.

But in its heyday, these steel mills made fortunes for industrialists Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick who became not only the wealthiest men in the world, but also the most politically powerful. 

They ruled a society with gross inequality and wielded the power they had over the workers who slaved 12 hour workdays for meager wages. 

These were the glory days of the Industrial Revolution, when there were no pesky environmental regulations, or for that matter, taxes. Or unions. 

In fact, in 1892, when Carnegie steel workers mounted a bloody strike, even though the Carnegie efficiency experts had already determined that workers were less productive after eight hours, returned to a 12-hour workday simply to punish the workers for daring to seek better conditions. 

While everyone talks about the “high” wages that American workers earn largely as the result of collective bargaining (unions) as the cause for steel mills and manufacturing to shut down in the U.S. and move off-shore, more likely it was the tougher environmental regulations that played as much a part, in making manufacturing more expensive if not more prohibitive, not to mention the tax incentives for companies to offshore profits along with wages.

Small towns along the way which grew up and grew prosperous based upon the railroad, steel manufacture and coal mining, have fallen on hard times. 

But the amazing thing is that they are coming back, just as the rail trail has restored the environment. There are trees, and rushing rivers that support fishing, and houses along the riverfront beside what would have been the train tracks (now the rail trail). 

You see families riding the trail, perhaps camping out in the small campgrounds that have grown up alongside — which contributes to improved health and wellness (a cost savings for society!), not to mention family bonds.

Pittsburgh, though, is not a small town, but a major American city that has had to go through a similar transition. 

I ride up a funicular to the Riverview Overlook, where once George Washington had stood to survey the area in order to choose a place to build a fort to protect the British Empire’s colonial interests. 

In the days when steel ruled, you could not see the city below. The city was so blanketed in soot as to prevent sunlight from streaming through that people needed to keep electric lights on in the daytime. 

Today, it is a magnificent scene, and Pittsburgh has been named one of America’s “most livable cities.” 

A city built to accommodate machines and industry has become walkable, bikeable, livable. You see a tremendous building boom based on new enterprises: banking, robotics, academics and yes, tourism.

The concierge at my hotel, the historic Omni William Penn (which celebrated its centennial this year during Pittsburgh’s Bicentennial), tells me her father used to work in the steel mill enduring heat so intense I imagine hellfire. 

He died young. The steel mill has closed, but she is a concierge in one of Pittsburgh’s finest hotels.

Trump just gave a speech he called a declaration of his energy “policy” which as he himself said was based largely on talking with one of his cronies, Oklahoma oil tycoon Harold Hamm, the largest leaseholder of oil-drilling rights in North Dakota, and North Dakota’s sole Congressman.

Trump, who has called “climate change” a “hoax” perpetrated by the Chinese on hapless Americans who will crash the economy by insisting on clean air and water, vowed in his first 100 Days:

”We’re going to rescind all the job-destroying Obama executive actions including the Climate Action Plan and the Waters of the U.S. rule.

“We’re going to save the coal industry and other industries threatened by Hillary Clinton’s extremist agenda.

“I’m going to ask Trans Canada to renew its permit application for the Keystone Pipeline.

“We’re going to lift moratoriums on energy production in federal areas

“We’re going to revoke policies that impose unwarranted restrictions on new drilling technologies. These technologies create millions of jobs with a smaller footprint than ever before.

“We’re going to cancel the Paris Climate Agreement and stop all payments of U.S. tax dollars to U.N. global warming programs.”

(To appreciate just how scary it would be to have Donald Trump in the White House, read the full speech: https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/an-america-first-energy-plan)

I would ask Pittsburgh if they would like to go back to steel mills and coal mines. I would ask Chattanooga, which similarly had to reclaim the Tennessee River and its air from toxic pollution spewed by its manufacturing plants until the Clean Air and Clean Water acts of the Nixon Administration shut them down.

“Scientists are warning us that up to 80 percent of known fossil fuel reserves must be kept in the ground, unburned, to prevent the worst effects of climate disruption, so ending offshore drilling is critical to protecting current and future generations,” stated Lena Moffitt, director of the Sierra Club Beyond Dirty Fuels Campaign.

“Climate change is real, it is being driven by human activity, and it is happening right now,” Hillary Clinton declared in a statement after receiving the first-ever endorsement of the Natural Resources Defense Council. “We can’t wait for climate deniers and defeatists to get on board–we need to take immediate action to build on the progress President Obama has made in fighting this unprecedented global threat. We need to use every tool we have to make America the clean energy superpower of the 21st century and to make sure no one is left out or left behind in the clean energy economy, from communities struggling with the legacy of environmental racism to the coalfield communities that kept America’s lights on for generations.

“That’s why I have a comprehensive plan to combat climate change with bold, national goals to expand clean energy, boost energy efficiency, and slash oil consumption. I will fight alongside the NRDC Action Fund for environmental and climate justice and invest in building a bright future for coalfield communities. 

And together, we can get half of our electricity from clean sources within 10 years, create millions of good-paying jobs, protect our communities from the dangerous climate impacts that we’re already seeing, and ensure America is leading the world in the fight against climate change.

“The stakes for our children’s health and the future of our planet have never been higher. The presumptive Republican nominee has called climate change a Chinese hoax and called for scrapping the landmark Paris climate agreement. He has pledged to open up millions of acres of pristine public lands and waters to fossil fuel production at a time when America’s public lands are under unprecedented pressures. We need to be accelerating the transition to a clean energy future, not letting a climate denier doom our children to a future beyond their capacity to repair.

“It has never been more critical that we come together to face the shared challenge of climate change — because there is no Planet B.”

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