May folks who support mountaintop removal mining and new coal plants do so in the name of jobs.  We all need to put food on the table, and clearly, these industries do provide jobs.

However, direct coal mining jobs are down from 120,000 a few decades ago to only 15,000, in spite of huge increases in the amount of coal extracted.  This trend would continue with an increase in mountaintop removal as it employs very few miners per ton of coal extracted. 

The real promise of jobs in the coal mining regions comes with new industry – particularly renewable energy industry.  The transportation infrastructure is already in place to move manufactured parts for renewable energy industries from the coal mining states to the rest of the country.  Imagine a world where coal miners and oil/natural gas workers were linked together with renewable energy workers in a single labor force.  This could guarantee the replacement of jobs lost to a decrease in fossil fuel extraction with many times more jobs in renewable energy.  And the new jobs would be safer, healthier and less prone to employee abuse.

Likewise, wind and solar power plants employ more people than a new coal plant, so the argument that new coal plants are good for jobs is on very shaky ground when alternatives are proposed.

Support coal miners and power plant workers by demanding that renewable energy industries are located where they can employ displaced workers.  This is addressed in the and on other sites accessed from this Coal Impact Guide.