President Trump signed an executive order Tuesday that ends the Obama's administrations attempts to help the environment and that will help bring more coal jobs to America. Trump described it as an order that will get rid of job killing regulations. This act will undo the clean power plan, which is an initiative to lessen carbon emissions at coal powered power plants. This really hurts the US in trying to meet the benchmarks set at the Paris Climate Change Accord.
The White House believes that this will create more jobs and help the economy. However it is unclear if it will bring more jobs back because of the rise in demand of clean energy and the pressures on the coal industry.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/27/politics/trump-climate-change-executive-order/index.html
9 comments:
I think it will be interesting to see the reality of this job creation from the coal industry. While I understand the differences between the industries, the job creation that came from the Keystone XL pipeline is much less significant than what Trump led everyone to believe. In reality, there will only be peak employment during the busier summer months. Maybe the increase in coal production will be more effective. Only time will tell.
I do not agree with Trumps' executive order that will attempt to end the aid provided for administrations that help the environment. We are slowing becoming a nation that has moved away from the usage of coal in which has reduced the amount of carbon emissions. Our society is now trying to use solar powered plants in order to protect our environment. However, it was quite difficult to get to the stage we are in. Now Trump trying to get rid of this notion of protecting our environment is just taking backwards steps instead of forward. He strongly believes that by going back to coal it will create more jobs, but we will have to wait and see what happens.
I thought that this article was interesting because clean energy has been in the news. trump started with the pipeline and since that didn't produce as many jobs as he thought it would so it doesn't surprise me he trying to go back to coal. I don't think he weighed the pros and cons of this topic. it will be interesting to see how people respond to this.
I do believe we need to start to thinking about switching to clean energy completely, but we must do so in a way that doesn't lead to high job displacement. It seems that Trump does not want to tackle any of the tough issues facing the country and is instead opting to take the easy way out by signing this executive order. I agree that going back to coal will create more jobs, but by doing so we are taking 2 steps back in terms of protecting our environment. I don't think people will respond positively to this news and will instead create more problems for the Trump administration.
Munir is correct in his prediction, I read earlier today that Several tech companies have begun transitioning to renewable energy sources in recent years. Last year, Apple announced that 93 percent of its facilities run on renewable energy, while Google aims to purchase enough clean energy to meet its global electricity needs this year. Companies such as Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and IKEA have also said they will maintain clean energy commitments laid out under the Obama administration, Bloomberg reports. But the Chamber of Commerce and the fossil fuel industry has welcomed Trump’s executive order, saying it will undo regulations that inhibited economic growth.
This does create a lot of question of just how effective this kind of regulation repeal will be for our population. After working so hard to clean up the environment for so many years, it will be interesting to see how many people even want to work in an industry that is so anti-environment. However, I do look forward to seeing how the cheaper alternative effects the economy (not looking forward to environmental effects). Hopefully Trump's plan will go accordingly, although we have not been too fortunate to see this happening on previous plans just yet.
Trump's attempts to support the creation of more coal jobs seems like a misguided economic strategy given that the alternative-energy job sector is inevitably only going to experience continued growth in the coming years. Moreover, far less individuals, around 69,000 to be exact, are actually employed in coal-industry related jobs than Trump would have the general public to believe and there is nothing preventing the government from helping this relatively small group of workers from transitioning to another source of employment.
It's probably true that the regulation policy might kill jobs in the non-renewable resource filed in short term. However, the executive order will also kill jobs in the renewable resources fields. What's more, we all know that coal is non-renewable resource, so what if we use up the coal in America. People in coal industry will also lose their jobs in not far future. Whereas if we spend more on the renewable energy industries, in the long run, they would create more jobs.
It's hard to look at this policy path with any positive things to say. We will have to switch to renewable energy at some point due to the nature that fossil fuels are not renewable. What baffles me is that there is evidence of Job growth stemming from advances in renewable technology in countries like Germany who have made significant investments in this renewable technology. If Trump wants to create jobs, he should transfer some of the spending increases from military to sustainable energy (as it would serve a second purpose of increasing national security with a lower dependence on foreign oil).
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