Earth Day Is A Reminder of Decades of Wonderful Progress, But a Year of Tragic Regression
Though the environmental atrocities of the Trump administration will not survive too long after his presidency comes to an end, it certainly is painful to watch our skies and waterways flooded with poisons of all types. (Here’s a bit of detail on the dumping of mining waste into our streams.)
It’s especially frustrating given the “beautiful math” that surrounds the plummeting costs of solar and wind. Solar now costs less than 1% of what it did 40 years ago, and less than 20% of what it did 10 years ago. The other side of the coin is job creation in renewable energy, which already provides three times more jobs than oil, gas and coal combined.
Craig,
“renewable energy, which already provides three times more jobs than oil, gas and coal combined”
You appear to live in a parallel universe, you are certainly be entitled to your own, but not your own facts !
Oil is the planet’s largest job creator, larger than Agriculture. In the US, the Oil industry is the largest source of revenue for the Federal Government.
I should have qualified: in electric power generation. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-solar-power-employs-more-people-more-oil-coal-gas-combined-donald-trump-green-energy-fossil-fuels-a7541971.html
Craig,
Well, okay,.. but even then the quote you’ve cited from the UK’s Independent, seems inaccurate.
” Solar energy employed 374,000 people over the year 2015-2016″
The US DOE and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, report for 2015-2016, only 206,000 worked in the Solar sector.
Even then the figure is extremely dubious since it includes sales people and a great many ancillary employees such as phone canvassers etc.
The figure seems to have decreased dramatically in 2017 as the effect of the decline in State subsidies, or compulsory buy price for surplus by utilities was reduced in many locations.
2017, saw a constriction in the US Solar industry with employment losses of more than 20,000.
( The US Solar Foundation’s latest National Solar Jobs Census counts only 9,800lost, but that figure only includes responding members,not bankruptcies, etc).
The US coal industry employs more than 280.000 if transport, rehabilitation, technology etc is taken into consideration. In fact, if figure compiled for coal were calculated by the same factors as Solar, coal could be said to employ more than 600,000 !
Coal, and gas are industries where technology is reducing the labour force dramatically. To the consumer, the cost of generating power from coal needs continuous labour, unlike Solar, where, in theory, once the system is installed needs no further labour.