Mother Jones Quotes
Not all the coal that is dug warms the world.
Jones, Mary Harris. The Autobiography of Mother Jones. Charles H. Kerr & Company, 1925, p. 132.
There are those who worry that we will run out of oil. However, as Khosla observes, the more immediate danger is the pollution of the planet’s air supply by burning fossil fuels like oil in large volumes.
This quotation on the surface appears to be a clear summary of the scientifically measured negative aspects to coal. However, it was an extremely bitter political quotation. The reason was that West Virginia and the other parts of Appalachia depend on coal for employment—jobs for the residents in a poverty-stricken area where there are few other potential sources for employment. Coal is also a key economic component of the economy in Wyoming. These states regard the reduction of coal as an energy source as one of the most serious political threats to their states and the treat it accordingly. West Virginia has Democratic Senators and congressmen from Appalachia. Wyoming has Republicans. Both exert enormous pressure on their Congressional Party leadership and the White House. With the country and Congress split at the time, Republicans had control of the House, and Democrats, the Senate and the Presidency—by very narrow margins so the leaderships cannot offend anyone in Congress. The result is that there was almost total silence about the huge coal pollution problem, and even in the second decade of the 21st century, where shale natural Gas was extractable in sufficient quantities to totally replace Coal as a fuel source, few in Congress or the administration ever even spoke of adopting a national policy to this effect, much less passed any legislation. During this period many Americans sickened and died as a result of coal every year with no end in sight.
His assertion that wind energy is less expensive than the fossil fuel alternative is not accurate if one accounts for the costs on the basis of conventional accounting methods. It was at that time more expensive which is why it’s use was limited. However, the existing methods of accounting did not charge the fossil fuels for the environmental degregation that they cause and the cost to society to overcome these or live with them. More important there is no charge to the cost of fossil fuels for the deleterious health effects that their extraction and use cause. Global warming / climate change is not considered at all in the economic analysis.
Mary G. Harris Jones, known as Mother Jones from 1897 onwards, was an Irish-born American schoolteacher and dressmaker who became a prominent union organizer, community organizer, and activist. She helped coordinate major strikes and co-founded the Industrial Workers of the World.
