Mike Roselle Quotes
There is nothing wrong from divesting from coal. It certainly is immoral to profit from the extraction of fossil fuels... But we ask these college students to just divest. Nothing happens. People just sell their stock.
[Other's disagree that divestiture tactics are not very useful. They do bring pubic attention to the fossil fuels threat. And divesture tends to drive the price of the coal companies down. That makes it harder to raise money to expand and mine more fossil fuels.]
Interview, The Progressive, May 2016
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
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.
Many environmentalists who urgently tried to reduce man’s use of fossil fuels, objected when clean energy windmills were proposed. They objected to the possible damage to flying birds and the aesthetic degradation of the landscape.
Less than an average of 5 feet above sea level, Maldives is the lowest country in the world. It’s highest point is less than 8 feet high. The small increase in the world sea level resulting from climate change has already affected Maldives, and an increase of only a foot would wipe out a large part of the country.
Both the Freon used in air conditioners and the energy to run the air conditioning equipment (generated by fossil fuels) contribute to global warming. Therefore Cox observes that the more air conditioning we use the warmer the climate as a whole gets. And then we need more air conditioning to be comfortable. This in turn produces more warming and Cox argues were are in an endless cycle. However, while this is true, the incremental energy required to produce the additional cooling to offset the global warming is relatively small. What is the greater problem is if the billions of people who do not now have air conditioning want it and get it. That will require enormous additional energy which could produce substantially more global warming. It should be noted that the United States has already banned Freon in favor of coolants which do not attack the ozone layer. And if the energy for air conditioning were produced by clean energy—nuclear, thermal, wind, hydroelectric or solar, the whole problem is moot and there would be no problem with air conditioning. However, as long as we use fossil fuels, Cox’s point is well taken.
Many argue that they are hardly reflected at all. The reason is the governments pay for much of the real cost and spread the cost over its taxpayers. Some costs are not monetary—premature deaths from pollution or corruption in petroeconomic corrupt states. People just suffer.
Environmentalist Founder, Earth First, Rainforest Action Network, and The Rukus Society
