Green Jobs Up, Coal Jobs Down

clipped from www.enn.com A transition to renewable energy sources promises significant global job gains at a time when the coal industry has been hemorrhaging jobs for years, according to the latest Vital Signs Update released by the Worldwatch Institute. The coal, oil, and natural gas industries require steadily fewer jobs as high-cost production equipment takes the place of human capital. Many hundreds of thousands of coal mining jobs have been shed in China, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and South Africa during the last two decades, sometimes in the face of expanding production. In the United States alone, coal industry employment has fallen by half in the last 20 years, despite a one-third increase in production. "Government officials now have yet another reason to put the full weight of their support behind renewables," said Renner. "In addition to protecting our planet and phasing out an increasingly limited resource, policies that support renewable energy also support job creation."

So much for the argument that fighting climate change will hurt the economy. That argument's looking more and more like what it actually is -- the argument of the buggywhip industry against those newfangled horseless carriages.