When you vote on Nov. 6, remember what’s at stake. Chief among my concerns is the growing threat posed by climate change, and the lack of federal support for renewable energy.
The leading deniers are members of the fossil fuel industry, the same industry now asking taxpayers to protect them from rising sea levels and more severe storms. Remember this when they, and their paid politicians, deny that climate change is happening.
The Trump administration’s promise to revive coal’s flagging fortunes isn’t adding up either. More than 260,000 Americans now work in the solar power industry. Meanwhile, coal mining employs about 53,000 people, and represents just a sliver of the American economy. In Pennsylvania, two times more people work in solar and wind power than in fossil fuels!
Coal’s reputation for generating high-paying jobs is also in decline. Today, about 2.5 percent of coal mining jobs are unionized. As unions shrink so do wages. (An advertisement for an underground coal mining job in Waynesburg, Pa., last year offered $17 per hour, or less than $35,000 a year.)
Developing countries are adopting renewable energy with a vengeance. India knows it costs less to build a renewable energy plant than to keep a coal plant running. Sunlight, after all, is free, clean and plentiful.
Our current crop of Republicans cannot do the math. They deny the threat while asking taxpayers to protect them from the growing threats of climate change.
On Nov. 6, vote the deniers out! Marc Friedenberg, Democratic candidate for Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District, represents the future.
Mimi Reed
State College
