Conservative Media's New Lie About Obama and Coal Jobs

Conservative media keeps saying there have been 83,000 coal mining jobs lost under President Obama. The problem is that there were barely that many coal mining jobs total when President Obama took office.

Total U.S. coal mining jobs, according to the Energy Information Administration:

• 2009: 86,859
• 2014: 74,931 (most recent year available)

If you believe the historic trends, the war on coal began under President Reagan and has had only modest success under President Obama:

The truth is that mechanization has been killing coal jobs for decades. As the Center for American Progress reports, in recent years, cheap fracked gas and competition with foreign coal have done as much to hurt coal as clean air regulations.

Men of Big Coal Send Women to Lobby Congress

The coal lobby is sending women to lobby Congress this week. The Women's Mining Coalition includes "companies like Arch Coal Inc. and Cloud Peak Energy Inc.," reports Manuel Quinones of E&E News.

"This group of females really represents such tremendous leadership across the entire mining sector," says the group's president. Does it? Let's take a look at the numbers:

• Coal mining employment (2013): 91% men, 9% women
• Arch Coal Board of Directors: 10 men, 1 woman
• Arch Coal Corporate Governance Officers: 14 men, 1 woman
• Cloud Peak Energy Management Team: 8 men, 0 women

It's the latest reminder that polluting industries are run almost exclusively by rich old white guys.

Why Do Only Progressives, and Not Polluters, Need to be Diverse?

Darryl Fears has a good piece in today's Washington Post taking a closer look at diversity in the environmental movement - or lack of it. Tough but fair. I work for an environmental organization and I agree green groups don't do nearly enough.

But what about polluters and their allies - how are they doing on diversity?

• Exxon Mobil board of directors: 12 members, 2 women, 0 Hispanics, 2 African Americans
• Arch Coal board of directors: 11 members, 1 woman, 0 Hispanics, 0 African Americans
• Heritage Foundation board of trustees: 27 members, 8 women, 0 Hispanics, 1 African American
• Congressional Republican leadership (House & Senate): 10 members, 1 woman, 0 Hispanics, 0 African Americans

What about workers in polluting industries? It's just as bad:

• Oil & gas extraction: 23% women, 9% Hispanic, 4% African American
• Coal mining: 6% women, 3% Hispanic, 1% African American

No one writes articles about polluting industries being almost entirely white men because it's taken for granted that polluting industries are all run by rich old white guys. Even when they repeatedly get caught using stock photos to try to not look to the public like such rich old white guys - and Republicans, coal, and chemical polluters all have - it isn't covered in the mainstream media because again, everyone is just supposed to already know that polluters are rich old white guys who buy pictures of non-rich old white guys to make themselves look like they care about non-rich old white guys.

Again, I think conservationists need to do more to reach out to Hispanics and African-Americans. Excluding them isn't just wrong, it's bad business - polls show minorities are exceptionally strong supporters of climate action in particular and clean air & water in general.

But much like the media holds polluters and their allies to a much lower standard ethically, they're held to no standard on diversity.

Exxon Mobil Sponsoring Climate Silence on Science Channel

I was watching Faces of Earth on the Discovery Communications-owned Science Channel this morning as it discussed finding fossil fuels, both coal mining and oil drilling. I was amazed at how the show didn't mention any negative effects of mining fossil fuels:

• Nothing about oil & gas disasters or deaths inside or outside coal mines
• Nothing about the destructive effects of mountaintop removal
• Nothing about global warming or any other air and water pollution

So I waited for the closing credits. Sure enough, as the "sponsors" frame flashed for only a moment, Exxon Mobil helped fund the series.

Once again, it's a shame that networks that profit from the wonders of nature aren't doing more to protect them.