On Friday, the Huffington Post ran a great story from Élan Young that shows that “Coal Knew, Too.” The documents at the center of the story are a 1966 copy of the Mining Congress Journal, featuring a piece from a former coal research group’s president, James Garvey, and a brief one responding to Garvey’s piece from a Peabody Coal engineer.
The essays are both relatively straightforward and unexceptional, focused mostly on sulfur emissions, but Garvey does mention an area “under serious study”: carbon dioxide and the threat that “vast changes in the climates of the earth will result” from continued emissions. Changes that “will cause melting of the polar icecaps, which, in turn, would result in the inundation of many coastal cities, including New York and London.”
In his response, Peabody engineer James Jones focuses on the sulfur emissions issues Garvey discussed, ignoring the climate concern entirely. But his response nonetheless was indicative of how the industry, and indeed even the company, would address climate change: ignore it and distract from it, ultimately “buying time” before regulations are put in place.
Young touches on the rich history of Peabody’s climate denial efforts (former executive Fred Palmer, a denier figurehead, then went on to the Heartland Institute). But Young unfortunately fails to mention that Peabody’s bankruptcy revealed its funding of a variety of anti-climate groups, like CFACT, and denier experts, like Willie Soon and Pat Michaels.
Instead, Young retraces the Exxon Knew investigations and parallels to the coal industry, ultimately wondering “who’ll be left to sue” if the coal industry faces similar scrutiny.
That’s a perfectly reasonable question. Despite a lifeline from international exports, things are not looking good for the long-term viability of the coal industry.
But think, for a moment, on the world that we could be living in if instead of “buying time,” in the 1960s, Peabody and the rest of the fossil fuel industry actually started looking for solutions. If instead of funding groups to delay the onset of regulations, they funded groups to develop real solutions. They could’ve cornered the renewables market instead of trying to crush it, and would now be a growing 21st century industry instead of a dying one clinging to a 19th century model of digging and burning.
Imagine if in response to the oil crisis in the ‘70s, we went all-in on electric cars. Sure, at the time they would’ve been largely coal-powered, but what if the automakers had also been responsible and spent money researching electric vehicle technology instead of fighting regulations?
Politically, we could have instituted a small and modest price on carbon in the, say, the 1980s, that would have allowed for a gradual phase out of fossil fuels.
Instead, they did what was admittedly standard industry practice, and set up front groups to deny the problem and deceive the public, as is still happening. That only bought them so long though. As the impacts of industry lies become more clear, the public cry for justice grows louder. Most recently, a leading Democratic candidate for president suggested the possibility of prosecuting the fossil fuel executives who knowingly profited off of the destruction of a stable climate.
Peabody definitely succeeded in “buying time,” but maybe now they should start worrying about serving it!
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