Assignment 16: Seech - Jake Tucker

An old saying goes, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”, and this statement is very much true, and nothing expresses this better than when the government gets too involved with the economy. This is evidenced by the ongoing attack on the backbone of the economy in our home state. I am of course referring to the coal industry and the decimating of it in the name of the environment and climate change. While climate change is undoubtedly happening, the best way to fix the problem isn’t the government slowly choking the life out of coal mines with increased taxes and fines for breaking pointless regulations that do little to differ the effects on the environment. Rather, we should remove unnecessary regulations and allow the free market to determine the balance of economic stability and environmental protection; this will ultimately lead to the use of cleaner and improved forms of energy.

The free market has allowed for Kentucky to build a rather stable economy based on coal mining and processing, and let others focus on the state’s other and more specialized industries like bourbon production and thoroughbred breeding. Coal does this through generating over $500 million for the state government (maced.org). However, Washington decided to punish the coal industry for generating profit through enforcing regulations on the mining, transporting, and production of coal power. These regulations decreased the amount of coal mining jobs by about 22% in Eastern Kentucky and 13% in Western Kentucky (Kentucky.com). This isn’t just the miners losing jobs, there are engineering jobs, management jobs, and even positions for geologists disappearing at the coal mines because they can no longer afford these employees. The loss of jobs extends past the coal mines as well; it extends to businesses like my grandfather’s, who is in the mine supply manufacturing and repairing business. He is always talking about how he had to lay employees off because of the reduced traffic of customers. This ceaseless choking of a reliable source of energy that employs thousands of people in Kentucky alone; can’t stand if we want our economy to stay afloat. The idea is that the imbeciles running the country see themselves out of the economy and let the market guide the economic future of the country.

Another point to be addressed, however, is that the government is not the only problem in the progress and improvement of the economy, and that is the people who have taken it upon themselves to prevent anything they deem as harmful to the environment. While one does have to respect the loyalty they express to their cause, you also have to question why they deem stopping a business that would improve the economy that is beginning to stagnate. An example of this is found in a documentary called “Jumbo Wild”. The film starts by showing gorgeous shots of a beautiful national park in Canada, and goes on to show how some “evil”, Italian business man is trying to ruin the local area by building a ski resort in this pristine wilderness. The story is painted as an oppressed people in British Columbia just trying to protect the environment, however the story is truly about a local population who doesn’t want increased traffic and an influx of tourists during ski season. This being despite the local economy based on logging, another industry constantly being scrutinized for environmental and being in decline. This failure to expand the economy could really come back to hurt this area in British Columbia, and even though the land is beautiful, a ski resort will not ruin the beauty, it will only bring more money to the town and allow for more people to experience the beauty of the area. What is so evil about earning more revenue and increasing tourism?

When writing this a realization that my argument could also be attributed to the coal industry arose. The Eastern and Western parts of our state as well as other parts of our country heavily rely on a single industry that ultimately fails. Touched on earlier was the amount of unemployment in the coal mining areas of the country, but this is due to a non-diverse economy based on one failing industry. While the government isn’t helping ease the pain by applying the quick pull technique of Band-Aids; these areas aren’t helping themselves any by not investing in any other sort of industry. This failure is seen very prevalently in Detroit, where the automotive industry ruled the roost until unions and products with decreasing quality, forced the car manufacturers to choose between going out of town or out business. They did neither as the government used almost $81 billion taxpayer dollars to save the car manufacturers. The prevalence of economies to fail because of one industry is frightening, though a solution is simply to diversify the economy.

 Though these groups are rather stubborn in their beliefs as are the anti-environmentalists, the ultimate answer to the issue of conservation is not the utter destruction of the climate, nor is it the cessation of all burning or extracting of fossil fuels. The easiest, yet somehow most overlooked, answer turns out to include the government, and that is the removal of all federal standards for fossil fuels and rather a push by the government to further develop the clean energy sector. This will allow for the fossil fuels to be eased out and the newer forms of energy to be introduced, while also not ruining the economy of a small town based on coal mining.