Working on a Solution

Working on a Solution

Employment is an important and often contentious issue in most countries, with concerns about providing enough good jobs for everyone who wants one. Fossil-fuel companies unequivocally provide many jobs, and good ones. Recently, natural-gas fracking in Pennsylvania, where Dr. Alley lives, has generated many jobs (although some of them have come at the expense of coal jobs). How many? Do you count only the jobs in the industry? Or the jobs in supply industries? Or the jobs that are supported by the salaries of people in the industry and the supply industries through the money they spend? Different groups promote different numbers, which can vary greatly. Real issues underlie some of the choices—you could argue that if Pennsylvania did not produce gas, it would produce coal, or wind energy, or something, so the jobs would exist. Or, you could argue that if Pennsylvania did not produce gas, the jobs would all go to Texas or Saudi Arabia, and then you need to decide whether Pennsylvania should count jobs there or not.

This billboard greeted travelers driving north on Interstate 70 from the Mason-Dixon Line, in 2013. It doesn’t say anything about jobs, but the art work, and the information you would read if you looked up this organization, leave no doubt that this group is interested in coal jobs. Deep mining for coal (“in the hole”) once made many jobs that were not very pleasant; available scholarship says that while modern coal mining does make jobs, other ways to get our energy are likely to make more jobs.

Photo Credit: Richard Alley

With a sufficiently broad view, the most accurate assessment probably is that, if we ignore the economic good from avoided climate change, switching from fossil fuels to alternatives will have relatively little influence on employment overall, if the switch is done so as to minimize impacts or maximize gains in the economy, as described above. A small but notable body of literature points to gains in employment with a switch. And, if the advantages of an economically optimal course as opposed to a business-as-usual course are considered, gains in employment become likely. A few relevant references are given in the Enrichment. Note that although the literature on employment effects of energy choices is growing rapidly, it has not reached the level of reliability that applies to, say, the radiative effects of CO₂.