1/9/2017 Trumps Energy, Low and Dirty - The New York Times

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The Opinion Pages | OP-ED COLUMNIST

Trumps Energy, Low and Dirty

Paul Krugman MAY 29, 2017

Donald Trump has two false beliefs about energy, one personal, one political. And
the latter may send the world on a path to disaster.

On the personal side, Trump reportedly disdains exercise of any kind except
golf. He believes that raising a sweat depletes the finite reserves of precious bodily
fluids, I mean energy, that a person is born with, and should therefore be avoided.

Many years of acting on this belief may or may not explain the weird and
embarrassing scene at the G-7 summit in Taormina, in which six of the advanced
worlds leaders strolled together a few hundred yards through the historic city, but
Trump followed behind, driven in an electric golf cart.

More consequential, however, is Trumps false belief that lifting environmental

restrictions ending the supposed war on coal will bring back the days when
the coal-mining industry employed hundreds of thousands of blue-collar Americans.

How do we know that this belief is false? For one thing, coal employment began
falling long before anyone was talking much about the environment, let alone global
warming. In fact, coal jobs fell by two-thirds between 1948 and 1970, the year the
Environmental Protection Agency was founded. This happened despite rising, not
falling, coal production, mainly reflecting the replacement of old-fashioned pick-
and-shovel mining with strip-mining and mountaintop removal, which require many
fewer workers.

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1/9/2017 Trumps Energy, Low and Dirty - The New York Times

Its true that in the past few years coal production has finally begun to fall, in part
due to environmental rules. Mainly, however, coal is fading because of progress in
other technologies. As one analyst put it last week, coal doesnt really make that
much sense anymore as a feedstock, given the rapidly falling costs of cleaner energy
sources like natural gas, wind and solar power.

Who was that analyst? Gary Cohn, chairman of the National Economic Council
that is, Trumps own chief economist. One wonders, however, whether hes
expressed those views which pretty much represent the consensus among energy
experts to the president.

There was a time, not that long ago, when advocating clean energy was widely
considered an impractical, counterculture sort of thing. Hippies on communes might
talk about peace, love and solar energy; practical people knew that prosperity was all
about digging stuff up and burning it. These days, however, those who take energy
policy seriously see a future that belongs largely to renewables and definitely not a
future in which we keep burning lots of coal, let alone employ a lot of people digging
it up.

But thats not what voters from what used to be coal country want to hear. They
enthusiastically backed Trump, who promised to bring those coal jobs back, even
though his real agenda would punish those voters with savage cuts in programs they
depend on. And Trump cares a lot more about public adulation than he does about
serious policy advice.

Which brings me back to Trumps European trip, which was remarkable not for
what Trump did but for what he didnt do.

First, in Brussels, he declined to endorse NATOs Article 5, which says that an

attack on any NATO member is an attack on all. In effect, he repudiated the central
plank of Americas most important alliance. Why, it was almost as if hes more
interested in appeasing Vladimir Putin than he is in defending democracy.

Then, in Taormina, he was the only leader who refused to endorse the Paris
climate accord, a global agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions that may be
our last good chance to avoid catastrophic climate change. Why?

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At this point, claims that trying to limit emissions would cause vast economic
harm have lost all credibility: The same technological progress in alternative energy
that is marginalizing coal would make the transition to a low-emissions economy far
cheaper than anyone imagined a few years ago.

True, such a transition would accelerate the decline in coal. And thats a reason
to provide aid and new kinds of jobs for coal miners.

But Trump isnt offering coal country real help, just a fantasy about turning back
the clock. This fantasy wont last for long: In a couple of years it will be obvious,
whatever he does, that the coal jobs arent coming back. But the fantasy wont even
last that long if he goes along with the Paris accord.

So am I suggesting that the worlds most powerful leader might put the whole
planets future at risk so that he can keep telling politically convenient lies, which
will soon be exposed in any case? Yes. If you find this implausible, you must not have
been reading the news the past few months.

Now, maybe Trump wont really pull the plug on Paris; or maybe hell be gone
from the scene before the damage is irreversible. But theres a real possibility that
last week was a pivotal moment in human history, the moment when an
irresponsible leader sent the whole world careening off to hell in a golf cart.

Read my blog, The Conscience of a Liberal, and follow me on Twitter, @PaulKrugman.

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A version of this op-ed appears in print on May 29, 2017, on Page A21 of the New York edition with the
headline: Trumps Energy, Low And Dirty.

2017 The New York Times Company

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