Yesterday, 125 youth from the Michigan Student Sustainability Coalition rallied for green jobs, clean and just energy, and accountability from our Department of Environmental Quality at a public hearing for permits to massively expand Consumers Energy’s Karn Weadock complex’s coal-fired plant by 800 mega watts. As the rally drew to a close and we entered the public hearing, a woman from Bay City shared with me why she joined us in opposition to the expansion. Her mother lives in one of nine homes across the mouth of the Saginaw River from the Karn Weadock complex and is in the midst of her 4th battle with cancer. Each of the nine families living on the row of beachfront homes is afflicted by cancer. It is not a coincidence.
In addition to the air pollution that escapes the smoke stacks day-in-and-day-out, the complex produces coal ash by the ton (as do all coal plants) and stores it in poorly regulated retention ponds. Coal ash contains high concentrations of beryllium, cadmium, chromium, nickel, selenium, arsenic, and mercury. For years, two of the Karn Weadock ponds have been leaching into the Saginaw Bay only a few football fields away from these nine homes and others.
When 125 students from nine schools across Michigan united at the public hearing in Bay City, we united for a properous and sustainable economy for all and the present conditions those who’s lives are endangered or cut short by coal’s toxic lifecycle.
We, however, were not the only constituency out in force yesterday.
The wheels of the coal propaganda machine have been turning in Michigan! Duped community members display signs reading “Clean Coal = Michigan Jobs,” and hundreds of union workers from the electricians, the brick layers, the boiler makers, and the iron workers wore America’s Power’s clean coal t-shirts. The union leadership, understandably grasping for any jobs to be found, required them to be there.
There was a tangible tension in the air. Again, understandably so. The coal propaganda machine has been working overtime, and old school environmentalism has left much of the working class with a deep-set distrust of anyone resembling an environmentalist. We will need to overcome this to win the world we want.
In over 70 public comments, stretching late into the night, members of the Michigan Student Sustainability Coalition pointed to the many flaws in the permit under question, articulated a vision for clean energy and green jobs for ourselves and the unions, and shed light on the life cycle impacts of coal – from the broken mountaintops of Appalachia to the toxic ponds leaching into the Saginaw Bay. And though we made our pro-labor stance clear (one commenter began “My father is in UAW, his father was in UAW, my mother is in the teacher’s union and I’ve worked for AFSCME and the Teamsters, and this is the first time I’ve been in a room full of angry union members, and not been one of them”) it is going to take more than rhetoric to win their support – especially in places in Michigan, where unemployment is nearing 12%.
The few public officials and union representatives who spoke in favor of coal gave the usual arguments, ranging from the Machiavellian intentional misinformation presentations from the likes of Dow Chemical and bought politicians, to earnest pleas for jobs from workers.
Our movement needs to build working class credibility. And when I say build, I mean build. No matter the elegant perfection of our green jobs and clean energy talking points and fact sheets or our nuanced understanding of class oppression, a message cannot trump the promise of a job when few jobs are to be found. I spoke with many of the workers there, and it became quite clear to me that they aren’t pro-coal. They are pro-job. We’ve got common ground there.
I am left with two questions after last night’s hearing. Given the absolute imperative of rapidly transitioning away from coal, which includes blocking all 8 of the proposed coal plants in Michigan, how can we build alliances with those who would gain employment in the construction or operation of a new coal plant? I know the talking point “their skills are skills for the clean energy economy,” but a talking point, true as it is, does not provide a firm enough foundation for an alliance. Secondly, how do we ensure that the green economy does not reproduce the same class oppressions that have divided us for too long?
The fact that 125 students from every corner of the state came together for this public hearing made it a great success and a clear sign of the growing strength of the youth climate movement. As we move forward, however, creating, not just articulating in talking points, the answers to those questions will be fundamental to the success of our movement.
