Deep in coal country in Utah, there are hard lessons for climate activists

In a community suffering from brain drain and depleted jobs, people who feel they’ve been left behind also fear being villainized by mainstream environmentalists. Results from similar counties in the recent election suggest Joe Biden should take note

(Keegan Rice)

Just a week before the 2020 presidential election, I spent several days in coal country.

The stop-over was part of a 50-day tour across the United States by the Conservation Coalition, dubbed the Electric Election Roadtrip, with the mission of showcasing local climate solutions up and down this remarkable country. While gridlock and partisanship reign in DC, communities, local politicians, and entrepreneurs across America are getting on with the fight against climate change. Emery County, Utah is no different.

Many environmentalists are quick to villainize the fossil fuel community as an impediment to climate action, and paint fossil fuel executives as "criminals against humanity." They tend to shrug off the concerns and economic hardship of these communities as necessary byproducts in the fight against climate change, while ignoring the generations of hard work and culture that form the identity of such communities. In fact, we were the first climate activists to visit the community in Emery County. They’ve been ignored by everyone else.

In the adjacent towns of Orangeville and Castledale — a community of 2,820 people nestled between Wilberg coal mine and the coal-fired Hunter Power Plant — what we witnessed was nothing short of remarkable. In the middle of the desert, several miles outside of town, the commissioners were in the process of building not only a carbon capture and storage machine, but also a molten salt research center. Their long-term plan is to be able to capture and reuse carbon emitted by their local coal plant, and to act as a research hub for energy storage in the form of molten salt, which is 33 times more efficient than lithium-ion batteries.

“Coal is kind of a dirty word to a lot of people,” said Lynn Sitterud, the county commissioner of Emery County. “We’re just trying to help run the experiments and help everyone learn how to continue to have a baseload using coal as a fuel [while cleaning] up the emissions.”

Their motivation comes not from tackling climate change, but primarily from the local and economic significance of coal to their community. Of course, they are concerned about clean air and the environment, but more than anything they are worried about securing the long-term sustainability of their local economy and culture. One of the commissioners told us that both his great-grandfather and his father worked in the coal industry, and now his son did too. Generations of community identity and hard work have built up a unique culture in communities like these across the United States. Not only does it represent their economic livelihood, but it also instills a powerful sense of pride for the role that they have played in powering the American economy.

Recently, however, young people have been leaving Emery County in droves, in search of greater economic opportunity. Since 2012, the number of jobs in coal nationwide has nearly halved, producing widespread economic hardship in these communities. All the coal workers and commissioners we spoke to expressed their worry at these demographic trends; after all, their kids are leaving and not returning. After successive generations of family employment, communities are being upended and broken apart. Adding insult to injury, they’re still being referred to by climate activists as careless polluters. Indeed, what scares many of these communities is the demonization from and lack of dialogue with mainstream environmentalists. They deeply fear being left behind by the energy transition, and that has become one of the motivating factors for places like Emery County to innovate with carbon capture and energy storage.

“I get to see this county from the perspective of someone who sees the hardworking men and women, who, for decades, have sacrificed sometimes their health and their careers to boost energy for the rest of the country so they can turn a switch and be at 70 degrees,” said Congressman John Curtis, who joined the team in Utah.  “I think it’s so cool what’s happening here because these same men and women have the potential of transitioning to this next generation.”

Yet many people from these communities remain skeptical of politicians and the increasingly ambitious climate plans being thrown around — and the recent presidential election sharply exposed the concerns of fossil fuel communities. While there was speculation of Texas potentially flipping Democrat, with Kamala Harris even campaigning there a week before the election, Trump still won the state by over 600,000 votes. Oil and gas are the largest industry in the state, supporting over 330,000 jobs. In turn, Texas is the largest fossil fuel producer in America.

This clearly weighed on voters’ minds as they went to the ballot box, and sometimes even transcended long-standing political allegiances. Both Zapata County and Starr County in Texas, which are 90 percent Latino and normally Democratic strongholds, saw huge turnout for Trump. He won the former by 5 points, whereas he lost it by 33 in 2016, and only lost the latter by 5 points whereas he lost it by 58 to Clinton. Why? Both are some of the highest gas-producing counties in the country and don’t relate to current messaging from climate activists.

Even in key battleground states, where Biden did well, fossil fuel counties made the races much tighter than anticipated. States such as Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania are all heavy energy producers, especially oil and natural gas. While Trump won Ohio, Biden scraped by in Michigan and Pennsylvania with much smaller than expected majorities. Trump’s campaign strategy in these states focused on promising to protect jobs in the fossil fuel industry, and painting Biden as an enemy of fracking. It appears that the strategy was relatively successful. Whereas polls on average predicted that Biden would win in Pennsylvania by 6 points, he won by only 1 percent. In Michigan, polls put Biden at around 8.5 points ahead, some even claiming an advantage of 14 points, though he took it by about 3 percent. In Ohio, polls predicted a narrow Trump win by 1 percent — he ended up winning with close to 8 percent. In fossil fuel counties up and down these states, Trump’s victory margins were huge.

Clearly, many of these communities fear being left behind in the 21st century’s great energy realignment. Fears over Biden’s climate and fossil fuel plans were almost enough in some places to re-elect Trump for a second term, based on his promises to revive these industries. Instead of attracting widespread support from energy-producing areas, Biden heavily relied on young, suburban, and college-educated votes. If it weren’t for historic turnout among these demographics, America’s fossil fuel heartland would have re-elected Donald Trump.

This warrants our attention. Environmentalists cannot afford to villainize these constituencies and keep them on the sidelines, as this election has clearly shown. Rather, we need them to occupy a central seat at the table, as we seek not only an energy transition, but also a just transition.

It is only by bringing on board constituencies like Emery County and other fossil fuel counties across the country that we can achieve real and lasting change that safeguards the livelihood of these people. A greener future requires constructive debate, cooperation, and empathy. In the words of Commissioner Sitterud, “We just need support here.”

Christopher Barnard is the National Policy Director at the American Conservation Coalition (ACC)