Letter: Health benefits of coal questionable - Columbus Dispatch

The Monday op-ed "Commitment to coal keeps America strong" by Christian Palich could've been
called “Coal's plea of desperation to remain relevant today.”

The writer quoted Alex Epstein, the author of “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels.” Epstein, touted
by Palish as an expert, declares that, over decades, China has increased its coal production by a
factor of five without those pesky regulations we have for health reasons here in the United
States. I can't dispute that, but the fact that the result of coal's growth has reduced infant
mortality in China and the same occurred in India "where infant mortality rate fell by 58 percent
after increasing coal use” seems a bit grandiose in its claim. What of all the developments in
health care, increased access to health care, medicines and of all the other improvements — are
they beneficiaries of coal too?

According to Reuter's, China's love affair with coal is already cooling rapidly. The China
National Coal Association will close 1,000 plants before the end of 2016. Another 4,300 plants are
slated to close within three years, and there is a three-year moratorium on building any new
plants.

One reason is China's pollution, a joint Chinese peer-reviewed study revealed more than 1,000
people died prematurely per day in China as a direct response to breathing coal.

Other articles claim India is set to outpace China in coal-related deaths.

Regulation didn't put coal out of business, the market did. If we still had gasoline at $5 a
gallon and less natural gas, coal might have a chance. But not the coal in veins of West Virginia,
Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Ohio, where it costs twice as much to extract.

I find the writer's logic that our water and air are cleaner because coal plants absurd. The
Clean Water Act, The Clean Air Act and the countless preventative measures against pollution from
cars to factories play a mite bigger role than feeble attempts to be responsible corporate
citizens.

I'm through arguing climate change with deniers duped by propaganda from Big Energy. And it's
not as if coal's deserved demise hasn't had very personal consequences. My grandfather began a
coal-tar roofing company that my father took over from 1955 to 2005, working on the roof until age
78. Once coal tar fell from favor environmentally, products tripled within a short period of time.
Technology to refit equipment to new standards proved very costly. So coal was one of the major
reasons an 80-plus-year-old business crumbled.

The business shut down and my grandchildren's property was lost, along with all my father and
the rest of us built.

We don't need to burn every last bit of fossil fuels. Burning coal is the No. 1 cause of carbon
dioxide, the biggest contributor to climate change. Palich claimed our air is cleaner, yet our
atmosphere is dirtier and hotter.

This entire essay read like a failed coal commercial that jumped to some wild conclusions about
coal's environmental and health benefits.

Bob Goodburn

Columbus