"Politics, a strife of interest masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage."
"Corporation, an ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility."
- Ambrose Bierce
American journalist and satirist
1842 - 1914
A mining disaster is defined as a mine accident, including coal mining accidents, where there are five or more fatalities, according to the United States Mine Rescue Association's website, which identifies it as the largest mine rescue organization in the world. In the current mining disaster media frenzy, I found this web site one of the few sources that was both expert, and non-political :www.usmra.com
Context:
The same website identifies that the worst mine disasters in our history were around a hundred years ago where hundreds died in a single accident. Looking at approximately the last 50 years, where regulation and technology combined improved on those statistics, deaths in the worst mining disaster hovered around 100, plus or minus. From 1951 to 2010, the fatalities occurring in mining disasters started diminishing from triple digits. In 1951, only 10 disasters involved deaths in double digits, including the one this month in West Virginia, with the worst occurring in 1968, with 78 deaths. A dozen more disasters in the last 50 years involved loss of life in the single digits.
All of which suggests that while mining is inherently dangerous, despite the inherent dangers, it is possible to reduce these accidents dramatically. It may not be possible to completely eliminate fatalities; but as there are companies that have fewer accidents and do not have mining disasters at all, it seems reasonable to expect we can reduce accidents to fewer than we currently experience, and to eliminate or nearly eliminate mining disasters. But, only if we want to do so, if we decide it is important to do so.
Cross referencing Mining Disasters (not just accidents) with Mining Safety Legislation
using data from the Worst US Mine Disasters page of the USMRA, and the site History of Mine Safety and Health Legislation, from the US Department of Labor website
Disasters
through 1875
19 Coal Mine Disasters
no fatality data
no safety legislation
1876 - 1900
101 Coal Mine Disasters/ fatalities exceed 2000 / year
1891, legislation prohibited mines from employing children under 12,
first minimum ventilation requirements in underground mines;
only applied to mines in the US territories
1901-1925
305 Coal Mine Disasters/ no complete disaster fatality information;
*total fatalities for the 3 worst coal mining disasters in US history, 884
1910, legislation creating the Bureau of Mines, as part of the Dept. of' the Interior.
1926-1950
2 disasters* no stats available for all disasters, only the 2 worst, 1940 - 1950/274 fatalities*
1941, authority for inspections, Bureau of Mines
1947, first federal safety regulation
1951 - 1975
5 disasters /197 fatalities
1952 Federal Coal Mine Safety Act, limited enforcement provisions
1966 amended to apply to all underground mines
1966 Federal Metal and Non-Metallic Mine Safety Act,
first standards, expanded investigations and inspections
1969 Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act
strengthened health and safety standards, monetary and criminal penalties
addresses black lung
1976 - 2000
13 disasters /183 fatalities
1977 Federal Mine Safety and Health Act
Created the Mine Safety and Health Administration under the Dept. of Labor,
Created the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission
Expanded the rights and protection of miners,
produced a drop in fatalities from 272 in 1977 to 86 in 2000
2001-2010
5 disasters/ 64 fatalities +4
2006 Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act (MINER)
According to the Unites States Mine Rescue Association, "Mine accidents have declined dramatically in number and severity through decades of research, technology, and preventive programs. Today, mine accidents resulting in five or more deaths are no longer common. However, preventing recurrence of disasters like those of the past remains a top priority requiring constant vigilance by management, labor, and government."
What I found was that legislation typically occurred - almost exclusively occurred - as a result of outrage over the worst coal mining disasters; a few occurred in response to outrage at overall coal mining deaths. The conclusion from the disaster statistics, the fatality statistics, and the examination of legislation progressing chronologically, is that the Free Market mechanism is useless in providing protection to those who labor to do the dirty and dangerous work of mining. Regulation has made consistent differences not only in reducing disasters but in smaller coal mining accidents; it reduces not only fatalities, but injuries and illness. Allegations of putting profit ahead of safety have been made against some coal mining companies, including the Massey Energy Company which owns the Upper Big Branch Mine where the most recent disaster has occurred, in a mine with a list of safety violations as long as my arm, and a large amount of unpaid fines.
Is it possible, in the current divided Congress, to pursue better legislation, better enforcement? Certainly it is difficult. Republicans and Conservatives can be counted on, as they have at all of the other legislation, to claim it is anti-business, and that the free market should be allowed to prevail to solve all problems. They seem less willing to address the issue of people dying as the Free Market operates - or that it has failed to operate to benefit anyone except mine owners and operators in the long history of coal mining in the United States.
One of the questions to ask while writing a blog post is "what do I want" from writing this. I want effective regulation that protects miners. I want it to be as business friendly as possible, but it should also address the problem that we are as dependent on coal to provide electricity as we are dependent on oil for other industries. Since financial penalties appear to be less effective than we might wish, short term, I want to see jail time for the executives who make the decisions about safety compliance become one of the consequences for miners dying or suffering injuries in accidents, where mine operators are negligent in complying with safety regulations that cause the accidents and deaths.
President George W. Bush was criticized for being pro coal industry corporations, many of which were generous Republican doners, and lax on safety enforcement, including the 2006 Sago mine disaster. President Obama has chosen pro-union people for his administration, although they have not been appointed soon enough to be very effective so far, and huge problems exist which have not been addressed by the Obama administration. For this Obama should also be sharply criticized. People have died, in another of the worst coal mining accidents in our recent history. We need to take the politics out of safety regulation; we need to stop putting either profits or politics ahead of miner's lives.
The coal that was easier to extract from the ground has nearly all been removed and used. In the short term, mining the coal remaining, like the other fossil fuels, oil and natural gas, is going to be increasingly more dangerous to those who work to bring it to the surface; increasingly the extraction is becoming more dangerous to the environment of the communities where these resources exist underground. We also need long term solutions that address the increasing dangers, and the decreasing fossil fuel resources, switching over to safer renewable energy alternatives.
One of the renewable alternative resources pioneered by the University of Minnesota is a solution to two problems - energy, and cleaning our waste water. The U of MN came up with an algae that cleans waste water, and at the same time, produces a safe bio-fuel bi-product, a single solution to two problems at the same time. The cost of sewage treatment has been a large one to communities, and sewage is, clearly, one of the ultimate renewable resources. But even if we don't embrace this possibility as a solution, we need to look closely at our options, because every one of us who demands cheap electricity, much of which is produced by burning coal, is also a part of the coal mining disaster problem. We need to have the will to make the effort to be part of the solution.
It's all the government's fault, especially any regulation, if it weren't for rules and regulation the market would fix all that ails the mining industry because labor has all the power, and problems are PERFECTLY transparent and never hidden AND AND because it is certainly NOT the case that incidents like Matewan happened, and the government isn't responsive to industry leadership far more than anything else.
ReplyDeleteThis incident in fact points out the problem in a larger context which America faces. Our regulations are effectively toothless too often and they are toothless because it is industry ownership NOT labor, not the people, and certainly not the working poor, who dictate how and when regulation will be passed, enforced, and overseen. It has been the meme' of the right to claim that regulation causes the problems, when in fact they were looking to remove regulations which prevented abuses - even fatalities. Obviously we're all aware of regulations which are intrusive and ill-done, but for each of those, there are 100 which are effectively useless, because the penalty, or the oversight, or the number of people to enfoce it, or all of the above, is so meaningless/small/insufficient that the regulation, while correct, has no impact. The market doesn't fix these situations because other than these kinds of egregious situations, you don't ever hear about them.
BTW, the doofus who is the CEO and essentially helped to create this disaster, also thinks Global Climate Change is a hoax..Gosh, considering his industry would be negatively impacted, I wonder why??!! I'm SURE it isn't the case that he therefore has helped to foster that opinion - and it sure isn't the case that industry is paying for and fostering opinions that it is a hoax, much like they SURELY didn't foster and pay for attitudes that mine regulation and oversight was unnecessary and a 'job killer.'
Those who don't see this pattern of conduct only don't see it because they WANT to not see it.
So........you like the post, then?
ReplyDeleteLOL!
In this case I don't think it was regulation but enforcement that failed. I don't recall the exact numbers but over the past 2-3 yrs the mine where this disaster happened recieved 91 citations for safety violations and 40 or so orders to close the part of the mine where the accident happened. He ignored the orders and did not tell the miners about them. The fact he got the citations tells me there are some decent regulations in place but there is something wrong with the enforcement part when he can just ignore orders to close the mine for safety reasons.
ReplyDeleteBTW I think Man made climate change is a hoax. The climate is changing just like it did 2000 yrs ago and 10000 yrs ago and the sun has way more to do with it than we do.
Tuck,
ReplyDeleteWould you mind elaborating on why you think it's a hoax? I mean, what peer-reviewed, scholarly research would you point to that says "it's a hoax", rather than, "it's perhaps not fully definitive"?
The reason I ask is that every scholarly paper that has passed any muster has ONLY said the latter, not at all the former. The "hoax" element is just an invention of those who oppose polution regulation.
To put some perspective on this, remember that any paper which is produced (meaning scientific claim/scholarly quality paper) is put before peers to be disected, to be mocked if the opportunity arrises, because the scientific community is, if nothing else, HIGHLY competitive. In the past 20 or so years, not one person has said that a. climate change isn't happening and b. that man causation is either certain or perhaps quite likely but not yet proven beyond all doubt. There have been, on balance, about 100 to 1 papers say that it is man caused primarily, with the 1 saying, "well, it MAY be man caused, but we don't know for sure." Every other paper I've seen or heard of which says something else was produced by industry paid for research which opposed polution controls OR was done by someone who wasn't qualified as a scientist AND didn't pass peer-review.
Consequently, at best, human causation is uncertain, but a hoax..? Hardly. The recent e-mail disclosures from England ONLY showed that like many scientits, people may use logarithmic display to delute the impact of outlier data - that's hardly anything new.
Anyway, on the regulation/penalty side, the penalties are set/argued/influenced by a revolving door of private to public to private sector placement of senior executives in both environments. The industry helps determine the penalties AND enforcement by ensureing high paying jobs exist for public sector executives once they leave the public sector. Consequently, JUST as happened here, the penalties were insufficient to get the mine owner to behave ethically AND the enforcement arm lacked the authority to shut him down. The issue therefore is the symboitic nature of the relationship between the leadership of mining and the oversight arm of the government. THAT is certainly a paradigm of the US condition, but hardly the fault of the government, but rather the fault of those of us who haven't demanded better.
BTW Tuck, to put a finer point on it - I've read pretty extensively on causes, and while increased solar energy is credited with as much as .5 to .75 degrees of increased temperature, that is of an increasee of more than 1.5 degrees. So, it is neither the main reason, nor, is the claim of 3/4ths a degree any better supported (frankly it's not even close to as well supported) as man causation. Moreover, the .75 number is a guess of the MOST it is causing, a more reasonable guess is .4-.5 degrees.
ReplyDeleteConsequently, I'd ask you, why do you believe it to be the primary reason? There isn't anything like conclusive evidence thereof. And finally, how would you feel if I (or others) said, Sun based increase theory is a hoax?
Most of data that the studies were based on came from the East Anglia university in England. You know the one where someone broke into their mail system and found that they were doctoring the data to prove man-made global warming. One professor resigned and another tenured professor was fired. The UN Climate panel used data from an Indian professor and they found a typo where the rate of change he predicted for the glaciers was actually over 350 yrs not 35 yet he still claimed it was accurate. Every week more evidence of data tampering comes out. So you are right it may not be a hoax but it is very far from proven. Also when they find evidence of warming periods that show as big of a temperature change dating back 1000 or 10000 yrs that would seem to say this has happened before, long before factories or cars or any of the things now being blamed. I would never argue we do not need to find cleaner sources of energy or cleaner cars but we did not stop using horses until cars were fully able to replace them, and we did not stop using wood stoves to cook until gas and electric were able to do the job. We can't just force the internal combustion engine out of use until there is a replacement that works as well and costs about the same.
ReplyDeleteTuck,
ReplyDeleteFirst, no, most of the data DIDN'T come from that university, there has been FAR FAR FAR more research than just one university's worth.
Second, you need to re-read the facts about what actually occured at the University of East Anglia. The supposedly 'doctored' data was nothing of the sort. What ACTUALLY happened was that a graph, ONE table, ONE, not dozens, not the data, but one graph, was scaled, using two sets of data, to effectively hide a brief period of temperature increase. This was done, and ALL of the supposed smoking gun e-mails came from, FOUR scientits, FOUR! Do you believe only four scientits are researching climate change, either at this University or otherwise? Beyond that, what they did is hardly a new phenomenon of statistical presentation.
That said, Tuck, there've been literally hundreds and humdreds of independent data gatherings (and gatherers)- the biggest part of "doubt" such as it is, is whether we can reasonably predict using models whether increased carbon dioxide WILL result in the kind of warming that we've both seen and more importantly have predicted will occur.
There is NO, zero, none, dispute over whether the earth has warmed far far far more rapidly than during any other time in the last 400,000 years or so (which is as far back as I understand core samples can reasonably go).
I suggest you read some of the actual details about the 'hoax' at East Anglia, and then read up on some of the hundreds of other studies. That said, I appreciate your civvil reply (as always), and ask you to remember I asked you for independent STUDY which showed it to be a hoax. There are none (that I am aware of). The ONLY thing other studies have shown is that it MAY not be primarily (or even in any part) man caused.
To suggest (however) that it is a hoax flies in the face of logic. First, it would require the complicity of 100,000 scientists world wide - does that seem logical to you? Do you think you could possibly keep a secretif 10,000 or 1000 people knew it, do you think they'd agree to NOT disclose it, EVER? Second, if it were entirely "made-up" there'd be dozens or thousands of points of failure in the theory - and there'd be people clamboring to prove it, just as they've tried to 'prove' evolution is a untrue, or that single-universe vs. quantum physics were untrue (one or the other). There simply are too many variables for such conspiracy-theory nonsense. It is only 100% fully paid for moutn-pieces like Limbaugh and Palin who have tried to claim the East Anglia e-mails proved it was a 'hoax'.
(continued)
In closing, the other thing you may want to know is that fact checking by AP and FACTCHECK.ORG concluded that the change of ONE graph did nothing to change the evidence or threat of man-made global climate change.
ReplyDeleteFrom Wiki..
Most of the e-mails concerned technical and mundane aspects of climate research, such as data analysis and details of scientific conferences. The Guardian's analysis of the e-mails found that the hacker had filtered them using keywords, including "Yamal", "tree rings", and "Phil Jones", so that these names appear in many of the documents.[29] The controversy has thus focused on a small number of e-mails.[28]
Climate change sceptics gained wide publicity in blogs and news media,[30] making allegations that the hacked e-mails showed evidence that climate scientists manipulated data,[1] withheld scientific information,[6][4] and tried to prevent dissenting scientific papers from being published.[5] [4] A few other commentators such as Roger A. Pielke said that the evidence supported claims that dissenting scientific papers had been suppressed.[5] Academics and climate change researchers said that nothing in the emails proved wrongdoing, and dismissed the allegations.[3] Independent reports by FactCheck and AP said that the e-mails did not affect evidence that man made global warming is a real threat, and said that e-mails were being misrepresented to support unfounded claims of scientific misconduct. They also concluded that there were disturbing suggestions that scientists had avoided sharing scientific data with sceptical critics.[9][10]
Many commentators quoted one e-mail referring to a "trick" used in Mann's graph to deal with the well-known tree ring divergence problem to "hide the decline" that particular proxy showed for modern temperatures after 1950, when measured temperatures were rising. These two phrases were taken out of context by climate change sceptics including senator Jim Inhofe and Sarah Palin as though they referred to a decline in measured global temperatures, even though they were written when temperatures were at a record high.[30] In their inquiry into allegations of research misconduct, Penn State reviewers found "[t]he so-called ‘trick’ was nothing more than a statistical method used to bring two or more different kinds of data sets together in a legitimate fashion by a technique that has been reviewed by a broad array of peers in the field."[31] "
Further, the lies of the skeptics were repleat, from those of Inhofe and Palin to the following (also from Wiki)..
ReplyDelete"Computer source code and a readme file included in the documents were the subject of discussion in the media.[32] Although the code was entirely pedagogical and was not used for any research or analysis associated with the scientific publications showing the existence of global warming, some commentators treated them as though they were.[32] The readme file indicated to some that "the coder, supremely frustrated with the poor quality of his data, simply creates some."[33] John Graham-Cumming, a computer scientist interviewed by the BBC, said that the coding divulged was "below the standard you'd expect in any commercial software,"[34] but the relevance of his analysis to academic computing was disputed by experts.[32]"
The point is Tuck, consider each side for a moment, one was four scientists who improperly used a graphical presentation to hide anomolous but effectively irrelevant data, and the other was a side which OPENLY lied about the presentation and e-mails. I know which I'd believe.
Tuck, to provide a more brief synopsis - that study you point to used one, precisely one, graphing 'trick' to hide anomolous data - that data was some which suggested the earth was in fact COOLING during the 50's. That data was one set of recordings from (if I understand it) one point on earth, not worldwide, and they combined that data with other data to effectively hide that data. During the period in question, the earth in fact recorded record high temperatures world wide.
ReplyDeleteSo, you've already said you believe the earth is warming, but not because of man - yet that data suggests it isn't - so your "proof of hoax" doesn't show man-causation is a hoax, but instead shows that the earth is warming - something you know to be untrue - and that data also contradicts worldwide readings taken during the same period which showed it was warming.
Consequently, the data which says it's a 'hoax' not only contradicts man-causation, but it refutes the entire premise of warming - something vast other evidence shows is occuring. To feel this shows a 'hoax' is to suggest that you feel the earth is cooling OR that you think this one incident, one, of someone doing what is generally done in presenting research - proves a pattern of cover-up.
OR - people have, for their own purposes, taken the reality and twisted it all out of proportion, but not the scientists, no, the right-wing extremists who, at the behest of corporate interests are marching to claim that evidence the KNOW if faulty (of cooling) - somehow proves man-causation of warming is a hoax.
blah, that last sentence should read "evidence they KNOW is faulty.."
ReplyDeleteConsidering that Sarah Palin, known to be a blatant liar (even for a politician) has essentially parroted the view that global warming is a hoax: that's sufficient evidence for me that its anything but a hoax.
ReplyDeletettuck - I'm delighted to see you contributing again on Penigma.
ReplyDeleteAbout the East Anglia data - what the hackers CLAIM they found has been as misrepresented on the right as James O'Keefe's fake journalism videos.
I strongly suggest you fact check a few assumptions:
www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2009/dec/11/climate-change-e-mails-and-copenhagen/
Pen is correct.
Sheesh - Politifact and factcheck should put me on their payrolls...