The Green New Deal: construction jobs in Northern MN?

A house divided against itself, cannot stand. ~ A. Lincoln

Remember the old saying about how "when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging!"? There's some fussing and fuming coming from the general area of the Iron Range now that presidential candidate, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, supports better alternatives than #Line3 and the Twin Metals project. Warren is a Senate cosponsor of S.Res.59, A resolution recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal.

Salon magazine (online) has picked up an insightful piece from TomDispatch that explores

Jobs, the environment, and a planet in crisis: How the Green New Deal is changing America

Unions vs. environmentalists or unions and environmentalists?

Fleshing out the concepts in the Green New Deal resolution, and funding the projects that emerge and get approved, including repairing much of the US' infrastructure, should provide lots of local, living wage or better construction jobs on or near the Range.

Minnesota has too many divides

Photo by J. Harrington

According to several reports we've read, unions and Native Americans each have concerns about how the Green New Deal may get implemented. We would respectfully suggest that clearly identifying what changes are needed may be a more beneficial course of action than simply complaining about what's in the resolution or the extent to which some interests were or were not consulted in the drafting process.

One area that the Salon/TomDispatch article flagged is the interest of some unions in carbon capture and storage (CCS) construction jobs. The Drawdown project lists Direct Air Capture as a "Coming Attraction," not a readily implementable element of current climate breakdown solutions. Approaches like "clean coal" aren't mentioned at all.

Building pipelines for energy sources that worsen the climate breakdown problem when there's an electric grid that needs rebuilding and all the deferred maintenance projects on roads, bridges, airports, wastewater treatment plants, etc. seems highly counterproductive. These efforts, plus the necessary shift to a low carbon economy will increase demand for copper, The copper industry is aware of that and making international efforts to make the mining and processing of copper more sustainable. It would be interesting and informative to compare the best practices in Minnesota with the environmental solutions undertaken in Europe.

If we are to function as #OneMinnesota, we need to learn to have conversations instead of throwing brickbats. Has anyone really looked at how much of Minnesota's mining best practices meet or exceed international best practices for copper mining? Is there a report or has there been a symposium? And,by any chance, does Minnesota actually have any sort of minerals policy?

The Planet Krypton

By Lynn Emanuel

Outside the window the McGill smelter

sent a red dust down on the smoking yards of copper,

on the railroad tracks’ frayed ends disappeared

into the congestion of the afternoon. Ely lay dull

and scuffed: a miner’s boot toe worn away and dim,

while my mother knelt before the Philco to coax

the detonation from the static. From the Las Vegas

Tonapah Artillery and Gunnery Range the sound

of the atom bomb came biting like a swarm

of bees. We sat in the hot Nevada dark, delighted,

when the switch was tripped and the bomb hoisted

up its silky, hooded, glittering, uncoiling length;

it hissed and spit, it sizzled like a poker in a toddy.

The bomb was no mind and all body; it sent a fire

of static down the spine. In the dark it glowed like the coils

of an electric stove. It stripped every leaf from every

branch until a willow by a creek was a bouquet

of switches resinous, naked, flexible, and fine.

Bathed in the light of KDWN, Las Vegas,

my crouched mother looked radioactive, swampy,

glaucous, like something from the Planet Krypton.

In the suave, brilliant wattage of the bomb, we were

not poor. In the atom’s fizz and pop we heard possibility

uncorked. Taffeta wraps whispered on davenports.

A new planet bloomed above us; in its light

the stumps of cut pine gleamed like dinner plates.

The world was beginning all over again, fresh and hot;

we could have anything we wanted.

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