Old King Coal

In a past life I worked for a couple of years as editor of the United Mine Workers Journal. It was a very instructive gig that exposed me to a gritty industry and tough people who risked their lives on a fairly regular basis. I visited many coal mines, both under and above ground, and got a pretty good picture of the dangers involved—both to the miners and to the environment. I bring this up because I recently ran across the term “Coal-powered Internet.” It was used in reference to the ongoing argument about whether printing is more or less environmentally friendly than electronic media. One side of the argument maintains that print destroys forests and wastes energy because all that paper has to be transported from one place to another. Therefore, electronic media is better for the environment. Aside from ignoring the issue of reforestation and recycling, this argument falls flat when one considers that electronic media require electricity—54% of which comes from coal-fired power plants that are the single largest source of air pollution in the U.S. Add to that the environmental impact of the actual mining process on land and streams—especially with the hideous practice of mountain top removal—and the case for the environmental friendliness of electronic media becomes less obvious. The fact is that printing and electronic media both have their environmental strengths and drawbacks. They will also to continue to co-exist for the foreseeable future. Only when alternate sources of electricity production replace the burning of coal will electronic media have an environmental edge on print.