Pittsburgh

America’s Choice: Leave a Legacy of Hell or Bequeath Clean Air

Leo Gerard — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 19:13:11 -0400

At the turn of the 20^th Century, smoke meant jobs. When noxious fumes spewed from factory stacks, workers brought home paychecks. Industries hired. The future was bright as molten iron flowing from a blast furnace.

In industrial Pittsburgh’s heyday, the smoke was so dense streetlights remained lit at noon. White collar workers changed soot-covered shirts mid-day. The region’s residents suffered high rates of asthma and emphysema. In 1948, an inversion trapped industrial pollution in a small town south of Pittsburgh, killing 20.

Smoke also meant death and disease.

Now, however, good-paying industrial jobs need not exact untimely death from workers and their families. In fact, it’s the opposite. Development of clean renewable energy generators – the likes of wind turbines, solar cells, biomass – would create family-supporting industrial jobs in America and would reinforce traditional manufacturing jobs in the U.S., including those in steel mills, solar cell fabrication plants and wind turbine factories, such as those built by Gamesa in Pennsylvania.

Labor unions and environmental groups are pressing for passage of policies like a Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) and comprehensive climate change legislation that would promote transition to a clean energy economy.

To prod lawmakers to act, the BlueGreen Alliance, a partnership of those labor unions and enviromentalists, conducted a three-week, 17-state, 30-city barnstorm during August in an energy-efficient, American-made, carbon-neutral bus. At events in each city, BlueGreen activists told attendees, “The Job’s Not Done,” and urged them to tell their U.S. Senators it’s not a choice between clean air and jobs. The choice is leaving a legacy of environmental hell or bequeathing climate unchanged.

In an 1868 edition of The Atlantic Monthly, writer James Parton described with awe the atmosphere created by industrial Pittsburgh’s iron and glass works, its foundries and its coke ovens:

“On the evening of this dark day, we were conducted to the edge of the abyss, and looked over the iron railing upon the most striking spectacle we ever beheld. The entire space lying between the hills was filled with blackest smoke, from out of which the hidden chimneys sent forth tongues of flame, while from the depths of the abyss came up the noise of hundreds of steam-hammers. There would be moments when no flames were visible; but soon the wind would force the smoky curtains aside, and the whole black expanse would be dimly lighted with dull wreaths of fire. It is an unprofitable business, view-hunting; but if any one would enjoy a spectacle as striking as Niagara, he may do so by simply walking up a long hill to Cliff Street in Pittsburg, and looking over into--hell with the lid taken off.”

Beautiful as he found it, Parton added this:

“The first feeling of the stranger is one of compassion for the people who are compelled to live in such an atmosphere. When hard pressed, a son of Pittsburg will not deny that the smoke has its inconveniences.”

Pittsburgh took measures to clean its air. Smoke no longer turns the city’s days to night. But the town, like every other, still suffers the effect of pollution. It is the greenhouse gas pollution causing global climate change, which is associated with extreme weather events like the Katrina hurricane that killed 1,800 five years ago, floods this summer that killed 1,600 in Pakistan and 1,100 in China and unprecedented heat and uncontrolled wildfires that killed thousands this year in Russia.

Even former Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce concede climate change is real. They’re just towing the usual Republican party line of “no” to anything proposed by Democrats or the Environmental Protection Agency to correct it. The Chamber, for example says it supports strong action on climate change, including cutting greenhouse gas emissions, but it opposed legislation that would cut greenhouse gas emissions. The Chamber, at one point, called for the EPA to hold "the Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century" to debate whether climate change is man-made.

The Chamber’s position prompted high-profile members to quit, including Apple and public-utility companies Pacific Gas & Electric, PNM Resources, and Exelon.

Another big name company, Nike, resigned from the Chamber board of directors. It explained the defection:

“Nike believes that climate change is an urgent issue affecting the world today and that businesses and their representative associations need to take an active role to invest in sustainable business practices and innovative solutions to address the issue. It is not a time for debate but instead a time for action and we believe the Chamber's recent petition sets back important work currently being undertaken by EPA on this issue.”

Like Nike, Senators should do what’s right – pass a Renewable Electricity Standard and a comprehensive climate change bill.

They need to stop thinking about their re-election and start thinking about their grandchildren. They need to pass climate legislation that would support American jobs and avert hell.

G20 Pittsburgh Thursday Morning Report

Dave Johnson — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 10:12:53 -0400

I am in Pittsburgh for the G20. I am working out of the Climate Action Network Media Center located at the August Wilson Center downtown.

The location of the G20 was switched to Pittsburgh in May, in order to showcase the city as revitalized by becoming an environmentally conscious community, transforming itself from an industrial economy to a green and knowledge-based economy. (The Institute for America’s Future has more on Pittsburgh, G20 and the new economy here.)

I was in Pittsburgh just a few weeks ago for the Netroots Nation conference, and it was a truly vibrant, exciting city.

But it is ironic that they chose to showcase Pittsburgh as a vibrant, revitalized city -- because the G20 is here things are a bit different. Because of security concerns the city is largely shut down! The downtown is closed to automobile traffic and many downtown businesses have closed for the duration with employees either working at home or taking a holiday (many unpaid.)

I am at an upstairs window at the media center, overlooking a black security fence that must be 8 feet high. In fact, from the window of the Media Center here I am looking across the street - and on the other side of the security fence - at the main Netroots Nation hotel attached to the convention center. So those of you who attended NN know right where I am. This fence surrounds the area several blocks out from the convention center. Outside of this fence there is only light foot traffic, mostly news crews, security personnel and the occasional regular person walking around, looking sort of stunned because of all the security.

There are city police, state police, capital police, and I have even seen mounted police. And lots of police dogs. Many of them are wearing full security gear – the people, not the dogs. I read that there are 900 city police and 1200 state troopers, and 1000 visiting officers “from scores of other departments across the country.” And there are Secret Service, military in various forms, even Coast Guard patrols. There are military vehicles, assorted police vehicles, lots of black SUVs with flashing read and blue lights, horses, black limousines, and buses everywhere.

But take my word for it, Pittsburgh is, otherwise, a vibrant city.

The media center is filling up, and they are having environmentally-focused press conferences throughout the day here. I will try to stay on top of that, as well as the leaders and delegations who are flying in throughout the day, with welcoming ceremonies later in the day hosted by President Obama.

I’ll start looking at the issues in my ongoing posting from Pittsburgh.

The G-20: Lessons from Pittsburgh

Eric Lotke — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 06:11:01 -0400

The G-20 Summit is in Pittsburgh later this week. Leaders from the 20 countries that collectively represent two-thirds of the world’s population, 80 percent of world trade and 90 percent of global gross national product, will meet to discuss the global economy and terms of trade.

It is fitting that they meet in Pittsburgh. Steel City is renowned for the slump in its dominant industry, followed by what President Obama called a “world-class” transition to a diversified economy, including higher education, bio-tech and clean energy. The good news is true enough — credit where due — but the praise misses half the story.

Yes, some manufacturing jobs in Pittsburgh were replaced by high-end jobs in education or medicine. But many were replaced by jobs in hotels and food services — jobs that never paid as well and proved even more vulnerable in the recent downturn. Some manufacturing jobs were never replaced at all. That helps explain why the city’s population is declining, especially among youth, who seek opportunity elsewhere.

Two lessons from Pittsburgh are important for the United States and the G-20 Summit. We discuss them in our new report, Pittsburgh, G-20, and the New Economy — Lessons to Learn, Choices to Make.

The first lesson is the importance of the real economy. America grew up as an industrial superpower, from mass-produced automobiles to the Arsenal of Democracy. But our once-robust system of economic production — the invention, design and manufacture of products — has been steadily eroded. In its place has come an economy based on asset bubbles and foreign borrowing. That economy was never sustainable and is no longer available.

We need to dispel the notion that America has moved beyond the production of goods. From cars to computers to refrigerators, a country needs things. If we don’t make those things here, then someone else gets our money.

Too many modern Americans associate manufacturing with horse carts and buggy whips. We think of dirty old industries that economic evolution will naturally replace with high-end services in America and low-wage workers in other countries. We don’t appreciate that manufacturing still constitutes 12 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, 60 percent of U.S. exports and 70 percent of private sector research and development. If we hope to move beyond the production of goods, we need to think what would replace it.

We tried over the past thirty years to replace goods-producing jobs (down 54 percent) with service-providing jobs (up 34 percent). It hasn’t worked so well. First, because our deficit in goods far exceeds our surplus in services -- $840 billion versus $160 billion-- so our accounts are out of balance. Second, service jobs don’t pay as well. Even in the broad category of “services” — which includes high-end professionals like doctors, lawyers and investment brokers — service-providing jobs have an average weekly wage of $610 compared with $810 in the goods-producing sector. Service jobs pay 75 cents for every dollar paid a production job. Retail jobs pay 50 cents.

Source: BEA and Campaign for America's Future.

This change helps explain the “lost decade” in the latest Census Bureau data. Median household income dropped a thousand dollars in the ten years before 2008, the only ten year period in census records in which incomes failed to rise. It’s easy to predict that 2009 will be even worse.

The second lesson from Pittsburgh is the connection between the production of goods and their sale. Trade, that is.

Many countries find it appropriate to enact protectionist and mercantilist polices to their individual advantage. The U.S. generally does not, however, citing its ideological commitment to free trade.

As a result, steel manufactured in Pittsburgh is competing against steel manufactured in China with devalued currency, government subsidies, deeply suppressed labor rights, and lower (cheaper) environmental and safety standards. Many products imported into America violate safety standards that U.S. manufacturers are required to obey, like lead-based paint in toys and pesticides in foods. American producers bear the cost of higher standards for the benefit of American citizens. Other countries avoid these costs with minimal consequences in the U.S. market.

The G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh provides an opportunity for Americans to look at what’s happening, and ask hard questions. It provides opportunity to move beyond shibboleths of free trade and protectionism, and to question the true functioning of the market. Obama’s decision to apply tariffs to remedy the “market disruption” of tires from China is a first step in this new direction.

The Summit also provides an opportunity to examine American patterns of production and consumption. Even when the economy was growing, America ran a current account deficit in excess of $700 billion every year. We borrowed $2 billion every day to cover the difference. That might have worked well for the countries we bought and borrowed from — but it worked less well for America. It was never sustainable, anyway.

As the G-20 leaders plan a recovery from the global downturn, they should not assume that the United States will remain the world’s consumer— spending more than we earn, and paying for it with personal and national debt. The G-20 must chart the process by which the global economy that emerges from the crisis is more balanced, and less dependent on U.S. consumption. Growth must be sustainable in Pittsburgh as well as Beijing.

CAF Report: Pittsburgh —The Rest of the Story

Dave Johnson — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 14:00:00 -0400

Campaign for America’s Future has released a report, Pittsburgh —The Rest of the Story (pdf file, 12 pages). This report tells the story of "Pittsburgh's transition from the old to the new."

A lot is happening in Pittsburgh this summer and fall. Netroots Nation is taking place in Pittsburgh this week, then next month the AFL-CIO annual conference and the G-20 Summit. (See also.)

But a lot more has been happening in Pittsburgh so there’s a good story to tell.

Pittsburgh, known as "Steel City," was a center of the “rust belt” – so-called because so much of our manufacturing, once America’s economic powerhouse, has been “outsourced.” This is the process where the contents of the factories are packed up and sent to another country to make the same things that were made here, using the same raw materials, and shipping the same items back here to sell. For propaganda reasons that is called “trade,” even though it isn’t trade it’s really just paying off politicians to let them externalize costs onto the local communities and pocket the profits. (Our laws even let the companies pay lower taxes at the very time they are transferring so many costs onto the rest of us.)

At the same time, competitors arrive from countries that understand that manufacturing is the key to economic power. They have national policies to build their own manufacturing base. So the might subsidize their industries, or hold the value of their currencies low, or exploit their workers or the environment, giving their companies a pricing advantage. Or, they might just "dump" products into our market

The result is closed factories, eyesores rusting in the sun and rain, taking up local space. Hence the name, “rust belt.”

Pittsburgh has been working to do something about the rust-best phenomenon. From the report,

In the 1990s, the city reinvented itself. The story often told is one of transition from heavy industry to a new post-industrial age, with a high-end service economy built around health care and higher education. Grant-funded research led to entrepreneurial opportunity in software and biotechnology. The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center replaced U.S. Steel as the region’s largest employer. Pittsburgh built the world’s first Gold LEED-certified convention center. Once a giant consumer of dirty energy, Pittsburgh positioned itself for leadership in the new energy economy.

The good news is true enough, although many problems are far from solved. But it is only half of the story. Behind the good news are two unseen parts of the story.

I'm not going to tell the story here. Instead you have to read it for yourself. It's a good read.