Recent in the news is the massive coal mine collapse in Turkey, where it is feared that over 200 miners are dead in the mine. This is not unusual for Turkey: since 2000, there have been over 20,000 reported safety incidents in Turkish coal mines, though some in the Turkish government have written off these incidents as "risks of the profession." Many labor groups in Turkey are incensed that their safety is seemingly being considered as second-place to the production of coal within Turkey.
Turkey is the 7th largest importer of coal in the world and the 13th largest producer. Several years ago, in order to avoid the fluctuations of pricing on the natural gas market, Turkey ended subsidies to natural gas companies and instead increased subsidies for coal-fired energy companies, utilizing domestic production to ensure stable prices. This seems to have come at the cost of regulations ensuring the safety and wellbeing of the miners themselves, who have seen consistent health and safety violations by both privately owned and publicly owned mines go unchecked.
Coal miners, should they survive their careers in the mines, also suffer long-term adverse effects from breathing coal dust and the various gases released from coal mining. Various pulmonary diseases that arise from constant inhalation of mine air contribute to the early deaths of many miners.
In the United States, coal mining deaths have dropped significantly since the development of better safety regulations; however, the data used to calculate those deaths does not include the health-related diseases that come from inhaling coal dust for years on end.
Coal, as many already know, is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gases and climate change. Not only that, acidic runoff from chemical reactions between water and sulfurous minerals can contaminate foundries of drinking water and nearby wildlife areas. In addition, many companies blast away mountains in order to reach coal, sending sediment filled with toxic compounds into otherwise habitable, clean areas. This practice also releases greenhouse gases, notably methane, which is 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere at alarming rates. The US Environmental Protection Agency estimates that methane released from mountainside mining accounts for up to 10% of all methane emissions worldwide.
The three recently released Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports have demonstrated that economic losses increase as warming increases. Currently, it is estimated that, to prevent a warming rise from 2 degrees Celsius to 3 degrees Celsius, the global economy would only suffer a 0.06% drop in gross domestic product (GDP). Should global temperatures rise to 3 degrees Celsius above normal, global economies will be impacted to an even greater degree, considering the weather extremities that would come with it, i.e. drought, flood, extreme hot/cold.
The next round of international climate talks will take place in December 2014 in Lima, Peru, where world leaders will search for methods to halt warming at 2 degrees Celsius.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
