For Mr. Monbiot: Jobs are a cost, not a benefit
The merit here is the fewer jobs, fewer costs, not more:
The Jackdaw gasfield, likely to be approved this week, will generate a grand total of 27 direct full-time jobs. The Rosebank oilfield, whose approval is likely to follow soon, will support 450 UK-based jobs during its lifetime. Yet the UK’s net zero economy directly employs 300,000 people, and a further 400,000 jobs are planned. The rest of the green economy employs more than 600,000. A just transition for fossil fuel workers, securing jobs in the green economy, is better for everyone.
No, this is to get reality wholly, completely the wrong way around. Jobs are a cost of doing something, getting something done. Jobs are not a benefit.
Yes, we know the comparison is between one oil and one gas field and the entire green energy economy. We also agree there are externalities to the oil and gas. We’ll even agree that perhaps those externalities change the balance here just for the sake of the argument. And yet, but.
Take just the provision of energy to society. If we can do that by 450 jobs then this is better than doing so with 300,000 - or any other, higher number. For human labour is one of those scarce economic resources which limits how rich we can be. If we can supply society with energy using the labour of 450 people then that leaves, compared to that green alternative, 299,550 peoples’ labour which can be used to do other things. Staff the NHS, teach the children, perform ballet or, given that leisure is itself valuable, contemplate a pint of Old Wallop. We are, as a society, therefore richer by the extra NHS, readin’ ‘n’ ‘ritin’, interpretive dance and contemplation afforded by using the fossil fuels and not the green stuff. If we use the fossil fuels that is.
Jobs are a cost, not a benefit. Therefore, if we consider just that use of human labour, the method of producing our desires which uses less human labour is better than the one which uses more. Yes, yes, everything is more complicated, of course it is. The world’s a complicated place. But it is still true that whatever it is that we’re doing we want to do it with the use of less human labor, not more. Otherwise we’d all be digging the canals with spoons, wouldn’t we?
Tim Worstall