Taking care of rural coal workers

Posted by David Roberts at 2:43 PM on 14 Apr 2008

This WSJ piece on the battle over coal in rural (and important electoral swing) states is frustrating. On one hand, you have enviros, characterized as urbanites concerned exclusively with global warming. On the other hand, you have rural residents, characterized as concerned exclusively with keeping their mining jobs.

Why is there no mention of the ways Dem candidates and enviros are attempting to address those concerns? No mention of the ways Obama and Clinton propose to use auction revenue to help these states out, retrain their workers, create new green jobs for them?

I don't blame the reporters. The candidates themselves, and most enviros, treat it like an afterthought. But that's going to be disastrous, not just in the election but over the long course of the climate fight. Climate policy is going to create turbulence and upheaval for some people, and taking care of those people is central to its long-term viability. Dem candidates should be way more vocal about it.

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Frustration Indeed

With all of the work being done regarding mountain top removal and the recognition that step 1 in the battle against global warming has to be to stop king coal, it is indicative of a certain tendency among those who consider themselves "progressive" to be willing to go all out against something and never lift a finger to build the alternative.

Best example, no one added a comment to this post.

I saw the same thing happening with the fight to preserve California's Redwoods. As long as it was Pacific Lumber and Robber Baron Hurwitz that one cold rail against, there were plenty of people concerned. But, only the locals stuck around to try and put the economy back together again.

Oh, yeah. I forgot. We are all supposed to jump into our RV's and SUV's and drive up there for our vacations.

Sorry for the sarcasm. It has just been a day when I saw the same thing happen one too many times.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

by wesrolley at 10:45 AM on 15 Apr 2008

The Great Exodus

Don't worry about coal workers in East Kentucky we were part of the great migration north during the 50,s and 60,s. We lost thousands of years of underground mining experience when the price of coal dropped to where it was not feasable to mine it underground during the 80's and early 90's. They all went south. Don't worry, what few jobs we have left on the coal strip jobs are not that important to the economy when counting the damage they cause. If you stop MTR you will force the coal companies to go back underground where you need 4 times the labor to mine it. People will start coming back in for the jobs again, its a cycle here in East Ky. during the boom and bust times. Oh! I know they say they can't afford to mine the underground stuff, but with oil at over $100 dollars a barrel and never to drop under that again coal has risen in price conducive to mining it underground again.

They have large reserves already paid for, do you actually think they will not mine it. Co2 won't stop them when you start running out of oil or after oil hits $150 a barrel.

The only hope I see is the coal eating bacteria that turns the coal into a cleaner burning gas. You won't need a miner to mine it then, and it should be cheaper than trying to mine under the new MSHA regulations. A pre existing piping system is already in place for the gas.

If you wean them away from coal and on to alternative energy projects you will still have a viable workforce. There is a lot of Promise for Solar, hydro, geothermal and some wind. We have a few reclaimed strip jobs that have class III winds.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

by Pompey Road at 2:27 PM on 15 Apr 2008
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