Coal Mining Jobs are Disappearing and Trying to Save Them is Dumb
I’m sympathetic to people who are scared of losing their jobs in the coal mining plants. Everyone needs an income. There’s nothing about seeing people suffer that makes me feel good or morally superior.
But I can not, for the life of me, figure out what these unions (and more importantly the working people) think they will accomplish by holding protests and rallies.
They might as well be boycotting to bring back steam engines and type writers.
Reasons why coal mining is stupid…
Black lung
Terrible carbon emissions
Dangerous work
Coal is an extremely inefficient way to produce energy, as combustion only extracts a percentage of the stored energy
What’s the end game here? Does anyone actually believe that coal is a good solution to our energy needs? Does anyone believe that the answer to a better energy system, a better economy, and a cleaner planet is to mine more coal?
It’s immoral to egg these people on. It’s shameful to speak at these rallies and convince people that there is any hope for their industry or their jobs. They would be much better educating themselves on where the market is heading.
Free and open markets. Isn’t that what our country advocates? What are we doing?
In all seriousness, I understand it’s not fully black and white. To the best of my knowledge, this coal plant in Alabama is a met plant which means the coal is used to create things like solar panels and produce steel. There is nuance to everything and I’m not jumping on one side of the fence on this.
Coal will not disappear over night and there is a good chance that coal will continue to be useful for generations to come. But this is a dying industry, and it needs to die.
The people who live in denial of that are only putting themselves further behind.