It is not a fact, it is a very selective and questionable interpretation of poll results by a journalist - poll results which suggest that West Virginians prioritize their jobs over climate protection and that they see the structural change away from coal as a threat to said jobs.




You know full well that training/job replacement programs are a lost cause for any coal worker older than ~40, and that a lot of the younger coal workers are also too uneducated/low IQ to have any hope of finding a similarly paid job again.

The truth is that job training and replacement programs serve to provide an economic future for the next generation in places affected by structural change. The goal is that the daughter of the coal miner can become a programmer or engineer. It is disingenuous to insinuate that this kind of structural change will not be a huge hit to the affected workers and their communities; to insinuate that there will not be at least one generation of economic suffering.

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Could we stop using this ridiculous term "human infrastructure" and call it "social spending" again?

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Stock prices reflect market expectations about the future profitability of a business. If coal was as done for as you pretend it is, these coal stocks would already have cratered and a smart, well-connected person like Manchin would have already gotten rid of them years ago.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Nov 6 2021 01:31pm

I think the idea was that Democrats needed a quick "win" after Tuesday. Also, the moderate members of the Dem caucus from swing seats will presumably have put pressure on Pelosi behind the scenes to stop blocking a moderate, popular bill with bipartisan support in pursuit of other, more liberal legislation. The moderates of course know that they're the ones in the hot seat if the current political climate persists until 2022, so I guess Pelosi could no longer keep them in line.

How is job training a "lost cause" for anyone over 40? People change careers in their mid 40s all the time! It's simply a question of will power and desire. If free training and the prospects of higher pay aren't enough to do the job, perhaps losing your job would be a more appropriate remedy. I have to ask, were you this worried about the jobs of people who used to light the gas lamps? I just don't understand why we should let a select few hold up technological progress.

I do not argue in favor of holding up technological progress, my argument is that those displaced by new technologies will draw the short end of the stick and no amount of government investment will be able to change the economic loss these people/communities have to suffer.

This becomes a particularly dicey political issue when one side wants to use government intervention to accelerate technological displacement beyond the rate at which it would "naturally" occur due to market forces.



How many of the people who change their careers in their mid 40s are highly educated white collar workers and how many of them are sub-90 IQ college dropouts? Fossil industry jobs provide an opportunity for low education folks to earn an income that's all but unattainable in most other low qualification jobs.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Nov 6 2021 01:47pm

I'd argue that the government has actually HINDERED natural market forces. Keep in mind that fossil fuels are heavily subsidized here in the states.

As for the 2nd question, speaking anecdotally, my friend had a severe brain injury and had to drop out of college because of it. He ended up becoming a carpenter but has since become an electrician. It can be done with enough will power, I assure you.

I don't accept at all that job replacement programs are not viable for people over 40. and IQ is not a particularly useful metric for if somebody can be retrained. There are a shit load of decent paying jobs that don't need higher than an 85 IQ. You can also improve your IQ by a full standard deviation by just getting in a less stressful environment. IQ is not nearly as static as people are lead to believe.

Coal companies are retaining profit by automating. They can ship less coal over time with a higher margin using technology. That's the simple reason why coal stocks are not going down.

Also, coal jobs in all of the U.S. are only like 40k. That's.... not a lot of jobs. At all. The suffering that will be caused by even a total elimination of coal jobs is about one week of new jobs numbers in the U.S.

"Human infrastructure" is accurate. Sorry you would prefer a term that's more loaded in favor of the side you support, but you don't control language. The number one piece of infrastructure any country has is their skill acquisition infrastructure, which is education.



Solar has been cheaper than coal for over 10 years now before you account for subsidy. After you account for subsidy (which massively favors fossil fuels) it's been cheaper for several years. That's why you see renewables going up fucking everywhere, and virtually no new coal plants outside of third world countries that are still industrializing.




Your middle line is massively dishonest. You are in favor of government distorting market forces towards keeping these jobs longer than they are economically viable. If we had allowed the market to find a solution we would have been actively fining fossil fuels for the long-term damage they cause to the environment, and the long-term damage they cause to their surrounding communities in the form of pollution and medical costs to their workers.

If we were working in a strictly market system with all factors accounted for, we would not be dependent on fossil fuels. The natural rate of elimination of these jobs is that they would virtually all be eliminated decades ago.

This post was edited by NetflixAdaptationWidow on Nov 6 2021 02:52pm

"the world' is clearly not shifting away from coal

a number of western countries are not the world and the biggest coal mining countries are all in the business for many years to come

not to mention that many places are about to add extra coal capacity or are about to enter the market

its clearly not the future in west virginia though

This post was edited by JohnnyMcCoy on Nov 6 2021 03:27pm

Just so you know coal isn’t anywhere near dead thanks to crypto. There’s multiple coal power plants that are running to mine crypto and several that are starting back up that were recently shut down and they gave a big old f u to the people complaining.

Fossils were subsidized because society requires reliable and affordable energy. It has only been in recent years that renewables have become competitive or even cheaper than fossils, and they still suffer from reliability/storage issues so they would still not be able to completely replace fossil energy.


Of course a lot of things are possible if talent meets hard work. The question is not how the talented folks will cope, it's what society does with those who don't possess any (economically workable) talent.
Did your friend suffer permanent impairments or did he just have to drop out of college because the injury derailed his studies?