I hear a lot of liberals talking about how stupid Trump supporters in "coal country" are. I think it's important to think about this.
Granted: There aren't going to be a lot of coal jobs created. Granted: Coal is dangerous to the climate. Granted: Coal jobs are unhealthy.
Unfortunately human beings (both on the right and the left) aren't purely logical. We're especially illogical when it comes to matters involving people we love. That's why jobs with good pay and benefits that can do more for our families make us do things which may not be in our personal long-term best interest, and may not be in the best interests of other people around the world.
Many years ago, I lived in another city. There, I knew Kevin. He had come from coal country. He and his family knew people with Black Lung. Kevin never worked in coal. For a few years, he'd worked as a union organizer in some other industries. After a while, he wanted to settle down. The union movement found him a job at a Sealy Mattress factory. It was a union job with good pay and benefits. The factory's air was filled with cotton dust - which causes another condition sometimes called "brown lung." Kevin's wife had to nag him for a long time to get him to leave that good job in order to protect his health. This all happened long, long before Trump, and even before significant concern about climate change. It happened back before union jobs became so few and far between. It happened when Kevin shouldn't have had as hard a time finding another good paying job as coal miners will today.
Kevin was not a conservative or a Republican. He wasn't dumb. He was a human whose behavior does not always look wise to others.
Now consider the situation of today's coal miners. They have a job they're familiar with. Mine work is not necessarily useful job experience for other occupations. Democrats talked about job re-training for coal miners. But programs politicians talk about don't always come into being. Since most jobs don't pay as well as union coal mining, most likely, the training would be for lower paying jobs. And there would always be that question whether the offered job re-training would be for occupations for which coal miners would have the necessary inherent potentials. Each person has strengths and weaknesses. Some people from coal country who had strengths in other areas never went into the mines. Therefore, those who went into and stayed in the mines (at least as coal miners’ imagine themselves) are less likely to succeed in the occupations for which re-training would be offered. There is also the question whether the re-training would lead to jobs near where their friends and relatives live, or whether it would require them to scatter to the winds. That’s not only an emotional question, but also an economic one. They’d get little money for their coal country houses and have to pay more for their homes elsewhere. As a result, they're not only reluctant to give up coal for the kinds of reasons Kevin had, but also because they had reasons for doubting the promised alternative.
Coal miners need real alternatives. Guarantee every coal miner an equally-well paying job or an equally-paying pension, and you'd get less resistance. When the government takes away a person's property using eminent domain, it's not supposed to simply give the homeowner a class on finding a new home. The homeowner should be paid a fair price for the property which will allow them to get a similar home. Coal miners have done hard, dangerous work which society has previously told them was necessary for society. If society wants them to leave behind that source of income and benefits, the government should offer them a comparable income and benefits - not just a class which <em>might</em> lead to another job.
Is that too high a price to save the climate?
If you provide any willing coal miner a job with similar compensation, and some insist they still want to be coal miners, then go ahead and make fun of those individuals.