5 ms·

> People can't switch from fossil-dependent careers to renewable-dependent careers in a week, or even a year. Or ever, perhaps. I can no longer remember where,

> People can't switch from fossil-dependent careers to renewable-dependent careers in a week, or even a year. Or ever, perhaps. I can no longer remember where, but I recently read an article about a backlash by California Democrats against Green New Deal-type ideas. What stood out was someone saying that the idea of retraining workers for other types of jobs was offensive. If people in the oil and gas industry liked their job, then they ought to be allowed to keep it until they retired.

steve_adams_86 7y ago
That's a tough thing. Imagine someone was telling you that you had to change your career because people decided it's no good. What will you do? Put your life on hold and go retrain for something you never intended to train for? Possibly (probably) earn less? Potentially need to move for work? It's complicated. I think it needs to happen. The US and Canada both spend major subsidies on oil and gas, and that money would do wonders in supporting and retraining these works. However, we'd need a very good plan and very good acceptance of it amongst the work force and tax payers. This would all be incredibly expensive. People would resent the retraining because it would cost tax payers to benefit a small subset of people, while less oil production equals higher prices for... Everything. People would be very upset, both workers and citizens. It's going to be so hard to get people on the same page. I hope the disasters that push us to act aren't too awful.
- greglindahl 7y ago
  It’s already happened for almost everyone employed mining coal, because of automation. No climate change needed.
  - mikeash 7y ago
    Just for perspective, coal mining employs about half as many Americans as Whole Foods. That’s one specialty grocery chain. The amount of attention given to coal miners is absurd.
    - mixmastamyk 7y ago
      Before or after automation?
      - mikeash 7y ago
        That’s right now.
        beenBoutIT 7y ago
        The opiate epidemic has been killing off coal miners with no letup in sight. https://blog.exploratory.io/how-coal-mining-employment-has-impacted-on-opioid-epidemic-in-america-69cd0156a50d https://blog.exploratory.io/how-coal-mining-employment-has-i...
        mixmastamyk 7y ago
        Post automation numerical comparisons are not that useful then?
        mikeash 7y ago
        Why not? The point is that there are very few coal miners left and the amount of attention they get is all out of proportion.
        mixmastamyk 7y ago
        Must be nostalgic folks remembering the "good old days."
  - tonyedgecombe 7y ago
    The UK had a million people working in the coal industry at the start of the last century, it’s effectively zero now. However it was painful for many of the communities that depended on it, you could argue some have never recovered.
    - steve_adams_86 7y ago
      It's much the same here in BC, Canada. Mines, forestry, fishing - different resource extraction jobs have fluctuated enormously over the last century and we effectively have ghost towns all over. Some places look absolutely dead and you wonder why anyone lives there. At one point, most of them were booming. The gold rush was probably the original boom, and from there many others stemmed. Forestry is probably the most tragic, long-tailed bust in this province though.
- opportune 7y ago
  Do we also need to ensure jobs for carriage makers? If we do a green new deal type of thing, I think it will work out in aggregate. There will be a massive increase in training for people to work on the manufacturing/installation of renewable energy production and another large need for engineers to design the new manufacturing components, electrical grid, and the large scale installations. Many manufacturing and installation jobs for fossil fuels will be lost but many similar jobs will also be created with renewables. We generally seem to be ok with saying "eh, screw em" when people's livelihoods become obsolete. I don't see why this should be any different, given the stakes.
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  The market does this anyways in the energy industry: oil people don’t have jobs when oil prices are low, my dad was in nuclear and got hit in the late 80s (didn’t need to retrain, but his career was stagnate until retirement).
tonyedgecombe 7y ago
If we were to start sequestering CO2 then it seems to me the people in the oil and gas industry have both the skills and scale to do that.

steve_adams_86 7y ago

That's a tough thing. Imagine someone was telling you that you had to change your career because people decided it's no good. What will you do? Put your life on hold and go retrain for something you never intended to train for? Possibly (probably) earn less? Potentially need to move for work? It's complicated. I think it needs to happen. The US and Canada both spend major subsidies on oil and gas, and that money would do wonders in supporting and retraining these works. However, we'd need a very good plan and very good acceptance of it amongst the work force and tax payers. This would all be incredibly expensive. People would resent the retraining because it would cost tax payers to benefit a small subset of people, while less oil production equals higher prices for... Everything. People would be very upset, both workers and citizens. It's going to be so hard to get people on the same page. I hope the disasters that push us to act aren't too awful.

greglindahl 7y ago
It’s already happened for almost everyone employed mining coal, because of automation. No climate change needed.
- mikeash 7y ago
  Just for perspective, coal mining employs about half as many Americans as Whole Foods. That’s one specialty grocery chain. The amount of attention given to coal miners is absurd.
  - mixmastamyk 7y ago
    Before or after automation?
    - mikeash 7y ago
      That’s right now.
      - beenBoutIT 7y ago
        The opiate epidemic has been killing off coal miners with no letup in sight. https://blog.exploratory.io/how-coal-mining-employment-has-impacted-on-opioid-epidemic-in-america-69cd0156a50d https://blog.exploratory.io/how-coal-mining-employment-has-i...
      - mixmastamyk 7y ago
        Post automation numerical comparisons are not that useful then?
        mikeash 7y ago
        Why not? The point is that there are very few coal miners left and the amount of attention they get is all out of proportion.
        mixmastamyk 7y ago
        Must be nostalgic folks remembering the "good old days."
- tonyedgecombe 7y ago
  The UK had a million people working in the coal industry at the start of the last century, it’s effectively zero now. However it was painful for many of the communities that depended on it, you could argue some have never recovered.
  - steve_adams_86 7y ago
    It's much the same here in BC, Canada. Mines, forestry, fishing - different resource extraction jobs have fluctuated enormously over the last century and we effectively have ghost towns all over. Some places look absolutely dead and you wonder why anyone lives there. At one point, most of them were booming. The gold rush was probably the original boom, and from there many others stemmed. Forestry is probably the most tragic, long-tailed bust in this province though.
opportune 7y ago
Do we also need to ensure jobs for carriage makers? If we do a green new deal type of thing, I think it will work out in aggregate. There will be a massive increase in training for people to work on the manufacturing/installation of renewable energy production and another large need for engineers to design the new manufacturing components, electrical grid, and the large scale installations. Many manufacturing and installation jobs for fossil fuels will be lost but many similar jobs will also be created with renewables. We generally seem to be ok with saying "eh, screw em" when people's livelihoods become obsolete. I don't see why this should be any different, given the stakes.
seanmcdirmid 7y ago
The market does this anyways in the energy industry: oil people don’t have jobs when oil prices are low, my dad was in nuclear and got hit in the late 80s (didn’t need to retrain, but his career was stagnate until retirement).

tonyedgecombe 7y ago

If we were to start sequestering CO2 then it seems to me the people in the oil and gas industry have both the skills and scale to do that.