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It’s already happened for almost everyone employed mining coal, because of automation. No climate change needed.
by greglindahl 7y ago
It’s already happened for almost everyone employed mining coal, because of automation. No climate change needed.
- mikeash 7y agoJust 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 agoBefore or after automation?
- mikeash 7y agoThat’s right now.
- beenBoutIT 7y agoThe 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 agoPost automation numerical comparisons are not that useful then?
- mikeash 7y agoWhy 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 agoMust be nostalgic folks remembering the "good old days."
- tonyedgecombe 7y agoThe 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 agoIt'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.