Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman took on the future of the coal industry in an interview with Think Progress today. In summary, Krugman sees coal as losing the battle against cleaner forms of energy, including solar and renewable, which employ many more workers that the coal industry. Most of the job losses in the coal industry have been caused by employing different extraction techniques, mainly strip mining and mountaintop removal:
“Coal consumption was flat until about 10 years ago. But coal jobs, most of them disappeared anyway because of instead of sending men with picks underground, we were blowing the tops off mountains. It was mostly technology.”These techniques -- which have serious environmental consequences -- have resulted in employment in the coal industry dropping by two-thirds since 1980. Indeed, more coal plant capacity was lost in the first month-and-a-half of 2018 than in President Obama's first three years in office. Unlike demagogue and pathological liar Donald "Rump" Trump, the answer isn't promising the return of coal in return for votes. Krugman says:
“So, coal is not coming back. The question should be what can we do for what used to be coal country — not what can we do to bring coal jobs back, because that’s about as practical as bringing back the buggy whip industry.”As Rump's empty promises begin to sink in, workers in the coal industry may figure out that they've been conned by Con Man-in-Chief Rump. We'll see if his con works in "coal country" in the 2018 elections, but we're not holding our breath.
(photo: Dominick Reuter, AFP/Getty Images. Conning his audience)
