Appalachian transition: Why coalfield residents need to help themselves diversify their economy

Another excellent piece by one of the very best journalists covering Appalachian issues. I hope everyone will take a few minutes to read it. Will cross post to GD.

http://blogs.wvgazette.com/coaltattoo/2014/10/15/appalachian-transition-why-coalfield-residents-need-to-help-themselves-diversify-their-economy/
The Charleston Gazette
Appalachian transition: Why coalfield residents need to help themselves diversify their economy
October 15, 2014 by Ken Ward Jr.

It’s been about 15 years ago now. I was at an environmental journalism conference, attending a lunch session about climate change that included representatives of some of the big national and international environmental groups, along with a few industry people and some scientists. The environmental groups were, of course, rightly making their case — as they continue to today – that urgent action was needed to deal with carbon dioxide emissions

This was a long time ago and I was younger and probably even dumber than I am now. But I tried several times to engage these folks about what they thought a national climate policy should include in the way of economic, educational, or other help for coalfield communities where any mandated reduction in greenhouse gas emissions would almost certainly mean a significant decrease in about the only kind of good-paying jobs around.

Well, you would have thought I was from Mars. I mean, some folks were reasonably arguing that they were environmental groups. It was their job to work to protect the environment, public health and all that stuff. Their role in the process wasn’t to develop economic transition policies. They weren’t against those things necessarily. It just wasn’t their passion, and they didn’t think it was their job. But some folks were more hostile to my queries. They lectured me about how evil coal-mining was, and how they just didn’t understand why anyone in West Virginia wouldn’t welcome a complete end to the practice. Those folks had never been here. They certainly hadn’t been to a coal mine. They never came out and said so, but I certainly walked away feeling like they didn’t really care much what happened in places like Logan County, W.Va., as long as they got some sort of climate policy enacted.

I’ve been replaying those discussions a little in my mind this morning, and looking back at a piece that David Roberts wrote for Grist called, Should the feds bail out coal miners? The piece was a follow-up to an earlier post he wrote called Democrats: Coal Country is just not that into you.... MORE at link provided above.