What happens to all these people, their families and lives put in disarray. This is what the economic and political system of a society is supposed to address - the well being of all citizens. And we can clearly see this is where globalization and the current economic dispensation falls apart spectacularly.
Wishing it away or washing your hands off is a kind of sociopathy. Are these people to be left alone to form an underbelly of society susceptible to any demagogue willing to exploit their disenchantment for their own ends. This self serving plan of action directly leads to social unrest, breakdown and worse.
And, FWIW, Obama did favor natural gas.
Corporate oligarchs have always tried to make the results of their deliberate decisions and the candidates they throw money at sound like the inevitable march of progress. But it isn't. And this election was a repudiation of that.
Easier said than done when one's entire social structure is rooted in one place, and has been since before one was born.
We forget how lucky we are that we can do our work from anywhere in the world; those of us who've moved around also tend, I think, to forget the real value of staying where one grew up.
- Having a kid? Now your whole extended family is available to give you help and advice, to babysit, to be there for you when you need them.
- Need a job? It's a lot easier to find one when you have a personal network in a place already.
- Something terrible happen in your life? You now have a built in set of folks to help you through it.
There's incredible value in having a large local support group. Yes, it's possible to compensate for the lack of it with friends, and those of us who have moved far from home tend to do that, but that's a pretty straightforward second best compared to being with family, people you've grown up with, etc.
Being able to and wise enough to move, is a survival instinct that all living things have.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-03/from-coal...
There is no evidence for this what so ever.
Anyone is capable of moving. It's hard and it's disruptive but it's possible. And increasingly it's going to be a necessity if you want to have long term prosperity.
For some people, it is easier to perceive that a bureaucrat is against your industry, as opposed to find out that the economic value created is exceptionally low. When a person loses a job, it will be heartbreaking for the person to realise the job performed earlier has low economical value.
Telling someone "We do not need your services anymore" is harder than telling "Well, all those bureaucrats that live elsewhere decided it...".
I do think that economic value of coal is low and it is economically swapped out for other sources.