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Coal is Not Coming Back: And Nostalgia May Kill Us

Coal is Not Coming Back: And Nostalgia May Kill Us

Last updated on: March 29, 2017 at 3:14 pm by Erin Wathen

Coal is Not Coming Back: And Nostalgia May Kill Us 2017-03-29T15:14:58-07:00 Erin Wathen

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I could hear the trains from my bedroom. All hours of the day or night. The sound was such a part of the backdrop of my childhood, I feel a little disoriented now if I find myself too far from the tracks.

Any tracks will do. Luckily, in America, trains are everywhere.

My dad worked for the coal company for the better part of my first 20 years. He worked in the office, not underground, so I won’t try to pretend I’m Loretta Lynn. But I do watch that movie whenever I’m homesick… because she talks like my home people. And the fact remains that coal money fed me and housed me and, for the most part, sent me to college. From my window, I couldn’t quite see the coal shoot, or the tower, or the shower of black that cascaded down into a heap below. I could, however, see the mountain it all came from. The natural source of this shimmering dark bounty that fed us all for so long.

I get the attachment, is what I’m saying. It was life and livelihood. It was regional pride and mobility and a buzzing hive of life itself. But like so many other eras of industry come and gone, that coal song is over. Those jobs aren’t coming back. And whatever bill of goods a demagogue politician might try and sell us–we don’t really want them to. Coal is bad for the air, bad for the earth; and worst of all for those who must breathe it in to bring it out.

Thing is, those politicians promising to bring back coal, know nothing about the region or its people. If they were to go and tour my hometown these days, here’s what they’d see: a park with a fitness trail, skating course and bike run; and epic, state of the art public library; and a community college campus; all of which have been built around the old tracks and tipples.

Look at this. It’s a Leslie Knope dream come true. A literal pit in the ground transformed into a vital hub of community life. I mean Come. On.

The new community park on the old grounds of Interstate Coal. London, Kentucky

I love how they kept the old structure, for nostalgia's sake... While transforming everything around it into something new and life-giving.

I love how they kept the old structure, for nostalgia’s sake… While transforming everything around it into something new and life-giving.

The sun does occasionally shine here...

The sun does occasionally shine here…

When politicians promise to bring these places “back to life,” they invoke cinematic images of shuttered mines, decaying row houses, and crumbling company stores deep in the hills and hollers. Those places exist… but they aren’t the norm, nor are they the whole story.

The new recreation and literacy programs in my hometown, planted on the actual grave of a once-thriving coal business, offer a powerful image of the resurrection that can happen when an old story is allowed to die. Other towns have not been so lucky… But the last thing that any of these communities need is a fairy tale about how things used to be. What they need is innovation. Opportunity. Creative solutions to complex social realities.

Yesterday, Trump signed an Executive Order repealing environmental protections. He signed it symbolically surrounded by coal miners (nice photo opp), promising that this legislation would put them back to work. But all the order really does–besides destroy the environment–is open up a portal to the past. It is the way back into the belly of the mountain, stripping all that’s beautiful from the surface, while breathing in all that is toxic beneath.

For what it’s worth: even if those jobs did come back, they would provide a low living wage for miners, while creating unspeakable wealth for industry leaders. Who fund the campaigns of politicians who sell the pretty nostalgic mountain story; who then roll back regulations and push these policies through, so their invisible backers can make a fortune on the backs of poor people.

You see how this works? It’s gross.

Nostalgia is deadly, and not just because of black lung. The southeastern mountain region has been victimized for far too long–by conservative politicians who promise coal jobs; and also by elitist liberals who refuse to learn the language, and who don’t understand what real growth could look like here. Folks on both ends of the political spectrum continue to paint this area as blighted, backward and illiterate. That is a farce, a caricature… And if there is to be any real movement forward in regional development–and in our broader national conversation about energy–the narrative of hillbilly ignorance needs to die right alongside the coal industry.

A recent article from Salon explores the Liberal Shaming of Appalachia. This is real, and it’s a problem. But also problematic are those who capitalize on the real need for development by promising a way back to a better, simpler time. That time was not perfect when it existed–and certainly offers no way forward now.

People from my part of the world are resilient. Before we were coal people, my family were tobacco people. When we learned that tobacco was killing us, we learned to farm other stuff instead. So coal will not be the death of us… but the people who want to get their hands on it–at any cost to human life and the environment–they will be our death for sure.

It’s time we measure the true cost of further plundering the mountains, and figure out where else those trains might carry us instead. I live in the Kansas suburbs now. Nowhere near a mine or a mountain, and sadly, far from anyone who talks like Loretta. But I bought a house within ear shot of the tracks, because I need that sound to sleep at night. I don’t know where those tracks need to take us next. But I know for sure that the only to go from here, is forward.

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