An Epidemic Is Killing Thousands of Coal Miners
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Re: An Epidemic Is Killing Thousands of Coal Miners
#2I've started implementing a rule in my life: if the entire conversation is unsurprising and predictable, don't have it.
NPR thinks stronger regulations could have raised health of workers? Color me not interested.
A more honest headline I'd be interested in reading: negative health implications worth raising national cost of living for this industry
Re: An Epidemic Is Killing Thousands of Coal Miners
#3It's clear that no one should be working in a mine without at minimum an N95 mask and probably a PAPR (powered air purifying respirator). I wonder if there is any reason at all, other than preserving corporate profit margins, that the coal industry has failed to adopt simple and well understood industrial hygiene practices.
Clean coal indeed.
Re: An Epidemic Is Killing Thousands of Coal Miners
#4I've started implementing a rule in my life: if the entire conversation is unsurprising and predictable, don't have it. NPR thinks stronger regulations could have raised health of workers? Color me not interested. A more honest headline I'd be interested in reading: negative health implications worth raising national cost of living for this industry
[deleted]
Re: An Epidemic Is Killing Thousands of Coal Miners
#5I've started implementing a rule in my life: if the entire conversation is unsurprising and predictable, don't have it. NPR thinks stronger regulations could have raised health of workers? Color me not interested. A more honest headline I'd be interested in reading: negative health implications worth raising national cost of living for this industry
I've long had a rule in my life: "When someone can only accept a conversation or submit to an idea if it is framed in ways that specifically impact them, then they're most likely not in possession of any idea or perspective worth sharing in the first place."
If you're angry that a publication addresses a human problem on a human level because, it seems, you're upset about what fractional cents of cost it would have added per ton of coal on the market? You're not only frighteningly devoid of empathy, but you're also doubly wasting your time by reading the article then complaining about it here.
Re: An Epidemic Is Killing Thousands of Coal Miners
#6I think it's a story we're all quite familiar with: in the absence of someone keeping an industry honest, the industry tends to develop honesty problems, because cutting corners makes the decision-makers more money, and the externalities are just that: externalities.
Re: An Epidemic Is Killing Thousands of Coal Miners
#7It's clear that no one should be working in a mine without at minimum an N95 mask and probably a PAPR (powered air purifying respirator). I wonder if there is any reason at all, other than preserving corporate profit margins, that the coal industry has failed to adopt simple and well understood industrial hygiene practices. Clean coal indeed.
"Clean coal" was always a bullshit term like "light cigarettes". It was just a way to delay any real action.
Re: An Epidemic Is Killing Thousands of Coal Miners
#8It's clear that no one should be working in a mine without at minimum an N95 mask and probably a PAPR (powered air purifying respirator). I wonder if there is any reason at all, other than preserving corporate profit margins, that the coal industry has failed to adopt simple and well understood industrial hygiene practices. Clean coal indeed.
Surely it's cheaper to provide this kind of protection (I assumed it would be OSHA-mandated honestly) than it is to pay for the healthcare and/or lawsuits that follow?
I admittedly haven't read the article yet, but it's surprising to me that black lung / industrial air quality isn't something that OSHA (or similar) is tasked with ensuring ample worker protections for.
Re: An Epidemic Is Killing Thousands of Coal Miners
#9I think it's a story we're all quite familiar with: in the absence of someone keeping an industry honest, the industry tends to develop honesty problems, because cutting corners makes the decision-makers more money, and the externalities are just that: externalities.
Well said, I couldn't have put it better myself. I see all these people clamoring for the return of coal and coal miners, yet the amount of miners dying due to entirely preventable causes is infuriating. We're willing to throw away anything and everything for the sake of making slightly more money for people that already have too much to count.
Re: An Epidemic Is Killing Thousands of Coal Miners
#10I think it's a story we're all quite familiar with: in the absence of someone keeping an industry honest, the industry tends to develop honesty problems, because cutting corners makes the decision-makers more money, and the externalities are just that: externalities.
I think in the modern political stage we've forgotten that regulations on industry is not a market distortion but a market correction (when done correctly). Regulations exist to incorporate the costs of externalities into the cost of doing business.
This sort of a market correction only receives criticism on an inter-industry level (and possibly with regards to imports if the cost is only applied domestically) because everyone in that industry is motivated to care about the well being of their workers without suffering an economic disadvantage for doing so (in fact, not caring is often a penalty beyond the cost to adhere to the regulation to make adherence an economically sound decision).