What About the Miners?

I was at a little climate demo in Horncastle yesterday, a bit of joint affair between FridaysForFuture, Extinctinction Rebellion The Labour Party and others, under the banner of Horncastle Climate Action.

I got chatting about future XR actions, particularly at the Pont Valley coal mine in County Durham to somebody carrying a Labour Party placard.

She was, she explained, someone who absolutely understood the climate emergency. But (is it something deeply ingrained in the psyche of Labour members?) she was concerned about the jobs and livelihoods of the coal-miners.

Well, yes, I sympathised, but there will be no jobs and livelihoods for anyone if we don't stop burning the black stuff. Stopping coal mining comes first and then we must address the issue of social justice and the rest that is at the core of Labour's existence.

My conversation should not have stopped there. We should have gone on to discuss the fact that everything has to change. But I'm not sure that some folk, even though they say the 'get' the climate issue, are not ready for this, Everything has to change. It's not just a handful of coal-mining jobs. There are oil workers, gas workers, gas fitters, people who make car engines, car salesmen, aircrew, travel agents... every job in every industry in which fossil carbon is burnt. And that is very nearly every job.

It's not about the miners. Everything has to change.