Can a coal mine revive Whitehaven without sacrificing the climate?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ก.ค. 2024
- The controversial decision to approve a new coalmine in Cumbria was met with dismay by UK environmental groups, with many wondering what it meant for a country that has pitched itself as a leader in the green energy revolution.
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But in the town of Whitehaven where the mine is to be situated, the feeling is very different, with vast support across the political spectrum. The Guardian's Richard Sprenger travels to the Mirehouse estate, a short distance from the Woodhouse Colliery site, to find out what lies behind this positivity in the face of a profound climate crisis.
00:00 Intro
01:43 The mayor of Copeland
02:41 Pit poetry
04:35 The Mirehouse estate
05:24 Bingo!
08:24 Pit crack at the miners club
00:22 Sellafield (or Industry)
10:31 Decline
11:18 Tubby FC
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#whitehaven #cumbria #uk #coal #coalmine #miners #mines #news
A coal mine in the 2020s isn't going to be the same workplace as a coal mine forty years ago. It's going to have automation, tracking how employees use their time, and "looking for a recent graduate with five years of experience" job listings. Nobody without a relevant degree and recent experience working at a mine is getting a permanent position that pays enough for a decent standard of living.
Truth
Could say the same about Sellafield, however that's a great employer and employs many, from various backgrounds with varying levels of education. I'd argue that if nuclear decommissioning can provide employment there, so can a mine.
They want work, not a mine.
Put up a factory manufacturing for solar, wind or tidal and they'd get everything they're looking for.
i couldn't agree more with you.
But i would add they also want a community sprit, which the football seems to offer very nicely
Would that "green" factory pay comparable wages? Coal mining is no longer drudge work, it's automated and workers make fairly high wages.
@@zippymufo9765
Why would it pay any less ?
Ah, I remember you.
A problem for every solution guy.
It's been a while, did you get parole ?
@@dondoodat Ah, another out of touch London metrosexual who knows nothing about factories or the working class. 😂 "Why would it pay any less?", indeed.
@@zippymufo9765 I'm an ex-miner, still plenty young enough to go back. I know precisely what it's like. There is still a lot of hard physical work in mining. Those rockbolted roadways need somebody to get all the materials to the development faces. I didn't dislike the job, but would I go back to it? Not a chance.
Elderly folk wanting to build a time machine and go back. My dad used to bring me bread and jam. Really? The new mine is going to help with that is it. I miss the 90s but I'm not going force everyone back onto dialup.
Actually stopping using the internet would be a great idea for humanity and the earth
@@HuplesCat I doubt it.
@@jbuchan12 a phased return to log tables and slide rules, a slower world. It would be awesome. The Net is a huge experimental shift in life and it’s showing massive anxiety and depression and inequity as it rolls out
@@HuplesCat same could be said of the Industrial revolution. I guess it just takes time. We often dwell on the problems of the internet but literally we couldn't survive without it now..
@@jbuchan12 Big difference between infrastructure uses and the way it's distorted politics and human relationships. Pointing out the negatives isn't just some reductive call for the past.
All these old people wanted a return of the mine but won’t actually be the ones cutting the coal out and risking their lives.
people cant even sympathise with 1 village in poverty, much less whole starving countries with few options besides coal 😥
@@pepelepew1227 coal isn’t the solution.
@@kb4903 do you have any solution? it's always far easier to move two thumbs while anybody-but-me deals with the problem.
I'm a Workington man, we need the coal mine we need a future, we need the coal, all resistance is to coal mine is from out of the county or from offcomers.
If they stop this mine, local anger will be palpable 
“It’s mine”? Really, Guardian?
It wouldn't be the Guardian without a typo. Apologies, but hope you like the video.
The guardian trying to,twist the story and blame the tories😂Classic
Besides the obvious environmental objection, mining is not the employment provider it once was. Modern mines employ a tiny fraction of jobs they once did. You can mine a whole hill with a couple of dozen people and a lot of machinery. Long gone are the days of a whole village employed in one mine.
What a great story, Some inspirational people there like Katrina with her ability to see both sides of the argument. That's what we need more of. All the best to the people of Whitehaven.
Of course it's all the retirees wanting it, they're not the ones having to work in it lmao.
Most people want it here, they have just interviewed people with direct links to mining (and thus older people)
99% of local people want it,
As someone from West Cumbria, we need this. Westminster has never considered us, at any point during the political climate.
Coal Is King Keep Mining That Black Diamond⛏💪👌
There's a lot of ignorance in these comments about what the coal is for, the coal from this proposed mine is for steel production the UK currently imports all of it's coking coal from overseas.
But we need to electrify steel production
@@jrisner6535 right and where's the carbon going to come from ...
@@caj4562 check out that they're doing in Sweden
80% of the coal is being exported. The owners are of shore, based in Camen Isles. The people of West Cumbria would be foolish to put their faith in this Tory government.
Because it’s cheaper to import it
I get that they need help, but copd aint it( dust lung, black lung whatever its called). However you would cut ist, working in a mine is really bad for your health. No amount of money will offset that. They deserve better than this :(
Yes. Climate change saved 555,103 lives in England and Wales between 2001 and 2020 (ONS, 2022).
We’re not going to stop needing steel so we either make it here with our own coal providing jobs in the process and without the need for global transport or we buy it from someone else who enjoy the jobs - either way coal is mined and burned and C02 produced.
Or we electrify steel production, as they're doing elsewhere
@@jrisner6535 We already do that in the UK but it uses vast amounts of electricity and that’s so expensive it’s barely economical.
If we had had the foresight to build nuclear reactors all around our coast 20 years ago combined with renewables we would be energy independent and could have the carbon neutral energy to do it at an affordable rate *and* be better placed to go into a new era of electric cars, heating, cooling etc. But we didn’t have that foresight, and if anything it was campaigned against by the very people who want carbon neutral energy now. Bizarrely we *still* don’t seem to have learned that lesson so for now it’s still coal I’m afraid.
Exactly. Until they come up with a more economical way of making steel, without using coal/coke as part of the process, then its a no brainer. Why send the coal/coke all the way from such as the USA, causing carbon emissions from the shipping, when the same product can be brought from West Cumbria to Port Talbot and Scunthorpe (assuming steelmaking will continue at Scunthorpe), a fraction of the distance, while at the same time, creating jobs in Whitehaven, both in construction and subsequent running of the mine.
@@hockeyfanice7371 It’s mind blowing that very few of the people who oppose it have taken to the time to consider this. They’ve just been programmed to oppose it without thinking. This is the same “thinking” that resulted in us not building nuclear power stations or utilising tidal energy in places like the Severn estuary.
In their defence, the media is quite careful to present the climate change argument very clearly but then deliberately mash up the pro argument by making it all about the evil Tory government or about old people wanting their past back.
@@hockeyfanice7371 look up what HYBRIT are up to in Sweden, that's where we should be
It could but labour don’t want people to,work especially jam eaters😂
Great Video!
Sadly the irony of this is those clued up enough to realise that new mines would not mean new jobs are the only ones likely qualified to benefit from such a development
I would have adviced on Biomethane production as a less invasive alternative. It would contribute the same as the mine, while also giving farmers more valuable treatment of their manure. Biogenic CO2, can then be captured and sold to industries with a rebranding of "Whitehaven Gas, is not a hot air venture" - couple that up with Whitehaven produce to be juiced or fermented, with added CO2 from the biomethane plant (Alternatively sell it to Ennerdale, or Tractor Shed breweries would make it a lovely little story too) and you have jobs in gas, manufactore, transportation, greenhouse gardening, and brewing etc. Rather than a few coal mining jobs done with automation. Then again, I cannot control the investment policies, but it seems to me that the desire to keep the status quo, or return to status quo sometimes rob us from progressing in the right direction, while also creating jobs to those who need it, in the fields of expertise of ailing communities, rather than what these communities looked like, 40 years ago. Whitehaven needs to live and work today.
whats 1 coal mine for global emissions vs china and indias total output?
If all the people who ‘think of the environment’ took the trouble to learn the Science about climate change there would be no more protests about it.
All this piece demonstrates is when faced with an uncertain future with no prospects people will want to return to a time when they felt safe and 'normal'
As someone said in the comments give them a solar panel factory - great and I can bet you if that happened and lasted two generations and brought prosperity to the town coal would be forgotten. And if in a couple of generations that solar industry closed and replaced by another form of energy and the locals were once again facing deprivation they would be calling for the factories to be re-opened.
People want and need stability and successive governments have ignored this for short term gains
Where's the steel going to come from?
What an interesting and unusual accent. It sounds like a strange mix of Geordie, Merseyside, and Lancashire.
the accent is called cumbrian or originaly cumberland, but its faded a lot in the past 20 or 30 year,s, & if i,m talking to an older person my local accent automaticly changes to match there,s. even a lot of young local people, wouldn,t understand the dialect from 20 to 30 year ago
@@michaelgoulding6609 , what sort of accent do the younger generations have?
How many times a day does the average Brit hear the word 'crisis'?
Proper investment needed, sustainable.
Coal mine folly is not.
Asking 70 year olds for business ideas and they come up with coal mine
Wow i am shocked 😂
At least they have ideas.
How dare the people of West Cumbria want jobs and a future. Surely they should build their lives around making people in North London happy.
No, no, no. Move forward, not back!
We need to get off dependance on Russia and the Arabs for our oil and gas.
Coal is the future along with Nuclear.
Stop building expensive, inefficient windmills.
So continue to import coking coal from overseas?
If you can’t imagine a better future, answer isn’t to go back to the past
Dinosaurs yearning for an asteroid
Coking coal that's essential for steel production? The ignorance and arrogance is astounding.
@@caj4562 great, we can have plenty of steel on an uninhabitable planet. i guess if some faceless nothing on youtube says its impossible to do without coal then it must be. youre right about the second part at least, but its you
💵💵💵
What a great way to boost the local economy. JCB's hydrogen internal combustion engine is a game changer boost to the economy and no emissions.
climate has been cooling for the last fourteen years.....
The coercion of capitalism is so great that would would jeopardise humanity for fleeting idea of prosperity!
Lol. What has Capatlism to do with eat. These are coal miners. They are workers. They want jobs. They want coal for steel production.
It* (not eat).
Capitalism*
Seriously coal in 2023 😮 shameful
Why?
Coal is under our feet. Readily available.
Ban woodburners and tax aviation instead.
@@risingphoenix8072 making steel. It's cokeing coal.
@@domskill ok thanks. There is a similar thing happening in the USA, in West Virginia. I’m trying to understand the issue.
Is green new jobs you had 30 years 0 job
I don't have central heating, I have a wood burner, if I use coal, I can be charged for it, can't afford to use the electric heating can't afford it.
Meanwhile, their customers are all switching to renewables. Too bad,, so sad.
It must be tough to watch your whole life made redundant.
Hope their kids figure out that renewables need some different stuff mined too.
Stuff that you don't need to set fire to...
You get cokeing coal from Cumbria, the coal you need for steel production. Like the steel renewables are made out of.
America’s coal country is already destroyed, UK does a better job at fixing cities
You can't go forwards by going backwards. Nothing lasts forever in this world. The proposed mine site could be used for something that benefits both people and the environment. It just needs someone to see what that thing is and then make it happen. Where is Elon Musk when you need him? He'd get it done.
Room with his long list of failures and lies.
I don't want to be an a** but stay at home women who want the coal mines back, where their husbands got dust lungs...🤦
If they want to work they should retrain/return to education and/or move to somewhere with more jobs, rather than just asking for the government to bring them a job to their doorstep!
Come have a look at the whole borough before you cast your judgements 😂
Eating cake, why didn't we think of that!
I think we should actually sanction and boycott Cumbria for this. If the economic interest is all they care about then we should vote with our money.
Net Zero is destroying our economy. Don't be so infantile.
Coal is very useful.
@@stephfoxwell4620 Burning your house to keep yourself warm. That's what using fossil fuels is.
You do understand what coking coal right? You do understand that it's main ingredients in making steel? One of the single most important ingredient in what makes windmills and let's face almost everything you use or have ever used. If anything this mine will reduce the the carbon footprint of the entire UK as we are no long shipping millions of tones of it to make steal. So do some research before you look dumb.
@@FortoFight it's coking coal you troglodyte 😂
Also stay away then, we don't want you here.🤡
Get the mine. It will make lots of jobs and get people off the dole.
Одни старики, а Англия потихоньку вымирает, живите по указке глобалиста индусика
Elaborate.....?
You walking into the town saying we're in the middle of an "Existential climate crisis" is the problem.
What part of climate change is 'existential' or a 'crisis.' It's a problem, but it's neither of those 2 words.
Coal Not Dole.
Britain has 275 year's reserves of coal and modern clean burn technology. Get digging.
The music was too loud and I couldn't understand the people. 👎