I used to live in WV and can attest that coal mining jobs have been on the decline for some time. The reason is because the equipment is bigger, better and they can mine more effectively resulting in needing way less workers. You can skip to the conclusion in the linked article [1] which states:

> What happened to coal jobs is even simpler. It is the same thing that happened throughout much of the country — productivity gains led to fewer workers needed to produce the same output.

Sure some people will re-train and join a new industry, but we still need heavy equipment operators for other construction sites. There is potential that a big mining site for lithium could open up [2], then we would need miners yet again. There will unfortunately be those who don't want to move or retrain that will instead resort to just doing drugs.

Personally I think we should welcome phasing out coal and, as policy, offer help to those who's jobs were displaced to prevent creation of meth towns.

[1] https://siepr.stanford.edu/publications/policy-brief/what-ki... [2] https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/30/23849619/lithium-ev-batte...