{"id":1157766,"date":"2019-12-31T14:17:11","date_gmt":"2019-12-31T20:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/?p=1010292"},"modified":"2019-12-31T14:17:11","modified_gmt":"2019-12-31T20:17:11","slug":"joe-biden-tells-coal-miners-to-learn-to-code","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1157766","title":{"rendered":"Joe Biden tells coal miners to learn to code"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Democratic presidential hopeful and former US vice president Joe Biden told unemployed miners, particularly those in the coal sector, to learn to code so that they can access the jobs of the future.<\/p>\n<div class='d-flex justify-content-center d-xs-block d-sm-block d-md-none'>\n<div id='div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0'><script>googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0');});<\/script><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>According to <em>Washington Post<\/em> reporter Dave Weigel, at a rally in Derry, New Hampshire, Biden said that if miners are able to go down 3,000 feet or throw coal into a furnace, they surely have the ability to learn how to program.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-twitter alignright wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Biden riffing on how Obama put him in charge of judging the &quot;jobs of the future&quot; suggests re-training miners as coders.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Anybody who can go down 3000 feet in a mine can sure as hell learn to program as well.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>This sort of &quot;just transition&quot; stuff was murder on Clinton in 2016&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/daveweigel\/status\/1211763169926012930?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 30, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Biden\u2019s comments come at a moment when natural gas has taken a good share of the market previously dominated by coal and when <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"coal generation continues to go down (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/coal-power-generation-continues-to-drop-in-the-us\/\" >coal generation continues to go down<\/a>. At the same time, coal exports from the US to Asia and Europe are experiencing a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/web\/coal-exports-choked-by-green-minded-towns-on-us-west-coast\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"series of roadblocks (opens in a new tab)\">series of roadblocks<\/a> imposed by towns and cities that decided to put limits on how much of the fossil fuel is shipped from their ports.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The former vice president\u2019s remarks were not entirely well-received, even within his own party. People like Brianna Wu, candidate for the House of Representatives in MA District 8 and a software engineer, <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"tweeted (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BriannaWu\/status\/1211797387179692033\" >tweeted<\/a> that Biden\u2019s comment seems to be tone-deaf to the needs of mineworkers who have lost their jobs.<\/p>\n<p>According to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/opinion\/articles\/2019-10-31\/coal-consumption-keeps-dropping-under-trump-coal-jobs-will-too\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (opens in a new tab)\">U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics<\/a>, 53,300 people were employed in coal mines in September 2019, way below the 79,400 people employed in the sector a decade ago.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>It is not the first time that Joe Biden makes comments that pose questions about his connection with the reality of unemployed Americans.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Following a presidential debate on December 19, the <em>Washington Examiner<\/em> published an <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"op-ed (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/opinion\/is-joe-biden-trying-to-lose-the-rust-belt\" >op-ed<\/a> titled \u201cIs Joe Biden trying to lose the Rust Belt?\u201d. This, after the Democratic candidate did not elaborate on how, if elected, his government would provide opportunities to blue-collar energy and mine workers to transition to high-paying jobs as the US is pushed to move toward a green economy.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>During a rally in New Hampshire, the former vice-president said that computer skills would allow displaced mine workers to access the jobs of the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1035,369,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1157766"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1157766"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1157766\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1157772,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1157766\/revisions\/1157772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1157766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1157766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1157766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}