I grew up in central Pennsylvania coal country in the 1970s and 80s and I remember how my small town had more than one oxygen supply store because so many of my schoolmates’ grandpas were slowly dying in their living rooms from black lung.
Replies
Same. The sad thing is how many guys who dodged that bullet immediately memory-holed the possibility of wheezing death and think everyone should be a miner.
aug 1, 2025, 2:02 am • 5 0 • view
Bringing back “clean coal” which doesn’t exist, just like the brain cells that do not exist in the twice impeached, orange felon’s head. Sad!
aug 1, 2025, 9:42 pm • 0 0 • view
Slavery is just around the corner!
aug 1, 2025, 9:44 am • 1 0 • view
These people cheered when Trump promised to keep them in the coal mines. They believed him when he said the immigrants were eating the dogs. They would probably send their daughters to Mar-a-Lago for a “spa” weekend. Sometimes I just despair the species.
aug 1, 2025, 3:03 am • 4 0 • view
My HS football team comprised the bulk of extras in that film.
aug 1, 2025, 1:27 am • 12 0 • view
Oh wow it really was, damn
aug 1, 2025, 1:27 am • 2 0 • view
I wasn’t on that team, but yeah, close
aug 1, 2025, 1:28 am • 2 0 • view
“All the right moves” was very good take on life in W PA steel towns. HS footballer Cruise’s dad&brother are often laid off in gritty town, called “Ampipe” after “American Pipe”. I grew up ~10 miles from Ambridge, PA, named from mill. I played HS football vs these sorts of (very motivated) guys.
aug 1, 2025, 2:14 am • 4 0 • view
In late 1960s, while attending Penn State, I was lucky to get vacation jobs at US Bureau of Mines Pittsburgh Mining Research Center (ie coal), building on Forbes Av, now part of CMU. I was in research side, but heard storries by safety golks, developed much sympathy for miners, not much for execs.
aug 1, 2025, 2:19 am • 4 1 • view
And of course, much of Allegheny County had abandoned coal mines that collapsed under people’s houses or had long-running fires (not as bad as Centralia, but still…) Of course the mining co’s were long gone. “Privatize profits & socialize the costs.” en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central...
aug 1, 2025, 2:29 am • 7 1 • view
There were no mines on/near our farm in NW Allegheny County, but the front pasture had had an oil well fire a few decades in late 1800s, shutoff by 1900 & dismantled. But still in 1960s there was a spot where nothing grew…
aug 1, 2025, 2:29 am • 4 1 • view
We had a burning slag heap smelling like sulfur for at least a decade just south of Elkville, IL
aug 1, 2025, 4:40 am • 3 0 • view
My mother was born and raised in Centralia; my dad about 10 miles away in Locust Gap.
aug 1, 2025, 3:21 am • 2 0 • view
i went to high school in Schuylkill County. worked in a PA Dutch restaurant where at least two workers had black lung disease from the coal stoves.
aug 1, 2025, 5:22 am • 1 0 • view
I never got to meet one of my grandfathers, an Ohio coal miner who died before I was born.
aug 1, 2025, 1:29 am • 6 0 • view
The call for a meaningful general strike is overdue, ya blabberin pussies.
aug 1, 2025, 1:45 am • 0 0 • view
As usual, big *anonymous* talk about “general strike,” 0 talk about how to protect participants from the fiscal blowback. I know people who actually do labor organizing & political organizing *w/ their names attached*. No “strike” 🐂💩 from them bcuz they know preparation’s the key to success.
aug 1, 2025, 10:57 am • 0 0 • view
Then we start contributing to a general strike fund that can see those who will need it, through the process. Giving up isn't the answer.
aug 1, 2025, 3:55 pm • 0 0 • view
Set it up & publicize it. Which is tough to do when you choose to sit on the sidelines anonymously taking potshots at the people who can’t afford to get fired. You want productive, effective actions? Start by performing them yourself.
aug 1, 2025, 7:59 pm • 0 0 • view
Is the US dept of energy on meth?
aug 1, 2025, 8:26 am • 0 0 • view
This all reads like an Orwell copycat novelist using more extreme and ridiculous examples of fascism.
aug 1, 2025, 9:44 pm • 0 0 • view
I don’t understand their obsession with coal. I grew up in PA coal country (Schuylkill Co) and my childhood home was heated with coal and it was dirty and I’m sure unhealthy.
aug 1, 2025, 2:59 am • 2 0 • view
is there any language where "coal" has a feminine case"?
aug 1, 2025, 1:53 am • 1 0 • view
Her moment has passed (really, like, 45 years ago..) Ditch the bitch...
aug 1, 2025, 2:23 am • 0 0 • view
Let's stay in the 19th Century.
aug 1, 2025, 2:28 am • 0 0 • view
I don't understand why anyone would think mining coal is a good idea Alot of people died from working in mines including Loretta Lynn s father
aug 1, 2025, 2:35 am • 1 0 • view
@kimkelly.bsky.social has phenomenal reporting on recent coal miner strikes and the Hell they’re going through in all facets, including being spit on by these Fascists who would rather see each of them die from disease than impact an iota of their profits.
aug 1, 2025, 1:22 am • 18 0 • view
Wishful thinking Would be real hard for Trump if he couldn't convince prime to kill themselves for his glory
aug 1, 2025, 7:20 am • 0 0 • view
Diamonds may be a girl's best friend but coal is a widow's worst enemy.
aug 1, 2025, 2:10 am • 2 0 • view
And now they’re your friends’ parents dying because the form of black lung caused by silica dust, a byproduct of contemporary coal mining, is more severe and happens much more quickly than the coal dust generated by earlier mining techniques.
aug 1, 2025, 7:25 pm • 0 0 • view
(Said as someone born and raised in WV coal country who loves and weeps for it still.)
aug 1, 2025, 7:25 pm • 1 0 • view
The MAGAts have short memories
aug 1, 2025, 2:24 am • 0 0 • view
Part of this is climate change denialism but a big part is that coal mining is perceived as masculine, while renewable energy (and everything else Green) is perceived as feminine. Trumpism, like all forms of fascism, promotes the masculine over the feminine.
aug 1, 2025, 2:05 am • 73 6 • view
"daddy's home"
aug 1, 2025, 10:35 pm • 1 0 • view
🎵He's had more hard luck than most men could stand The mines was his first love but never his friend He's lived a hard life and hard he'll die Black lung's done got him his time is nigh🎵 - Kathy Mattea www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RVV...
aug 1, 2025, 4:41 pm • 1 0 • view
He went to the boss man but he closed the door Well, it seems you're not wanted when you're sick and you're poor You ain't even covered in their medical plans And your life depends on the favors of man
aug 1, 2025, 4:41 pm • 0 0 • view
The air quality is already atrocious and these bone heads are going to make it so much worse.
aug 1, 2025, 1:32 am • 11 0 • view
America barreling headfirst into the past. Pure reaction.
aug 1, 2025, 1:22 am • 0 0 • view
a past that the coal isn't even there to equal anymore?
aug 1, 2025, 4:24 am • 0 0 • view
The county I grew up in went 70/30 for Trump in every election since 2016. People were excited by his 2016 promise to bring coal jobs back. My understanding is that Trump created exactly 2 coal jobs in the country, both of which were in management and required a college degree.
aug 1, 2025, 1:24 am • 241 31 • view
My father watched his coal mining father in Nova Scotia die of black lung at age 65. A mine cave-in killed his brother at the age of 21. He never understood the fight to keep coal mining jobs,it is dangerous work that kills off a significant amount of miners before they reach average life range.
aug 1, 2025, 1:58 am • 8 0 • view
I hope it is not arrogant of me to say that I weep for your home town to be so desperate, or mis informed as to fall for this con
aug 1, 2025, 1:26 am • 11 0 • view
as someone who has lived in small town suburbia in a red state, and now lives in the city....thats not arrogance, thats empathy. empathy at realizing that all they had was the dream, and that theyd rather keep the dream alive than face reality.
aug 1, 2025, 6:29 am • 7 0 • view
Can’t help but feel this is also an argument for discounting the opinions of poorly informed voters. “We voted for a moron fascist because he told us the world could go back to what we wish it had been”.
aug 1, 2025, 10:29 pm • 0 0 • view
Also a failure of the elite for not understanding the reality that many people live with to be clear.
aug 1, 2025, 10:31 pm • 1 0 • view
when our system is so heavily reliant on empiricism, not only to set observations and make decisions based on them, but also as a basis for legitimacy, theres only so far a floor u can go. yes u can listen, yes u can understand and try to resolve their issues, yes u can set up education on disinfo
aug 2, 2025, 12:39 am • 0 0 • view
but a certain point, u realize that their actions are threatening the legitimacy of the system. also, a lot of the bad action stems from wilful ignorance, not from actual ignorance. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willful...
aug 2, 2025, 12:39 am • 1 0 • view
Facts don’t matter to the MAGAts.
aug 1, 2025, 2:21 am • 3 0 • view
My parents and ancestors were from the PA anthracite region and those towns are just worn out.
aug 1, 2025, 3:16 am • 7 0 • view
Omg
aug 1, 2025, 10:53 pm • 0 0 • view
I've moved to coal country. Here's the thing everyone here will tell you, the jobs aren't coming back. 1. Coal as energy generation isn't cost effective compared to natural gas. 2. If mining does increase it will be done using more machines.
aug 1, 2025, 1:57 am • 6 0 • view
aug 1, 2025, 1:35 am • 4 0 • view
So the people in your county are fools?
aug 1, 2025, 1:54 am • 1 0 • view
they're probably poor. I used to live back there a small coal town outside Pittsburgh, and when the coal mines closed and the mill closed, the town fell into poverty and everyone left. Because the railroads got deregulated in the 70s, it was cheaper to get coal from the west coast, so demand fell
aug 1, 2025, 3:34 am • 2 0 • view
People who struggle in run-down towns don't have access to good schools and might be ignorant due to circumstances. Or they quit school early to work.
aug 1, 2025, 5:28 am • 4 0 • view
National news interviewed people from my hometown, Uniontown, after 2016. They were excited about Trump bringing coal back. I felt so sad.
aug 1, 2025, 5:59 pm • 2 0 • view
Anyone that has lived in the area south of Boulder or near Cheyenne and seen the coal trains that come through from the strip mines in Montana or Wyoming knew that the mines in WV and KY were NEVER going to compete against that efficiency.
aug 1, 2025, 1:47 am • 5 0 • view
One guess...Cambria?
aug 1, 2025, 2:09 am • 3 0 • view
Yep
aug 1, 2025, 2:51 am • 3 0 • view
Did your county not understand the sources of lung cancer - or were the women ok with sending all the men in the family to work in the mines and die in their 40's and 50's so they could afford a nicer TV, get a survivor's pension and shack up with the clerk who worked in the office.
aug 1, 2025, 2:00 am • 0 0 • view
Why is the women's fault?
aug 1, 2025, 8:27 am • 5 0 • view
Wtf?
aug 1, 2025, 5:31 am • 4 0 • view
I wish I could remember where I picked up the idea, but ‘digging up the bio stored solar energy from fossilized prehistoric animals and burning it has a very predictable end date, because the source isn’t being refreshed. Harvesting it directly from the sun has better long term sustainability.
aug 1, 2025, 3:52 am • 1 0 • view
The moment? Or yet another moment when this administration declares victory by returning us to the 19th century?
aug 1, 2025, 1:29 am • 0 0 • view
Is this real or a hoax? My god if it’s real then I’m just flabbergasted.
aug 1, 2025, 3:15 am • 0 0 • view
And black lung is coming back, and it is worse due to the silica that comes up with the coal in current removal methods.
aug 1, 2025, 6:26 pm • 0 0 • view
And on top of this, they’ll cut Medicaid so miners will die quickly
aug 1, 2025, 3:21 pm • 0 0 • view
So depressing. I hate this administration.
aug 1, 2025, 3:42 am • 2 0 • view
My grandfather and half of my uncles (Schuylkill County) were dead before I was even born. Black lung or cancer took them out in their 50s.
aug 1, 2025, 1:41 am • 10 0 • view
Everything Trump touches turns to coal ….
aug 1, 2025, 2:33 am • 4 0 • view
Whole damn government is run by trolls now.
aug 1, 2025, 1:29 am • 14 0 • view
Trolls are at least, somewhat, funny... These people are just assholes
aug 1, 2025, 2:51 am • 6 0 • view
Pretty sure there's a typo there. Should be: "Shit is the moment."
aug 1, 2025, 7:40 pm • 1 0 • view
Yup. My bestie’s dad in Ohio same but polishing gold faucets for Moen. Small bioactive particulate lessons never get learned. Ok beryllium. Ohio girl. Mask up.
aug 1, 2025, 2:43 am • 3 0 • view
Fossil fuel porn
aug 1, 2025, 3:19 am • 2 0 • view
At first, I thought this was an AI joke. Then I remembered that we are moving backward, to where we used to be.
aug 1, 2025, 8:22 pm • 1 0 • view
...any yet tRump still refuses to endorse construction of a coal fired power plant in West Palm Beach ...
aug 1, 2025, 7:14 pm • 0 0 • view
One of the funnier things about the weird pivot to coal thing is that coal is more expensive to mine in America than ever due to quality and depth. It would have to be heavily subsidized since they aren’t gonna be importing any
aug 1, 2025, 4:00 am • 2 0 • view
My grandpa worked in the anthracite coal mines in PA before I was born in early 1950s. He was one of the lucky miners. He lived to his early 90s & never had emphysema or black lung. Here I am in a picture taken around 1952.
aug 1, 2025, 2:33 am • 7 0 • view
I totally agree, and I have to ask where? I grew up in Lewistown in the 70s and 80s.
aug 1, 2025, 3:16 am • 1 0 • view
Ebensburg. My aunt and uncle lived in Lewistown.
aug 1, 2025, 3:39 am • 2 0 • view
Next, the Dept of Agriculture will promote foraging for food.
aug 1, 2025, 2:46 pm • 2 0 • view
Well, come to think of it, we haven't had an Aberfan yet. So maybe that's on the agenda, too.
aug 1, 2025, 7:03 am • 0 0 • view
And then there's Centralia, where coal has been burning in the seams for more than 60 years. The industry never went away. It just literally went underground. You'd think that would be a cautionary tale, but then the people who want black lung back in the lower classes have never learned to think.
aug 1, 2025, 6:57 am • 1 0 • view
My grandfather, born in the 1870's, started work in the mines when he was 12. Died of the black lung in 1938. Michigan and Minnesota.
aug 1, 2025, 11:11 am • 3 0 • view
Fuk! Mr. Peabody's back again.
aug 1, 2025, 2:47 pm • 0 0 • view
My mother in law was from one of the wealthiest coal baron families in the country and lived in PA. It failed and post WW2 built the tunnels and roads. One asshole son had multiple families and crashed the wealth. My point? It never fucking changes, extraction, boom, bust because a guy is horny
aug 1, 2025, 1:27 am • 1 0 • view
I have another friend, she passed away, her dad was the diamond merchant and friend of the Carnegies and spent the summers with them on their island. Melons, scaifes....they all hung at the Duquesne Club. Where is their power now? It's zuck, musk, Gates, Theil......they will all fuck it up
aug 1, 2025, 1:34 am • 1 0 • view
Mellons still rule. They just prefer anonymity as they flex their checkbook.
aug 1, 2025, 2:07 am • 0 0 • view
Tim Mellon fucked over my father in law. Ugly lawsuit, the guy is a complete dick but he is a recluse in his 80s now. The money is still around but they are pretty much all dead or dying.
aug 1, 2025, 2:11 am • 0 0 • view
Believe you about Tim. Hubby does a lot of work for them. They’re quiet but they’re not dead.
aug 1, 2025, 2:28 am • 0 0 • view
This is so unbelievably stupid. Burning rocks is the best the Republican Party can do.
aug 1, 2025, 1:22 am • 5 0 • view
I’m married to a WV Cole Miner‘s daughter. And yes, my father-in-law died of black lung.
aug 1, 2025, 1:25 am • 5 0 • view
Modern mines don't have the jobs, just the pollution. For society it's just a terrible deal all around.
aug 1, 2025, 1:36 am • 10 0 • view
Close to centralia?
aug 1, 2025, 1:19 am • 1 0 • view
About 150 miles SW from there. It’s a big state
aug 1, 2025, 1:20 am • 1 0 • view
I grew up in NE PA at the same time. All I remember is how many widows you'd see. Lots of Grandmas but not many Grandpas.
aug 1, 2025, 2:26 am • 9 0 • view
"She"
aug 1, 2025, 2:58 am • 0 0 • view
I'm from Hazleton, PA. We also had more than one. My great grandfather had black lung.
aug 1, 2025, 5:37 am • 2 0 • view
I took the Lackawanna coal mine tour in Scranton, PA a few years ago and even having heard my whole life how horrible mining was from family members and reading, it was still shocking. I highly recommend this if you're ever in the area.
aug 1, 2025, 6:11 pm • 1 0 • view
Very sad
aug 1, 2025, 1:44 am • 2 0 • view
I think this is one of the saddest, most distressing things I've seen in the last 15 minutes. JFC, what has happened to our country in barely 6 months?
aug 1, 2025, 1:49 am • 2 0 • view
Need to get asbestos back in the walls and lead back in paint for the trifecta
aug 1, 2025, 1:20 am • 12 0 • view
He's trying to
aug 1, 2025, 2:09 am • 7 0 • view
bsky.app/profile/twot...
aug 2, 2025, 6:48 pm • 1 0 • view
“Why’d they ever take lead out of gas? Big mistake. I’d never have taken the lead out. Makes the gas much weaker. I’ll be putting the lead back in your tank. Catalytic converters be damned.”
aug 1, 2025, 2:27 am • 1 0 • view
I grew up in SW Pa in the 70s. Same. It was so usual we children didn’t even bat an eye at the situation.
aug 1, 2025, 5:52 pm • 1 0 • view
Oh, hell, if they want mesothelioma to get back to old levels, why not bring back black lung?
aug 1, 2025, 1:32 am • 1 0 • view
They’d all be MAGATS now, so fuck em
aug 1, 2025, 7:34 pm • 0 0 • view
Incredibly sad. Literally died from making other people rich. Horrible deaths and far too soon. We have no reason to return to those times.
aug 1, 2025, 2:45 am • 2 0 • view
She’s a killer queen….these people have zero morals and give zero fucks about our planet.
aug 1, 2025, 4:52 pm • 0 0 • view
Ranks right up there with mercury, lead paint, asbestos, and cigarettes. Yep, take us back to the good old days. Fuck EPA and vaccines while they're at it, why not? Oh. Wait...
aug 1, 2025, 2:57 am • 1 0 • view
Grew up in Scranton in the 1960s. My great uncle lived with us. He had black lung. We kids could hear his clotted breathing through the bedroom wall every night. He sounded like a car that was always about to stall, but never did.
aug 1, 2025, 3:57 am • 6 0 • view
That's a tough memory. So sorry.
aug 1, 2025, 5:37 am • 2 0 • view
She? This is as offensive as calling NASAs project Artemis.
aug 1, 2025, 3:00 am • 1 0 • view
May all the coal be anthracite.
aug 1, 2025, 8:15 pm • 0 0 • view
My mom’s grandparents came from Wales in the 1880’s as kids. Mining families. They settled in Carbondale, PA. He died of black lung at 55. She made to 105. Their graves are side by side and make quite a contrast.
aug 1, 2025, 1:41 am • 20 0 • view
all u have to do is to look at history in order to understand that patriarchy is bad for the average man. which tells me all the broccoli heads were staring at the chearleaders during history class.
aug 1, 2025, 6:34 am • 3 0 • view
What a bad f'n joke they are.
aug 1, 2025, 5:29 pm • 0 0 • view
Yep. In 2011, I sat in a medical clinic waiting to be called back for a routine scan. Several older men there wheeled in oxygen tanks, alongside their wheelchairs because they were too oxygen deprived to walk. All black lung. None of them seem to understand 1 + 1.
aug 1, 2025, 1:29 am • 0 0 • view
I grew Somerset County and one of my grandfathers died of silicosis and black lung. I believe he was 62 at the time of his death. I was a young child, but I recall visiting him and seeing the oxygen tank next to his bed.
aug 1, 2025, 1:31 am • 3 0 • view
So “She’s” back and they are going to burn ‘her’? Anyone else seeing this sick analogy they are using?
aug 2, 2025, 4:25 pm • 0 0 • view