Earth Destroyers

The machines used to mine coal are called “earth movers”. I call them “earth destroyers”. You can see them in the distance in this photograph by Edward Burtynsky, from his book Anthropocene, titled Coal Mine #1, North Rhine, Westphalia Germany (2015).

Here is a video that shows how big and destructive these machines are:

We used to send men down underground into mines to chip away at coal with hand tools. Now, we use these machines to simply strip off the “overburden” (trees, grass, soil, and all life) and dig up the coal in open pit mines. These machines replace hundreds or thousands of jobs, which is why coal jobs are on the decline, despite Trump’s assurance that he “digs coal”.

The US still produces a lot of coal, and thanks to the Trump administration and new markets opening up in Asia, coal exports from the US increased 61% in 2017 over 2016.