The Trump administration released its latest bit of stupidity:
A cartoon lump of coal, complete with giant eyes and yellow mining garb, called Coalie.
The administration’s new mascot was first posted online by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who captioned it, “Mine, Baby, Mine!”
Despite this attempt to make a lump of coal appear cute, coal remains the worst of the fossil fuels. It’s a major driver of the climate crisis and a source of toxic air pollution to nearby communities when burned.
Coal miners have also long struggled with adverse health effects, such as black lung disease, after inhaling coal dust.
Trump has signed an executive order to revive coal, added it to a list of nationally critical minerals, halted the planned closures of coal plants, and torn apart environmental rules he blames for the industry’s woes.
Despite all of this, coal still sucks.
Thank goodness.
It’s still losing to natural gas, and renewables such as wind and solar are often cheaper and more attractive sources of electricity for utilities.
As much as Trump wants to revive coal, the markets aren’t interested.
Miners with black lung disease, meanwhile, have had to battle the Trump administration’s move to roll back safety protections for the coal industry. And Republicans in Congress have proposed stripping $500 million from the budget designated to clean up old coal mines that are hazardous to the environment long after they are abandoned.
A lot of people have been up in arms about this new cartoon mascot, and I get it. Attempting to sanitize coal through a cartoon, even as cleaner, often cheaper sources of energy are available, while simultaneously gutting the funding required to protect coal miners and the surrounding communities, is barbaric and evil.
But don’t let the cartoon upset you for one simple reason:
It’s stupid.
It’s ineffective.
It’s meaningless.
No child or adult is going to see this cartoon and make them like coal.
As with most things in the Trump administration, the motivation behind this is stupid, but the execution is even stupider.
