Donald Trump’s administration is turning to a unique weapon in its attempt to revive coal mining – a cardboard lump of coal, complete with giant eyes and yellow mining clothes, called a ‘Coalie.’
The administration’s new mascot, complete with helmet, boots and gloves, was introduced in a seemingly artificial intelligence-generated photo posted online by Doug Burgum, Trump’s interior secretary. “Mine, Baby, Mine!” Burgum wrote in Xadded that Coalie will act as a “spokesman” for Trump’s “American Energy Dominance Agenda.”
Climate activists have slammed the administration’s latest attempt to boost the image of the dirtiest fossil fuel despite its effects on the planet and public health, with one critic describing it as “one of the ugliest ways to produce energy our world has ever seen.”
Coalie, whose big eyes and grin seem to invoke a Japanese style of beauty used in toys and animated characters, will be an ambassador for the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE), the US government agency responsible for regulating mines.
More pictures of Coalie can be found on the OSMRE websitewhere the anthropomorphic hunk of carbon is depicted happily posing with what appears to be an AI-generated family, standing at an office table during a meeting while giving a cheeky wink and happily showing off an abandoned coalmine turned bucolic picnic site.
The Coalie image was first created in 2018 when an OSMRE social media manager laid eyes on a photo of coal, ACCORDING to Christ. The new public use of Coalie to promote Trump’s agenda is the latest attempt by the administration to revive the US coal industry that has shrunk dramatically over the past decade despite the president’s promises to reverse the fortunes of the industry’s dwindling workforce.
“I have a little standing order in the White House,” Trump said last year in a speech at the United Nations. “Never use the word ‘coal’. Just use the words ‘clean, nice coal’. Sounds nicer, doesn’t it?”
Despite this branding, and the attempt to make a lump of coal look cute, coal remains the dirtiest of fossil fuels, being a major DRIVER of the climate crisis and a source of toxic, deadly air pollution in nearby communities when it caught fire. Coal miners have long struggled with adverse health effects, such as black lung diseaseafter inhaling coal dust.
“I think it’s sickening … and par for the course for this administration and the US government to use AI to put a smiley face on one of the ugliest forms of power generation our world has ever seen,” said Junior Walk, an activist in Mountain View of the Coal River who documented the impact of coal mining on his community in West Virginia.
“As climate change plunges us deeper into the extinction event we all live in, and more of my friends and neighbors are sickened and killed as a direct result of the coal industry’s activities, I will continue to be haunted by Coalie’s crooked grin and ugly eyes.”
Trump signed an executive order to revive coal, adding it to a list of the nation’s critical minerals, halting the planned closing of coal plants, and gutting environmental rules he blamed for the industry’s problems. But, coal continues to suffer from market forces – gas and renewables like wind and solar are often cheaper and more attractive sources of electricity for utilities – and workers lost in automation.
Miners with black lung disease, meanwhile, should WAR the Trump administration’s move to roll back safety protections for the coal industry, while the Republican-held Congress ready to take off $500m from the budget for a fund to clean up old coalmines that are dangerous to the environment long since they were abandoned.
The interior department and OSMRE have been contacted for comment about the mascot.