‘It’s sick’: Trump administration uses mascot called ‘Coalie’ to push dirtiest fossil fuel | Trump administration
The Trump administration has turned to an unusual weapon in its attempt to resurrect coal mining: a cartoon lump of coal, complete with giant eyes and a yellow mining outfit, called “Coalie.”
The administration’s new mascot, complete with helmet, boots and gloves, was featured in an apparently artificial intelligence-generated photo posted online by Doug Burgum, Donald Trump’s Interior Secretary. “Mine, baby, mine!” Burgum wrote about X, adding that Coalie would act as a “spokesperson” for Trump’s “American energy dominance agenda.”
Climate activists have criticized the administration’s latest attempt to burnish the image of the dirtiest fossil fuel despite its impacts on the planet and public health, with one critic describing it as “one of the most abhorrent ways of producing energy our world has ever known.”
Coalie, whose big eyes and smile seem to evoke a Japanese style of cuteness used in toys and animated characters, will serve as an ambassador for the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE), the U.S. government agency responsible for regulating coal mines.
More images of Coalie appear on the OSMRE website, where the anthropomorphic hunk of carbon is shown posing happily with what appears to be an AI-generated family, standing on an office table at a meeting while cheekily winking and happily showing off an abandoned coal mine that has been transformed into a bucolic picnic site.
The image of Coalie was first created in 2018 when an OSMRE social media manager posed googly eyes on a photo of Coal, according to Grist. The new public use of Coalie to promote Trump’s agenda is the administration’s latest attempt to revamp a U.S. coal industry that has declined sharply over the past decade despite the president’s promises to reverse the industry’s declining workforce.
“I have a little settlement at the White House,” Trump said last year during a speech to the United Nations. “Never use the word ‘coal’. Only use the words ‘clean, beautiful coal’. That sounds much better, doesn’t it?”
Despite this branding and the attempt to make a piece of coal look cute, coal remains the dirtiest fossil fuel, being a major driver of the climate crisis and a source of toxic and deadly air pollution to nearby communities when burned. Coal miners have long suffered health problems, such as black lung disease, after inhaling coal dust.
“I think it’s sick…and right that this administration and the U.S. government are using AI to put a smiley face on one of the most heinous ways of producing energy our world has ever known,” said Junior Walk, an activist with Coal River Mountain Watch who has documented the impact of coal mining on his West Virginia community.
“As climate change plunges us deeper into the mass extinction we are all experiencing and more of my friends and neighbors fall ill and die as a direct result of the coal industry’s activities, I will continue to be haunted by Coalie’s twisted smile and strange eyes.”
Trump signed an executive order to revive coal, added it to a list of nationally critically important minerals, halted planned coal plant shutdowns and gutted environmental rules he blames for the industry’s woes. However, coal continues to suffer from market forces – gas and renewables such as wind and solar are often cheaper and more attractive sources of electricity for utilities – and automation is losing workers.
Miners with black lung disease, meanwhile, have had to fight the Trump administration’s decision to roll back safety protections for the coal industry, while the Republican Congress moves to cut $500 million from the budget for a fund intended to clean up old coal mines that are environmentally hazardous long after they are abandoned.
The Ministry of the Interior and OSMRE have been contacted for comment on the mascot.
