Let me tell you what coal actually is — not the cartoon villain conjured by marketing departments and ideological clergy, but the real thing. Done properly, coal is reliable, steady energy for everyone, not just a luxury product reserved for elites who lecture the masses from their solar-powered sanctuaries. Coal is the resurrection of an industrial backbone: jobs, skills, and a degree of national autarky for basic goods that any sane country would want produced within its own borders.
Coal is a welfare system that isn’t currently imploding under its own fantasy arithmetic — one that might, if treated with a modicum of respect, hold a little longer than the wish-engineered alternatives. Coal means birds and insects that aren’t converted into high-altitude confetti, forests that aren’t razed to install wind farms or feed pellet factories masquerading as eco-saviors. Coal is mining done with techniques refined over centuries, methods that allow us to keep the operation safe and minimally invasive, rather than turning entire regions into chemically scorched wastelands in the name of rare earth extraction.
Coal means meals for the poor because affordable energy keeps food affordable. If we do it the right way, it means clean air — yes, clean air — low storage cost, and electricity and heat on demand, not on the capricious timetable of whichever weather god feels magnanimous that day. It means we don’t need to carpet the countryside with turbines and panels to keep the lights on. It means a small footprint, steady production, and energy security measured not in political soundbites but in centuries.It means our children have a fighting chance instead of a ration card and a lecture about “doing more with less.” Coal, despite the heresy of saying so aloud, is a savior — not because it’s perfect, but because it works.