Roll of a Lifetime

   What with all that testosterone overriding their brains' common-sense centers, American males have carved out a special place in the annals of self-destructive buffoonery. 

   No, this is not a piece about Donald Trump.

   But it is about something equally odious--quite literally so: the practice of "rolling coal." 

   Rolling coal, also known as "pollution porn," involves altering the emissions capacities of diesel trucks so that, when triggered, the vehicles can burp thick clouds of malodorous black smoke from exhaust pipes or modified smoke stacks. Some of its practitioners see it as a declaration of freedom (from what, they decline to say), although it is equally arguable that the practice, reduced to its essence, resolves itself to mere dude-bro douchebaggery.   

   The phenomenon has been around for years, and it has attracted media attention. Inevitably, there is even a coal-rolling reality television show, called "Diesel Brothers." (Send your accolades to the Discovery Channel for broadcasting it.)
   Now, no less august a journal than the New York Times, once again firmly placed in the apres-garde, has caught up with the practice. One must therefore, it is supposed, pay attention, even if, at this point, the Times is nothing more than a liberal, Hillary-centric, elite, fading, crooked, rigged and un-presidential fish-wrap, believe me.

    With not atypical hyperbole, the Times calls coal rolling "a new menace on America's roads." To the casual observer, however, it appears more like Dennis the Menace on America's roads. Few coal rollers will win prizes for maturity. They mock "political correctness," liberal politics, and environmental awareness, typical barn-door targets for the sociopolitically submental and the emotionally puerile.
   The Times reports that one Illinois state legislator, who proposed a $5,000 fine for altered vehicles, received a missive from a diesel-truck owner who is named, not unironically, Corey ("Sky"?) Blue. It read, "Your bill will not stop us! Why don't you go live in Sweden and get the heck out of our country. I will continue to roll coal any time I feel like and fog your stupid eco-cars." 

   The "stupid eco-cars" to which Mr. Blue (stupidly) referred included hybrids such as Priuses, which, their advocates say, reduce fossil fuel use and drive "clean," thus preserving the environment. These vehicles raise the wrath of coal-rollers like nothing else this side of, well, Hillary Clinton. The Times reports that an oft-spotted bumper sticker on the altered diesel trucks reads, "Prius Repellent." (The presence of such a sticker suggests that where there is smoke, there is ire--but not, alas, wit.) 

   Nearly half a century ago, the American environmental movement put forth the eminently sensible notion that to pollute the Earth's ecosystems is to one day kill our chances of living on it. 

   The movement has long been in conflict with the coal and oil industries, a tension that extends to today. To fossil fuel aficionados, environmentalists are dopey tree-hugging hippie dingbats. To environmentalists, fossil fuel people are capitalist pigs intent on the destruction of The World As We Know It. Neither side is entirely right, of course--nor entirely wrong. 

    The dudes who “roll coal” seem to think they are taking the fight to the streets. It would be one thing if their smoke-blasting vehicles were confined to the truck-pull competitions whence they originated. There, they would be just another curious (cretinous?) American eccentricity. (As it happens, the Times reports that even many truck-pull amateurs see coal-rollers as imbeciles. "I hate those guys," one says. "I used to do it, smoke out friends, but I grew out of it.") 

   Instead, coal rollers drive on the country's roadways, sometimes targeting pedestrians or bicyclists or even police with billows of choking smoke—literally a breathtaking act of aggression. Others back up to parked Priuses and "smoke" them. (Per the Times, police departments are struggling to contain the threat.)

   The hostility of the rolling-coal “protests” masks a deeper truth: they’re self-defeating. The belching black smoke pollutes the very air those “protesters”—and the rest of us--breathe. The coal rollers appear untroubled by concerns for the health of the children they do or may one day have. (The Times quoted a Utah physician as saying that even short-term exposure to diesel smoke increases the probability of heart attacks, strokes, lung disease and cancer.) 

   These “protesters” then, appear to work against their own self interest. 

   Yet there is a more fundamental disconnection at work. You know that phrase, “I love to be out in nature”? We know what it means: someone enjoys trees, trails, hills, the sea, etc. What’s missing from the sentiment, however, is the recognition that we humans are  “nature.”

   We live as biological organisms dependent on the biosphere around us. We rely on food for nutrition, water for hydration, and oxygen--produced by photosynthesis in trees--for the breath of life. If you deny yourself food, water, sleep, and clean air to breathe for a week, you're sure to think, act and feel in a way radically different than when you're well rested and fed.  

   That being true, it is plainly in our self-interest as biological organisms to care for the planet which sustains us. To do otherwise is madness. That this notion to some seems radical, even heretical, astonishes even as it does not, alas, wholly surprise.

   But then, there is a certain fatalism alive in the land regarding humanity's prospects. Said one truck-pull fan, quoted by the Times, "The air sucks anyway. Smoke is pretty. I like seeing it." Some young people are convinced that Earth is so terminally blighted that they're looking to artificial intelligence, virtual reality and space colonies to further the human race. Who knows--they may be right.

   So what the hell--let the dumb boys roll coal. They will suffer; their children will suffer; all of us will suffer. But maybe, just maybe, it’ll all work out, and the human race will continue in space.

   But don’t bet that the coal-rollers’ progeny will have a shot at getting there. Space travel will be solely available only to the very wealthy—perhaps including the heirs of those who made a killing off of coal, if not also off of coal rollers.

Rolling coal, revealed.

Rolling coal douche-baggery.