The Guardian ·
Trump’s love of fossil fuels is about more than money
The US decision to remove limits on coal and gas plant emissions is rooted in a perception of manliness in these industries
You can impress a certain kind of person at a party by reciting the fact that there are more yoga instructors in the US than there are coalminers. In fact, the disparity is greater than this catchy phrasing suggests: there are actually more yoga instructors in the US than there are people employed in the entirety of the coalmining industry, miners and otherwise. It’s not even especially close: about 38,000 people in the US work in coal, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, compared to about 100,000 yoga instructors who are registered with the Yoga Alliance, an industry group.
If you looked only at the numbers, you might think a politician would be incentivized to talk about the interests of the yoga industry, about the dignity that yoga jobs give to American families, or about the need to foster growth in the yoga industry, more than they talk about these things for coal; after all, yoga, not coal, is putting food on the table in more American households. But no politician would ever talk about the interests of yoga teachers, or wax poetic about their role in the American dream, the way they do with coal miners; if they did, they’d be laughed out of the room. And we all know why: yoga is thought of as decadent, cosmopolitan and feminine, while coal mining is imagined as hardscrabble, honorable and masculine.
This was at the forefront of my mind this past weekend when the EPA announced that it would lift limits on carbon emissions from coal- and gas-burning power plants, a reversal of Biden and Obama era climate policies. It’s just the latest in a long line of energy industry deregulation efforts by the Trump administration, which has also loosened or removed limits on carbon emissions from vehicles and household appliances; in 2022, the Republican-dominated supreme court ruled, in a six to three decision along party lines, that the EPA lacks the independent authority to regulate carbon at all.