The Champion of Beautiful Coal

There are those moments when a country makes itself ridiculous - without any help from the outside. The President of the United States stands in the White House, between flags, spotlights, and smiling lobbyists, and accepts a trophy invented especially for him: “Undisputed Champion of Beautiful Clean Coal.” Unchallenged champion of beautiful, clean coal. At the top stands a bronze miner. Below, the engraving gleams. And somewhere between applause and camera flashes, the last trace of self irony dies.

“Congratulations, Donald Trump, on winning the first trophy as ‘Undisputed Champion of Beautiful, Clean Coal.’”

“Clean, beautiful coal. We love clean, beautiful coal, don’t we?” he asks the room, as if he were introducing a new ice cream flavor. Vanilla, chocolate, climate crisis. The men in hard hats nod. They heat our homes, power our factories, turn nature into wealth and dreams, he says. And for a moment one wonders whether dreams now have particulate matter readings. He has ended the war on coal, he declares proudly. A war waged above all by physics. Molecules cannot be renamed by decree. CO2 remains CO2, even if you put “beautiful” in front of it. But in this room, an adjective is enough to turn an obsolete model into a hero’s saga. Who needs Paris when you have bronze?

“I am proud to officially be undithput = ?????… so - when did that actually come out, Mr. Speaker?”

The trophy is presented by an energy CEO, surrounded by a club devoted to its love of coal. A booster association for fossil nostalgia. One almost expected a knighthood to follow: Knight of the Holy Smokestack. It is not the first award of this kind. There was that specially created FIFA Peace Prize, handed over under gala lights shortly after the real Nobel Prize had once again landed elsewhere. Photos showed a president smiling like a child with cotton candy. “A beautiful medal you can wear everywhere,” the official said. One imagined it clinking as he signed the next tariff announcement.

“The most embarrassing moment in FIFA history”

And then there was the matter of the real Nobel Prize. Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado offered him hers. An offer like a diplomatic bouquet. The Nobel Foundation stated soberly that prizes are neither transferable nor revocable. Some things remain final. Physics, for example. And decisions made in Oslo.

Meanwhile, the collection grows. Glass plaques with gold bases. Peace medals. Coal trophies. A display case full of self affirmation. The only thing missing is “Grand Master of Alternative Air.” Perhaps that is the real punch line: while forests burn, seas rise, and cities brace for heat records, the White House celebrates the aesthetics of a 19th century fuel. One polishes a statue while the world outside tries to breathe. And somewhere in a coal plant a turbine turns and probably thinks: if this is supposed to be beautiful, I do not want to know what ugly looks like.