‘Rolling Coal’ in Diesel Trucks, to Rebel and Provoke

The New York Times discusses CEI's Human Achievement Hour and coal rollers with Michelle Minton. 

Even in this election year of bombastic rhetoric on political correctness and climate change, rolling coal stands out as an ideological statement. At its core, it also struggles with a basic, somewhat existential question: Should we seek to minimize the human footprint on the earth, or should we flaunt it?

Since 2007, activists have drawn attention to the environment with a call to switch off appliances worldwide during an annual Earth Hour. But since 2009, the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute has countered with Human Achievement Hour, a call to spend that same hour keeping things on in defense of humankind’s “basic human right to use energy.”

Still, Michelle Minton, a fellow at the institute, draws a line. Coal rollers who use their trucks for harassment, as opposed to celebration, “aren’t being rebellious,” she said, they are just being jerks.

Read the full article at The New York Times.