Pollution Porn Is Now a Thing

By Paul Rauber

July 7, 2014

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Take that, Prius drivers! 

It's expensive these days being an anti-environmental yahoo. Big honking pickup trucks alone won't cut it anymore--now you need a diesel truck with a smoke stack (or two!) that can send out giant billows of black smoke on demand--for example, when you're passing a Prius on the highway. Or a cyclist. Or a pedestrian! Sure, it costs from $500 to $5,000 and significantly reduces your already lousy gas mileage, but many are willing to do so for the pleasure of sharing grainy YouTube videos of their rigs in action. This is known, appropriately enough, as "rolling coal," and it's all the rage on Red State social media. In an egalitarian turn, some videos even feature coal-rolling fans sticking their heads in billowing exhaust pipes, emerging in gleeful blackface and a shortened lifespan. Ordinary diesel pollution already contributes to 21,000 premature deaths each year, and workers in occupations subject to unusually high amounts of diesel exhaust, like school bus drivers and mechanics, face a 20 to 50% increased risk of lung cancer or mortality. You have to think that sticking your face in an exhaust pipe would not improve those odds, but it's worth it, apparently, if you can momentarily annoy a Prius driver.