"I would also like to see the environmental groups and the left in general stop branding coal as somehow immoral. How about instead trying to make coal compete

"I would also like to see the environmental groups and the left in general stop branding coal as somehow immoral. How about instead trying to make coal compete on level ground: tax its carbon emissions, tax its particulate emissions, require real management for whatever waste it produces, and see if any investors or inventors want to keep it alive." As "hristov" notes above, your argument is concisely self-refuting. The coal industry fights tooth and nail to prevent these things, which makes the coal industry immoral by the terms you list. "Coal" is of course a chemical compound. Burning coal at utility scale is only done in contravention of the moral framework you put forth by people who oppose that framework with everything they have.