Clearly, I am morally equivalent to child labor and thalidomide by attempting to correct that coal mining didn't collapse on its own but rather it was explicitly killed by executive action. </sarcasm> Next.

yes, coal energy is worse for the world than thalidomide was, and the chip on your shoulder is enormous here

if you have any reason the analogy doesn't apply, besides acting offended that it does, feel free to cite it, otherwise it just seems like you're bitter about coal being bad for earth

Was child labor ever actually 'killed off'? As I understand it, its use declined before legislation hit, but even legislation never completely got rid of it. It just rebranded as "helping my family on a farm" or "helping my family shop" or "summer jobs" or similar.

Eg this graph: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/incidence-of-child-labor-...

The 1920s is when education was made compulsory in the south and on the federal level it took until 1938 (which still excluded agriculture).

was coal mining ever actually "killed off"?

as far as I can tell, it, too, still exists