It’s not enough for the coal lobby to hire a top GOP voter-fraud company to run massive “grassroots” efforts to undermine climate and clean energy action.
Now Ken Ward, Jr., the best journalist in West Virginia, reports today:
This afternoon, the coal industry is launching yet another public relations campaign “” this one billing itself as “an alliance of people from all walks of life who have joined forces to educate the general public and lawmakers about the importance of coal and coal mining to our local and national economies.”
This group is calling itself the Federation for American Coal, Energy and Security, which creates the nice abbreviation, FACES of Coal. The group is having a kick-off press event this afternoon at the offices of the Charleston Area Alliance, a regional chamber of commerce group.
The FACES of coal? This acronym must be the work of real “Mad” Men, perhaps the genius who came up with Frosty the Coalman, Clean Coal Night, Deck the Halls with Clean Coal. I’m guessing they figured it was better than their first choice, the Federation for Everyone’s Coal, Energy and Security.
Still, does the industry understand what people associate with “faces of coal”?
Here is the rest of Ward’s piece:
Among those I’m told are taking place in today’s event are West Virginia state Sen. Roman Prezioso, D-Marion, Vivian Parsons, executive director of the County Commissioners’ Association of West Virginia, and Rick Rice, president of Mountain State Steam Inc. in Buckhannon.
This group joins the Friends of Coal, Citizens for Coal, and the West Virginia Coal Association - not to mention those fine letter-faking folks at the American Coalition for Clean Coal Energy (Five more fake constituent letters to Congress, written by the ACCCE’s PR outfit, have been discovered, congressional investigators announced yesterday) “” as well as the National Mining Association and who knows how many other industry front groups out there “¦ oh yeah, don’t forget the new organization Friends of America.
The coal industry has all the friends that money can buy.
Related Posts:
- Coal industry flack says mountaintop removal solves ‘lack of flat space’ in Appalachia
- Fraudster Bonner’s client is coal industry; Update on letter to Sen. Conrad
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Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
To me those look like the faces of black lung disease, global warming and death.
People who make their living producing the dirtiest, most polluting fuel on the planet should be called what they really are: killers.
It’s time the people in the coal industry stopped showing their faces to others and took a good long look in the mirror at who they really are today.
I feel as sorry for them as I do the people in the tobacco industry.
According to the best source I could find on the web, there are well over 6 million people employed in China’s coal industry.
That must certainly be WAY more than our coal industry employs. Can anyone provide that number, credibly?
So, we face a question: How can we encourage and help motivate China to address its CO2 issue if we aren’t even willing to address our coal problem, when their industry employs many more people than ours?
(I’m not suggesting that we be irresponsible and insensitive to coal employees. If we act wisely and caringly, they can have great jobs — and safe and clean jobs — associated with cleaner sources of energy and related technologies.)
The same “problem” can be seen in other areas. For example, the Russian gas giant, Gazprom, employs around a half-million people, if my memory is right. (I don’t have my materials in front of me just now.) That’s well over the number of people employed worldwide by U.S-headquartered companies in the petroleum business. So, if we can’t even get our own companies to be responsible, our efforts to encourage and motivate other countries to address their shares of the problem will be as good as dead, credibility-wise. Our companies (in CO2-heavy industries) need to change, and we’ll need to pass legislation to motivate them to do so, or else our credibility will be nil, and the battle (with climate change) will be lost. The sooner we see that, the better off we’ll be.
These and other relevant statistics are included in an analysis I’ve done in recent months, put recently on DVD, and mailed to many members of the media and related organizations. I just got back from the post office this AM, mailing the packages. Joe, you should get yours within the next three to five days. My analysis focuses mainly on oil, and specifically on ExxonMobil, but there are (in some ways) parallels to coal as well.
Forty-three packages will go out by the end of the day. I hope they will help the media understand certain matters and (greatly) improve coverage of some vital issues related to one key part of our problem.
Be Well,
Jeff
Joe- that picture is priceless.
danl,
The photo is by Eugene Smith and is entitled, “Welsh Coal Miners.”
Jeff – thanks for remembering to be sensitive to coal employees.
Love the miner, hate the mining.
Remind all our coal miner friends and neighbors that we love them.
Joe – ” Federation for Everyone’s Coal, Energy and Security” – love it!
Power generation data: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/epm_sum.html
Earl Dotter has some great photos of the human impact of coal mining (and other occupational health issues) http://earldotter.com/exhibits.htm
Also, in China, the price of coal mining includes between five and ten thousand deaths annually in coal mine accidents. There is no accounting of disease impact.
And, clearly the environmental impact of coal generation goes well beyond the carbon dioxide emitted, to include the impact of modern American mining practices and mercury emissions from power generation.
Hi Joe,
It seems to be a worlwide campaign… Here in France, the main economic website “Les Echos” displays a “Coal vs Renewables” slide-show… and the winner is… coal !!! It’s available on http://www.lesechos.fr/info/energie/index.htm , in the right column (or http://www.lesechos.fr/services/energies.html for a direct access). It’s supposed to be written by “experts” – hmm, let me see… oh yes, marketing experts !
I’ll try to find out who paid for this thing – probably the Bande d’ASsassins Tentant d’Anéantir les Renouvelables Définitivement (or B.A.S.T.A.R.D, Group of Killers Trying to Destroy the Renewables Forever).
I think I prefer this video about Clean Cold (Coen Brothers) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-_U1Z0vezw
Love coal. Leave it in the ground.
The American Buggy Whip Association and Friends of Triangle Shirtwaist Company approved this message.
What do “PR” stand for?
Like A-bomb makers to reclaim their products with employment virtue.
I’ve felt for a long time now that the key to shutting down the coal industry is to first provide massive economic incentives to convert coal dependent areas over to other industries. Once people have other, better job opportunities much of the lobbying power of coal will wither away.
So far the approach is to first try to shut down coal, then maybe later provide little to none economic help to the workers affected.
Meanwhile, an EPA study found mercury in every fish tested, and 25% exceeded the EPA safe level. The main source of mercury is coal fired power plants.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/20/science/earth/20brfs-MERCURYFOUND_BRF.html
Clean coal my ass!
Fossil fuel & worker health: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090818182004.htm
#11 : “PR” means “Public Relations” – offering journalists and elected people WWW (wine, women, and wealth) to make them believe some “information”.
Faces of coal:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoTYacVKlP0
Steve Cottrell
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FACES of coal:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/24/us/24murray.html?_r=1