An investigation by the Corporate Crime Reporter blog forced the Sierra Club to admit that it secretly had taken millions of dollars from the Chesapeake Energy natural gas company to fund its Beyond Coal campaign from 2007 to 2010 under the leadership of Carl Pope. Time’s Bryan Walsh writes in the complete exposé that Michael Brune ended the relationship when he became executive director in 2010:

Though the group ended its relationship with Chesapeake in 2010—and the Club says it turned its back on an additional $30 million in promised donations—the news raises concerns about influence industry may have had on the Sierra Club’s independence and its support of natural gas in the past. It’s also sure to anger ordinary members who’ve been uneasy about the Club’s relationship with corporations.

In a Sierra Club blog post, Brune explained his response when he became the executive director in 2010: “We cannot accept money from an industry we need to change. Very quickly, the board of directors, with my strong encouragement, cut off these donations and rewrote our gift acceptance policy.”

Taking a lesson from coal, the natural gas industry, under increasing scrutiny for its boom of unregulated fracking across the United States, is now bringing its own propaganda to children. Talisman Energy, a Canadian driller with extensive operations in Pennsylvania, has developed the coloring book “Talisman Terry’s Energy Adventure,” starring the “friendly fracosaurus,” a smiling dinosaur wearing drilling garb named Talisman Terry. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette explains that the coloring book is part of the company’s outreach strategy to Pennsylvania locals:

The coloring book’s overt message — drilling is smart, safe and American — is delivered in kid-friendly fashion, glossing over the environmental and economic controversies that have surrounded drillers tapping the Marcellus Shale rock formation for lucrative pockets of gas. [...] Talisman Terry was developed at Talisman Energy’s Calgary headquarters and has been distributed at community picnics in northeastern Pennsylvania counties. It’s available free as a PDF on the company’s website.

The content of “Talisman Terry” is beyond parody, with smiling rocks, flowers, balloons, fish, and puppies, as well as American flags, the Statue of Liberty, and bald eagles. According to the coloring book’s before-and-after pages, the impacts of natural gas drilling evidently include the creation of rainbows:

“If you’re talking age 9 or younger, you can’t get into the questions like, ‘What is in fracking fluid?’” Natalie Cox, Talisman’s head of U.S. communications, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. In fact, Talisman doesn’t have to tell anyone, even adults, what is in fracking fluid. Pennsylvania’s disclosure laws are riddled with loopholes, and federal regulation is prevented by the “Cheney loophole.”

The natural gas industry is following on the heels of the coal industry, which has produced its own coloring books, a pro-coal curriculum, and even coal carols.