While the biggest news out of the energy and environmental world this week may have been a competition between the UN conference in Poznan, or perhaps the planned appointments of President-elect Obama’s environmental team or any other relevant news, the funniest news had a hands-down winner. That was, most certainly, the strange and sudden appearance of the ‘Clean Coal Carolers’ – an industry sponsored Flash animation of pieces of coal, dressed in warm hats and scarves, singing adaptations of traditional Christmas tunes. Only these songs were remixed to tout the brilliance and necessity of coal in American life.
On Friday, however, the Clean Coal Carolers ceased to exist. Thanks to an overwhelming voice of discontent with the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity’s (ACCCE) marketing ploy, the cute little lumps of coal were retired just about as fast as they popped up. The page once reserved for the carolers (http://www.americaspower.org/carolers) now redirects to a post on the ACCCE blog, lamenting that it was “time for them to head home for the holidays.” From the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC to the pages of environmental blogs across the net, the Clean Coal Carolers were ridiculed into nonexistence.
Why the ACCCE would put so much time into creating and promoting the Clean Coal Carolers, which they obviously did, but kick them to the curb so quickly raises a very important question: is the public beginning to see through the coal industry schtick? While the ACCCE cites a recent internal poll showing that 70% of Americans believe coal to be our energy future, the general public sentiment seems to say otherwise. While promoting their own false reality of ‘clean coal’, the ACCCE conveniently forgets to include carbon dioxide emissions, which make up 82% of all greenhouse gas emissions, in its statistics. Even worse, the folks at America’s Power are unapologetic about their cherry-picking of facts, continuing to propagate their less-than-exact calculations as the final word on coal’s responsibility for global warming emissions. Luckily, the recent emergence of the Reality Campaign has been able to counter the $35 million PR campaign effectively, stating quite plainly that, “in reality, there’s no such thing as clean coal.”
The sudden death of caroling coal seems to show that the backlash from environmentalists and average citizens, alike, has quite an effect on the industry. Whether it was getting under the skin of ACCCE Vice President of Communications, Joe Lucas, or effectively communicating to the public the misinformation of the industry public relations machine, this episode has surely shown us that no matter how powerful, the coal industry is still susceptible to the power of the people.
Related Posts:
- Bank of America Divests from Mountaintop Removal, Refocuses on “Clean Coal”
- Brian Williams, Clean Coal, and Oxymorons [w/video]
- 5 Dirty Aspects of “Clean” Coal
Photo Credit: A Siegel via Flickr under a Creative Commons License
[...] The reality of the situation (that 55% of the country runs on coal power, that the coal industry provides a lot of jobs, etc.) is that the near future will have some coal in it. Van Jones, at Powershift ‘09, reminded us to remember the coal miners (even as he mocked “clean coal”). How much, and how clean, (and what clean means, exactly) is what is at stake in the war of words and images between groups like Reality and groups like ACCCE. [...]