Coal’s silver lining
My apologies for disappearing. Went on vacation, faced an onslaught of other projects and then the computer done broke. Starting to catch up with my June 13 “Media Mayhem” column from the Mother Nature Network.
The coal industry’s re-branding campaign reminds me of an old Mad Magazine illustration.
It was the early 1970s. Esso had just changed its name to Exxon, and Richard Nixon was president. So Mad ran a photo of the White House, with a huge Exxon-esque sign sticking out of it. Except the sign said “Nixxon.”
The punchline? “But it’s still the same old gas.”
Coal is still the same old coal. But the industry has been spending a lot of money to change its image. It’s even enlisted imagery of the White House’s current occupant: a clip of Barack Obama endorsing during last year’s presidential campaign that mythic material known as “Clean Coal.”
See the rest of the column is at Mother Nature Network.
