A Spooked Coal Industry Fights Back, Trying to Buy the 2008 Elections

The coal industry, running scared from the increasingly powerful No Coal movement, is fighting back by trying to buy the 2008 elections.

According
to AP, the coal industry is spending tens of millions of dollars on advertising and fake "grassroots" front groups to make sure that whoever wins in November, coal's future is secure. But the youth climate movement isn't going to let them get away with it!

We're already going toe-to-toe with the coal-front group "Americans for Balanced Energy Choices" on the ground in primary states. We're fighting proposed coal plants across the country and beating back the coal rush. We've pushed banks to scrutinize investments in dirty energy. We're spending our spring breaks fighting dirty energy extraction and mountain top removal at Mountain Justice Spring Break, and we're going to be a force to be reckoned with in the 2008 elections. And now we're talking about a nationally-unified "No Coal!" effort and nationwide actions against fossil fuels on Fossil Fools Day.

So it's David-and-Goliath time folk: we're pulling out our slingshots and we'll keep on hammering on the giant - the coal industry. We've got them mighty uncomfortable if they are spending tens of millions of dollars to fight back.

And sure, we're up against a giant, but remember that there are two kinds of power in the world (as my friend Jenny says): money and people. So we might not have much of the former, but we're certainly strong on the latter, and growing stronger every day!

So here's to people power, taking on an industry intent on peddling a dirty energy future and putting billion dollar coal companies on the defensive!

And here's to our vision of a sustainable, just, and prosperous future that inspires us to seek alternatives to a dirty energy future and ignore the coal industry's package of lies!

Keep fighting the fossil fools. As I say here at WattHead, a sustainable, just, and prosperous energy future is possible, and we can make it real.


[Update 2/28/08: Here's a link to the Americans for Balanced Energy Choices ads running in Ohio right now and in Iowa during the Caucuses. One of these, the "Ohio Jobs Ad," attacks green jobs head on. ABEC is a coal-industry funded "astroturf" group, a fake grassroots organization that claims to have 1500,000 members, "people like you." When you click on the ABEC Supporters tab, you find out who ABEC, really is. Supporters including "America's Coal-based Electricity Providers:"

* AMEREN Corporation
* American Electric Power
* Arch Coal, Inc.
* Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corporation
* Associated Electric Cooperative, Inc.
* Basin Electric Power Cooperative
* BHP Billiton
* Buckeye Industrial Mining Co.
* Buckeye Power, Inc.
* Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp.
* CONSOL Energy Inc.
* CSX Corp.
* Detroit Edison
* Duke Energy
* First Energy Corporation
* Foundation Coal Corp.
* Hoosier Energy
* Norfolk Southern Co.
* Peabody Energy Corp.
* Southern Co.
* Tri-state Generation & Transmission Assn. Inc.
* Union Pacific Railroad
* Western Farmers Electric Cooperative

Oh yah, people just like you and me. We're all CEOs of major coal companies, right?!]