Yes / No / Don't Ask-Don't Tell
And, should guys succeed, drill and find more oil, driving prices back down for a while -- (and you know it would only be for a while, since those new oil deposits are relatively small and would soon "deplete" as well,) wouldn't that sabotage just emerging alternative energy technologies, like wind and solar? Or is that exactly the point?
Yes / No / Don't Ask-Don't Tell
Questions for Coal Mining Companies
You say, "Can we dig it?" To which I ask' "But should we allow you to dig it?"
"Come on guys, let us dig it up." That's what you're asking in your TV ads, without actually coming right out and saying it. But that's what it's all about, more digging in more places, including now protected lands.
Okay, I'm listening. I heard your question, but I'm not hearing answers to the logical questions that pop into my head when I see those pastoral images of verdun, park-like images you show of reconditioned mined out strip-mines. The subtext in your ads is that exploiting all that coal under America is, at the end of the day, pain free. In fact, to listen to your ads, one could think that the best thing that could happen to a neighborhood is to have a coal mining company move in and get rid of those unsightly hills and let you replace them with some grass and trees.
Which you will do, by the way, only because laws passed by Congress require you to clean up after yourselves -- which you didn't do before you had to. Before that you just moved in, started digging and moved on when a coal seam was played out leaving behind a landscape only crack-addicted gofers from hell could appreciate.
But never mind that. The law now requires you to clean up after yourselves, so you decided to necessity in to a virtue in your ads. It's disingenuous while being true . Perfect.
Before we let you guys dig wherever the spirit moves you, can you answer these questions first:
How would increased coal production affect climate change? You guys fought every single attempt over decades to make you clean up your smoke stack emissions. Every time a law was proposed designed to clean up emissions from coal-fired electric power plants, you guys went ballistic. You claimed the price of electricity would skyrocket. You claimed that the technology was not ready and/or would not work. You claimed that rate payers and taxpayers would be the real victims of such proposals.
You even claimed such laws weren't necessary. Like the tobacco industry before you, you guys spent millions of dollars paying phony "scientists" to issue phony reports claiming that the whole greenhouse gas issue was a mirage and/or not your fault. You spent tens of millions of dollars over the decades paying off politicians to defeat measures to clean up your emissions. (Remember the acid rain fight? The forests do.)
So, what are you going to do about all that? Your ads are designed to change your image. We understand. Who wouldn't want to change an image like the one you're industry earned over the decades. But have you changed your ways -- like really? That we're not so sure of.
Before we accept your claims that you are ready to become part of the solution to global warming, like an drunk entering rehab, you first have to admit you have a problem, or in this case that you have been a huge part of the problem itself. Are you ready to do that? Publicly, in those same ads?
Yes / No / Don't Ask-Don't Tell
