On this day, eight years ago, Peabody Coal started an advertising campaign called “Advanced Energy for Life.” Because as the dirtiest fossil fuel, coal had a serious image problem, and therefore needed to conflate itself with notions of energy poverty.
Why this matters
What they’re trying to do when they do this is insinuate that anyone who is opposed to the burning of ever more coal somehow wants people in Africa to die young, after a miserable impoverished life.
What you’ll find, of course, is that the many of same people who are protesting about environment also would like debt relief (cancellation), democratisation technology transfer and all the rest of it.
But Peabody would rather have you believe that all environmentalists are racist Malthusian assholes all the time. Now, it is indisputable that some environmentalists historically and down into this present day, racist assholes, and explicitly and unashamedly others, confused or ignorant, and of course, most buy into the myths of it being possible to have everything for everyone and there being no trade offs.
What happened next
One of Australia’s briefer Prime Ministers, Tony Abbott, used the “coal is good for humanity” line when opening a coal-fired power station later that year.
Peabody is making money at the mo’, because gas prices have spiked and so coal is competitive. For now.
Further reading.
The truth behind Peabody’s campaign to rebrand coal as a poverty cure | Coal | The Guardian
I’d recommend an article by James Meek in the London Review of Books about Scottish offshore wind energy and who is building the towers and the kits and under what conditions. But I digress.
What happened next
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s later that year when opening a coal mine, use one of the Peabody talking points. Coal is good for humanity. So that’s When for pee buddies, PR people,
Peabody has, of course, entered bankruptcy proceedings chapter 11, I think. But that doesn’t mean that they’re not that some people aren’t making money. It just means that times are tough for call my heart’s bleeding.
