Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Coal-powered holiday rituals

The coal lobby group America's Power has launched the utterly bizarre "Clean Coal Carolers" just in time for Christmas. Watch for yourself.

The site begs the eternal marketing question: is any publicity is good publicity? The creators had to know it would be ridiculed by the online environmental community. Was their goal to create a meme? Is my drawing to such sites, even out of ridicule, a mistake because it gets the term "clean coal" on people's minds?

[and should I be relieved or offended that there is no adjoining Hanukkah site the features little lumps of coal wearing yarmulkes and singing "dreidel, dreidel dreidel"?]

UPDATE: For a counter-example, this popular anti-coal ad has been criticized because the repeated use of the term "clean coal" could have unintentional subliminal consequences. Paranoia?

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