Still Dirty After All

Last year Peabody Energy sunk some of its record profits into a slick ad campaign to try to persuade Americans that coal isn't black, sooty, or environmentally destructive. The Southern Company joined forces with Peabody, and together they enlisted the help of precocious children to tout the benefits of coal online and in national television ads with the tagline "Learn About Coal." Not one smiling child had an inhaler in hand. But industry's freshly scrubbed young actors can't obscure the grim truth of America's dependence on coal: Dozens of new coal-fired power plants are planned or under construction in the United States, fueling a legacy of air and water pollution, global warming, and health problems including asthma and heart disease. In response, NRDC created a website that asks, "Why choose nineteenth-century pollution when we have twenty-first-century solutions?" See how America can meet its energy needs with renewable, modern technologies that leave fossil fuels in the dust at www.nrdc.org/coal.