"It's Hard Out Here for a [Coal] Pimp"‏

Issue #277 March 6, 2009 "It's Cold Out Here for a [Coal] Pimp" Josh Dorner Earlier this week, CNN ran a piece featuring Bruce Nilles, Director of Sierra Club's Move Beyond Coal Campaign, discussing the fabulous new Reality Coalition (of which Sierra Club is also a part) anti-"clean coal" ad. The new ad, directed by the Academy Award-winning Coen Brothers, has generated a lot of buzz. But the most interesting part of the segment is an interview with Joe Lucas, head of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (nee Americans for Balanced Energy Choices), a coal-industry front group that has spent tens of millions of dollars on deceptive advertising and political activities, as well as more than $10.5 million to lobby Congress directly on behalf of dirty coal and against legislation to fight global warming and promote clean, renewable electricity . While the group's deceptive advertising claims that the unproven technology of so-called "clean coal" can be part of the solution to global warming, Lucas stunningly refuses to admit in the CNN interview whether or not the burning of coal even contributes to global warming:NARRATOR: Still, the industry refuses to say its plants contribute to global warming. INTERVIEWER: Can you just answer that yes or no -- If you believe that burning coal causes global warming? JOE LUCAS (shaking head no): I don't know. I am not a scientist. Watch it here. (approximately 2:00 minutes in) Apparently being the head of a massive coal industry front group means that you have plenty of time to troll blog posts written about you in order to defend your honor, or something. After your correspondent (and his friends at Grist) called attention to Lucas' flub, he took to the comments sections on both blogs. Lucas, ever the huckster, blamed "selective editing" by CNN for his stunning inability to acknowledge that burning coal is responsible for a whopping 40 percent of U.S. global warming emissions. Lucas then bizarrely and inexplicably turned to the bible of climate science -- the report of the Noble prize-winning U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- to buttress his claim that uncertainty remains about the human contribution to global warming. Say what!?! How can an industry that refuses to even acknowledge that it's part of the problem ever be part of the solution?