Those renowned tricksters, The Yes Men, in conjunction with public health group Coal is Killing Kids, recently launched a new website called Coal Cares, spoofing Peabody Energy (which is billed as the largest private sector coal company in the world). The website offers free asthma inhalers as part of their satirical Coal Cares campaign to the many children who suffer from respiratory related illnesses and diseases in the USA.
The Coal Cares' website explains:
Coal Cares™ is a brand-new initiative from Peabody Energy, the world's largest private-sector coal company, to reach out to American youngsters with asthma and to help them keep their heads high in the face of those who would treat them with less than full dignity. For kids who have no choice but to use an inhaler, Coal Cares™ lets them inhale with pride. Puff-Puff™ inhalers are available free to any family living within 200 miles (320km) of a coal plant, and each inhaler comes with a $10 (€7) coupon towards the cost of the asthma medication itself."
Their free lines of inhalers include Miley Cyrus, Twilight and Bieber-inspired theme inhalers.
Coal Cares has also set up a satiric Twitter account with such words of wisdom as “Look on the bright side: asthma gets you out of going into the military” and “Why support wind power? It's just gonna blow this coal dust all over the place and make a mess”.
A press release at The Yes Men website explains:
“It was, of course, a hoax, and it was aimed at Peabody Coal, which is lobbying ferociously against new pollution standards for power plants proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), standards the agency says will prevent 120,000 cases of childhood asthma each year in the United States. Peabody spent over $6 million lobbying Congress last year, and the industry has created a dizzying array of fake “grassroots” front groups to distort the public debate and fight legislation.
Meanwhile, a new study by the American Lung Association notes that coal-fired power plants produce more hazardous air pollution in the United States than any other source, with the pollution killing 13,000 people a year. Coal-ash disposal alone increases risk of cancer, learning disabilities, birth defects and other illnesses due to exposure from heavy metals such as arsenic, lead and mercury.
The Coal Cares™ hoax was devised by a group called Coal is Killing Kids (CKK), a small environmental and public health group that aims to challenge Big Coal’s expensive lobbying against sensible updates to the Clean Air Act.
Visit: http://www.coalcares.org/
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