The situation with the Yes Men's "Coal Cares" parody website keeps getting more amusing and revealing about the coal industry's definite lack of care.

Peabody Coal sent a legal threat (PDF) requiring that the Yes Men take down the parody site. My favorite part from Peabody's letter? Here:

Your actions have already created substantial confusion actual confusion among the public. Our client has been besieged with emails and telephone inquiries from persons who believe that Peabody is actually involved with the "Coal Cares" website. This may give you the satisfaction of knowing you have helped perpetrate a successful hoax, but it also establishes without question your liability for trademark infringement as well as malicious interference with our client's business.

Well, maybe it's just me, but knowing that they are being inundated with inquiries is pretty satisfying. Too bad they won't take people's concerns about coals dangerous health effects seriously, though.

Anyway, the Yes Men's response is, of course, clever and right on:

Dear Andrew Baum, Foley Lardner LLP, and Peabody Energy,

Thank you for your thoughtful letter demanding that we remove Peabody’s name from www.coalcares.org and cease falsely suggesting that Peabody cares about kids made sick by coal.

Your threat, although entirely baseless (see this response, and the EFF's blog post later today), did make us realize one thing: that Peabody, despite being our country's largest coal producer, and one of the largest lobbyists against common-sense policy, accounts for a mere 17% of U.S. coal production. The remaining 83% comes from 28 other companies, who are, every bit as much as Peabody, giving kids asthma attacks and other illnesses.

As even you may agree, the root of the problem is not Peabody, but rather our system of subsidies, regulations, and lobbying that lets your whole industry continue its lethal work. To make this clear, we have changed every instance of the word "Peabody" on www.coalcares.org to a rotating selection of the names of other large U.S. coal producers who, like Peabody, also need to be stopped from killing kids.

Very truly yours,
Coal is Killing Kids and the Yes Lab
coalcares@yeslab.org

P.S. You suggest in your letter that "Peabody has a First Amendment right not to be involved with the dissemination of a message with which it does not agree," a statement which, while completely untrue, does recall the World Resources Institute's longstanding demand that you cease falsely attributing to them the nonsense statistic that "for every 10-fold increase in per-capita energy use, individuals live 10 years longer." As the WRI notes:

First, WRI has never made such an assertion and has never done analysis to that effect. Second, this conclusion ignores critical factors related to energy production and human health. WRI's longstanding support for a global transition to cleaner, low-carbon energy is well-documented.

We would be grateful if you would stop misquoting WRI and issue a corrective statement within the next 24 hours.

###

Wonder what will be next in this great back-and-forth about coal's harmful effects?

-- Heather Moyer