Tackling Childhood Asthma Not Coal Industry Priority After All

A charitable initiative by the world's largest coal company to provide free "novelty-themed" inhalers to asthmatic children may have seemed for a moment like a (somewhat misguided) breath of fresh air, coming as it did from an industry whose emissions are directly linked to childhood asthma, and which is fighting to gut clean air legislation that would save children's lives.

Coal Cares(tm) (www.coalcares.org) purported to "make asthma cool" with decorative and pop-culture inspired inhalers ("The Bieber," "Harry Potter," "My Little Pony," and "My First Inhaler" were particular favorites). The site also announced that Peabody would offer $10 coupons towards asthma medication (about 5%-20% of the cost) for families living within 200 miles of a coal-fired plant. It featured a "Kidz Koal Korner" with asthma-related games for tots, an extensive asthma trivia section and FAQ (Peter the Great was asthmatic, who knew!), and a thorough condemnation of solar and wind alternatives.

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(tm) 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. "We don't have their millions, but we do have a knack for incredibly tasteless jokes," said Veronica Tomlinson, a pediatrician and member of CKK. CKK worked with the Yes Lab, which is a project of The Yes Men to help activist groups carry out media-savvy creative actions on their own.

"Sure, it's kind of tasteless to say that 'Bieber' inhalers are a solution to childhood asthma," said Janet Bellamy, a spokesperson for CKK. "But it's a great deal more tasteless to cause that asthma in the first place, as coal-fired power plants have been proven to do." Added Justin V. Bond, another spokesperson for CKK: "It's even more tasteless to disproportionately kill poor people." Coal-fired power plants are very often built in areas populated by low-income citizens, who then bear the brunt of the health effects.

"People may laugh at our sick jokes," said Bellamy, "but they also understand the real health impacts of burning coal. That's exactly what the coal industry doesn't want people to think about, because if enough of us were aware of it, we would shut these plants down once and for all."