Note: I received this from the Yes Lab today in my email and thought a little follow-up might be nice. Unfortunately, the email links to a pdf where it says “your letter” and “see this response,” and I’m not sure how to link to a pdf from here. My apologies. – amanda
The following letter has been sent to lawyers for Peabody Energy in response to their threat:
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, (314) 472-5539
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.
I’ll play the other side with real stats. It seems everyone is projecting fear, shame, blame and guilt and I have to say that says much about their internal journey. I too have wondered about the increase of asthma and allergies and have yet to come to any logical explanation
My Real Experience:
I am almost fifty and grew up in a coal mining town, my grampy entered the mines at age twelve and left at 67 dying in his mid seventies of heart issues and dementia (perhaps the non spoken about alzheimers?)A twenty minute drive away was a steel mine responsible for the much debated tar ponds supposedely responsible for cancer rates and fifteen minutes in the other direction a “heavy watter plant” (Nuclear) I have five siblings and everyone in our town burned and or mined coal. I grew up playing in the coal bucket as did my siblings and to this day, as a retiree of the coal company, my father at almost eighty still uses coal as his main heating (his lungs are fine as is his heart and he has never had cancer).
None of us are or were sick, nor do I remember any children growing up suffering asthma.
When both my children and my younger sisters, and oldest brothers children aquired infant bronchial issues the doctors prescribed for them all medicine and/or puffers. My oldest brother and I both used the prescribed medicine for less than a week and when the child showed signs of breathing better, removed the medicine. My younger sister continued the meds until they were done. All of my brother’s and my children are asthma free in their twenties and thirties, my younger sisters children are on puffers and meds to this day.Alos, my ex husband at 48 contracted pneumonia and was put on puffers. I warned him not to overuse, but he overused. Within a year he was diagnosed COPD and within two years was dependent on more meds to sustain an ability to breathe.
We overmedicate ourselves and our children…………what is made from chemicals and legally pushed upon us I have concluded, is far more detrimental to our health and well being than something that comes naturally from the earth……but that is just my experience……..I would always suggest though that those needing to blame and shame….look within first and see if there is something perhaps they did to create a dependency on drugs that weakens, not strengthens the lungs and creates more dependency………..drugs are bad (that includes our overuse of antibiotics with our children as well…….if they have a cough and runny nose, wipe their noise and send they out to play 🙂 xoxoxox
Looks like somebody needs to hire attorneys who are familiar with First Amendment jurisprudence. And I’m not talking about the Yes Men. Nasty lawyer letters have the best impact when they are based on actual law, and this one seems to be forgetting the specific exemptions from libel law for satire and commentary. Otherwise Stewart and Colbert would constantly be in court. The public figure exception is for individuals, not companies.
The problem is, that it isn’t really clear that this is satire given the BP ads about their efforts in cleaning up the Gulf. BP’s efforts seem to be focused primarily on bribing local officials with cash, which it turns out has been fairly easy to do. I particularly liked the official in Louisiana (or was it MS?) Who said they needed the ipads and computers to replace the computers that were “worn out” by the efforts of tracking the problem.
Keep it up. I’ve sent the link to many people already.
Yee Haw!
Makes my little Taurus moon GLOW with joy that David is slinging stones at the Goliaths out there!
GO Yes Lab!