The Minerals Council of Australia—an industry association representing Australia's mining companies—has produced and released a
video ad for coal as part of its new "
Little Black Rock" PR blitz intended to defend against the increasingly loud calls to limit carbon emissions. In conjunction with the video, the Minerals Council attempted to launch a new hashtag touting the wonders of coal, #coalisamazing.
Environmentalists have pushed back on the campaign's "ludicrous" and "desperate" claim that coal has been amazing for humanity. As anyone who has ever followed corporate hashtags before could have predicted, the twittersphere immediately began mocking the campaign, using the hashtag to point out the climate and clean air impacts of coal. Mashable has collected some of the most amusing tweets, though they missed what may be the best one, from @denial101x (pictured left.)
These tweets point out that, in a way, the ad campaign is right. Coal does accomplish a lot of amazing things: by locking more heat into the Earth's climate system coal causes more extreme heat and floods; by pooling additional carbon in the ocean, coal is fueling coral bleaching and shellfish die-offs; and through direct human exposure, coal leads to millions of deaths annually.
So yes, it is true that #coalisamazing, just not in the way the Minerals Council would have us think.
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