There is a very interesting article in today's Journal discussing how a public relations campaign sponsored by the natural gas industry attacked coal as unclean. This is sometimes referred to as "astroturf lobbying," and is represented in the Deck of Cards as the 10 of Clubs.

There's nothing new under the sun, but this campaign is peculiar, because the coal industry, with support of some Members of Congress, was able to stop it. John J. Fialka reports:

The founder of a group that ran a series of newspaper ads attacking the coal industry for selling a product that they called "filthy" says the campaign is ending.

The effort, promoted as pro-environment, was sponsored by a rival energy company, a natural-gas-production company, and sparked a round of protests from members of Congress and trade associations.

[…]

Rep. Nick J. Rahall (D., W.Va.), chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, called the ads an "absolute insult" to coal miners. He said the Clean Sky Coalition, which ran the ads, was set up by the chairman of Chesapeake Energy Corp., an Oklahoma City natural-gas-production company. Mr. Rahall said the ads amounted to "one segment of the energy industry trying to bamboozle the general public and policy makers to sell more of its product."

Public relations groups are always trying to bamboozle the general public. What makes this different? I would submit that many industries don't care much about false advertising and PR, so long as the claims are limited to the company's own products. But they start to care when representations start to attack other company's products. And they'll do something about it.

And check out the use of selectivity. Actually, it goes beyond selectivity to, what I'd call as a lawyer, something that looks like "false light." Again, Fialka reports:

The coalition's Web site quotes a Harvard University professor, John Holden, as saying 150 new coal-fired power plants being planned by U.S. utilities would create more carbon dioxide than all of the emissions from coal burning in human history. According to Harvard, there is no John Holden, but John P. Holdren, professor of environmental science at Harvard, called the statement "outrageous."

Dr. Holdren said it was a distorted version of a statement he has made, saying that if 900 coal-fired power plants being planned by various nations in the world were allowed to run for 50 years without emissions controls, the pollution would reach historic levels. Most of these plants, he said, are being planned in China and India, and some new plants will have controls that cut pollution.