Business

Anti-coal crusaders with immense amounts of free time (or sponsored by someone with immense finances) launched a parody website last week aimed at Peabody Energy.

Peabody is the world's largest private-sector coal-mining company.

The parody website, coalcares .org, pretends to be a public-relations initiative from Peabody, giving free asthma inhalers to children who live near coal-fired power plants and breathe their pollution.

The Yes Men social activists helped produce the site.

The mock site also offers coupons for asthma medicine, and a variety of inhalers featuring cartoon characters are pictured, designed to protect asthmatics from "asthma-related bullying," which is characterized as a larger problem than pollution from burning coal.

No doubt coal-supplied electricity and alternative energy spur serious debate in the U.S., but the faux site's tongue-in-cheek humor is hard to deny.

The site includes a fake critique of solar and wind power, complete with pictures of birds flying headlong into wind turbines and another wind turbine bursting into flames.

"Wind turbines can kill up to 70,000 birds per year," the fake site said. "Coal particulate pollution, on the other hand, kills fewer than 13,000 people per year."

The real Peabody sent out a notice that the site was a hoax and issued a statement endorsing coal power and tying it to improved human health.

"Peabody is proud to help hundreds of millions of people live longer and better through coal-fueled electricity," Peabody said. "A growing collection of studies demonstrates the correlation between electricity fueled by low-cost coal and improvement in health, longevity and quality of life."

Peabody operates Arizona's only coal operation, the Kayenta Mine, on the Navajo and Hopi lands in northern Arizona.

That coal supplies the Navajo Generating Station near Page, which powers the Central Arizona Project and various utilities, including the big three in Arizona.