« Our long national nightmare | Main | Why albums matter: Chris Thile »

Chunks of coal

The coal industry has licensed John Anderson's 1981 Top-5 version of Billy Joe Shaver's best-known song, "I'm Just An Old Chunk Of Coal (But I'm Gonna Be A Diamond Someday)", as the soundtrack to its newest television advert extolling the virtues of their product.

The spot features some hapless actor concealed beneath a human-sized fabricated hunk of coal running around an anonymous downtown while city dwellers follow, hapless and happy. Or chase it, I don't remember. The ad is notable neither for its intelligence, nor its creativity, which probably reflects the industry's assessment of its target audience. The spots have been timed to air at the same time the coal industry, along with powerful congressional delegations from Kentucky and West Virginia, is appealing to the federal government for subsidies.

"Among the proposed inducements winding through House and Senate subcommittees," writes The New York Times' Edmund L. Andrews, "loan guarantees for six to 10 major coal-to-liquid plants, each likely to cost at least $3 billion; a tax credit of 51 cents for every gallon, or 13.5 cents per liter, of coal-based fuel sold through 2020; automatic subsidies if oil prices drop below $40 a barrel; and permission for the Air Force to sign 25-year contracts fo ralmost a billion gallons a year of coal-based jet fuel."

The licensing of popular songs to commercial purposes has drawn the ire of no few readers. I have long believed that making a living as an artist is difficult enough that anybody who can figure out a way through to prosperity should be encouraged, whether they be the Backstreet Boys or the fortunate writer of a popular song. (And goodness knows if the IRS doesn't take Billy Joe Shaver's next check, his defense attorney probably will.)

That said, hearing "Lust For Life" behind an ad for a cruise ship line is a little disorienting. How can music which was once so radical be so utterly neutered by careful editing and the passage of time? The song's comparative obscurity works for and against it, for certainly its placement suggests those of us who knew it in its original context might now be ready and willing to entertain the prospect of a long, sodden, sun-drenched cruise. (Not me. Please not me.)

So I do not wish to fault Mr. Anderson, nor Mr. Shaver, for this particular commercial deal. Nor do I know enough about how such things work to be certain that either artist had anything resembling control over the licensing of that track. One hopes they do, and one hopes they made the choice not simply because they needed the money. But very few artists have Pat MacDonald's dedication and tenacity and would have refused millions for "The Future's So Bright." I am grateful that he did, by the way, and saddened to hear The Who's once revolutionary "Won't Get Fooled Again" as the theme song to one of the crime lab dramas, and I don't even remember which one. I would've hoped for better, would have thought they'd made enough money.

In any event, I am deeply disturbed by what the "Chunk Of Coal" ad and this new congressional action portends. Make no mistake, no matter how it may be clothed -- energy independence, dubious greenhouse gas benefits -- this is purely and simply about money. Lots of money.

The coal industry does not have a good reputation. It is and long has been a bully. It has placed its representatives throughout government so as to weaken enforcement of safety and environmental standards. It has learned from Hollywood to create a fresh corporate entity for each mine, thereby shielding owners from any liabilities and simply filing bankruptcy should something go wrong. It refuses even to pay the modest fines levied when its most egregious actions destroy pristine environment or cause the death of miners.

No industry which sanctions the removal of entire mountaintops can ever claim the moral high ground.

The whole notion of any established energy industry putting its hand out for government guarantees and subsidies utterly undermines the Republican Party's theoretical concern for the free market.

I do not pretend we can do without coal. I do not pretend that the coming energy and global warming crisis -- we need to think of them as being conjoined, for they are, inextricably -- will be anything but ruinous, all around.

But the best thing that can happen, both for U.S. energy independence and to slow global warming, is for us to begin paying the real costs of the energy we consume. Only then will the free market respond by committing significant resources to the research and development of alternative energy sources (coal isn't a renewable alternative, it's a fossil fuel that will, in its own turn, run out, just as petroleum is bound to). Only then will we re-examine the automobile-driven suburban sprawl and big box retail nightmare. Only then will we wean ourselves from cars and SUVs that get half the gas mileage they should.

The page 8 jump to Andrews' story adds this: "...coal-to-oil fuels produce almost twice the volume of greenhouse gases as ordinary diesel, in part because the production process creates almost a ton of carbon dioxide for every gallon of liquid fuel."

What would happen if our next president proclaimed energy independence and the development of renewable energy sources to be of the highest national priority, just as we once resolved to beat the Russians to the Moon? (And let's forget President Bush's pipedream of going to Mars, eh? He seems to have, though it's a pity in some ways.) It won't be Barack Obama; part of Illinois is coal country.

The way out of the Middle East is to get out of the Middle East. We can only do that if we don't need petroleum. (And that doesn't mean abandoning Israel.) The way out of global warming is to quit burning fossil fuels. There is no higher national interest than peace and the continued health and prosperity of our species, of every species left on this planet.

Except money. I suppose that's a higher priority, at least among the ruling elite.

Posted by grant on May 30, 2007 9:05 AM | Permalink