Those Fossil Fuel Jokesters

The fossil fuel industry has co-opted the English language.  Maybe they're just zealous. 

“President Obama has placed a de facto embargo on energy production on American lands and shores. It’s irresponsible and overzealous,” said Benjamin Cole, a spokesman for the fossil fuel lobby called American Energy Alliance, according to a recent New York Times article.

The two words are kind of astonishing: irresponsible and overzealous.  They're almost perfectly applicable to the fossil fuel industry.  I sometimes marvel how people say these things with a straight face.

What British Petroleum did to the Gulf of Mexico seems hugely irresponsible and overzealous.

Spending hundreds of millions of dollars to spread doubt about climate change to ensure that nothing gets done also seems enormously irresponsible and overzealous. 

It is actually a classic technique the fossil fuel lobbyist is employing -- use the language of the opposition, in this case anyone in favor of clean energy, against them.  An obvious attempt to neutralize the message and cloud the facts. 

Here I thought it was an attempt at humor.

Probably no time to laugh with all the checks they're fervently writing.  The fossil fuel industry is fanatically spending $153 million on pro-fossil fuel industry television advertisements in the 2012 Presidential Campaign as we speak, according to New York Times research.

The clean energy industry and people in support of a healthier planet concede that they just can't compete. 

Ok, that's not funny.

image: laughingdogs.com