Coal industry peeks at Big Tobacco playbook

New York

GREG Zimmerman, an environmental activist, was scrolling through the website of a coal industry association when he came across a presentation that startled him: "Survival Is Victory: Lessons From the Tobacco Wars."

What surprised Mr Zimmerman, deputy policy director at the Center for Western Priorities, a conservation advocacy organisation based in Denver, was that the coal industry was, at least in this presentation, deliberately drawing a comparison between itself and the tobacco companies. That's more typically the argument of environmentalists, who often compare fossil fuel companies to the tobacco industry. They note that the tobacco giants long funded trumped-up science and advocacy groups to spread doubt about risks of smoking.