Fair Game?

The Turning Point Project ran a full-page ad in The New York Times advocating the elimination of fossil fuel --- especially coal --- use in electricity generation, complete with apocalyptic scenarios imagined to come from putative human-induced global warming.  

Western Fuels Association, Inc., has filed suit in Wyoming "against The Turning Point Project, Friends of the Earth, Earth Island Institute, Ozone Action, Rainforest Action Network, and the International Center for Technology Assessment for "commercial defamation under Section 43 of the Lanham Act (15 U.S.C. § 1125)." [1]

"The ad's signatories 'recklessly spread dire predictions of rampant tropical diseases, melting polar ice caps, rising sea levels, vanishing farmland, drought, famine and disease, violent hurricanes, and waves of environmental refugees,'" claims the Western Fuels lawsuit.

If it were only a matter of unwashed, unshaven malcontents, the suit might not have made it to court.  However, the environmentalist groups receive significant financial backing from British Petroleum, 3M Corporation, and The Energy Foundation, all of which have a vested interest in renewable energy.  That is, it works to the financial advantage of these companies to defame the conventional fuel industries.

See reference [1] for more about the lawsuit, and reference [2] for continuing updates on the global warming debate.

[1]   http://www.sepp.org/NewSEPP/westfuel.htm 
[2]   www.sepp.org