Energy-Related Public Relations

As I’ve mentioned, I get several emails each day from a pro-nuclear energy group, and, the more I learn about what they’re doing, the more I deeply sympathize with their situation, which, to summarize, is dealing with public misunderstanding. How many people know that nuclear power is by far the safest large-scale resource, that thousands of times more people die every year from coal than have ever been killed by nuclear accidents? Who’s tracking with “advanced nuclear,” which will eliminate all the problems that existed with the plants design of the 1950s?

Of course, we people in renewables face very similar challenges.

The fossil fuel industry spends hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising and public relations campaigns each year to keep the common American as ignorant as possible about the horrible consequences of energy generation and consumption in the U.S.

In renewables, however, we see that Big Oil is losing its death-grip on energy-related PR—regardless of its spending. A decade ago they had it all buttoned down, but now we see the cords that bind it into place fraying considerably. The driver here has been public consciousness on climate change, which, though nonexistent 10 years ago, is starting to permeate into even the dimmest and dullest recesses of our culture.

Because my grandfather was one of the first chiropractors (in the early 20th Century), I’m often reminded of the incredible slander that he and his profession experienced at the hands of the American Medical Association at the time.  The neo-Nazis, the KKK, and the religious cults of today have far easier PR tasks in front of them than the one my grandfather had. But note what happened: the chiropractic hung in there, the AMA gave up, and the whole PR situation turned around very quickly. Not only are chiropractors well respected today, but most of us remember how contemptible what the AMA did back then was, and what despicable people their leaders at the time must have been.

This shows how quickly things can change in the public arena. I have every confidence that the truth will emerge—both about renewable and nuclear energy.