The Pittsburgh Penguins Award their New Arena's Naming Rights to a Local Coal Company

Pittsburgh Penguins fans, prepare yourself for annoying advertising about how good coal is for you and our country. Prepare yourselves for an onslaught of misleading ads regarding Consol Energy's commitment to "clean coal", because the Pens just awarded Consol Energy, a coal company located right here in Southwestern PA, with the naming rights to their arena in deal worth a reported $5 million dollars a year. Prepare yourselves for an arena powered by, but filled with dirty filthy stinking coal industry representatives.

KDKA news broke the story:

When the Penguins' new arena opens, it will have a new name.

KDKA Investigator Andy Sheehan has learned that Consol Energy has won the naming rights.

The local coal and energy company is claiming more and more of a national and international spotlight. Next week, the Penguins will announce the sale of the arena naming rights to Consol on a long term basis for at least several million dollars a year.

The Penguins aren't commenting, but in a similar deal, the New Jersey Devils sold naming rights to their arena to Prudential Insurance for $5 million a year.

Environmentalists and advocates for energy policy change should have major issues with the naming rights and also the media's lame ass coverage of this event.

Here are a few reasons why I am particularly pissed off about this:

1. During the segment on KDKA, Andy Sheenan mentions Consol's development of "clean coal" as if it was a real thing. As we have seen, heard, and read time and time again coal is not clean, it is freaking dirty and toxic substance for Christ's sake, but remember, we shouldn't expect the media to report the facts, right? The media's failure to get on board with climate change and clean technologies is why this blog exists, after all.

And how could I omit this clean coal demonstration that is now hitting the airwaves across the US.




2.The second thing I have a problem with is that the media has made no mention of coal's negative impact on our environment. I'm not surprised that they have ignored the climate change issue, but come on, right here in our own backyard we have First Energy's Bruce Mansfield plant, which has been spewing and raining soot and toxins upon the families that live in the vicinity of the power plant in nearby Beaver County.

To the right is a picture of what is left after companies like Consol Energy perform their magic of mountaintop coal removal.


3. The third thing has to do with Pittsburgh's image. We were known as the smokey city throughout most of the 20th century due to the abundance of coke works and steel mills. The air is much cleaner now, and Pittsburgh is trying to position itself as a leading city in the new clean energy industry. But how can Pittsburgh be a true green city when its largest indoor sporting venue is named after a coal company? Burning coal to produce electricity is the biggest source of CO2 emissions, which, along with other green house gasses like methane, are the primary culprit behind climate change. How can the mayor of Pittsburgh say with a straight face that Pittsburgh is one of America's greenest city's when our professional hockey team is represented by one of the least green entities around, a friggin coal company.

4. Penguins fans, most of them at least, won't give a you know what about the decision and may even buy into this clean coal myth. From the sounds of the people interviewed in the KDKA story (above), the arena could be named after the Bin Laden family and it still wouldn't matter because, as the guy stated:

"As long as I can come see the Pens I don't care what they call the arena."

Way to be and sound like a dumb yinzer, buddy.


The irony of course is that a coal company's name will now adorn the arena of a hockey team named The Penguins. Climate change is causing a ripple effect that is warming the arctic and antarctic air and water, which is melting the ice at alarming rates, rates that are even more aggressive than the scientists predicted at least a decade before climate change and global warming were even brought to our attention. Real life penguins live in these areas, and the burning of coal and other fossil fuels will advance the melting of glaciers, which lead to the demise of animals such as polar bears and penguins unless something is done to drastically cut he amount of greenhouse gas emissions we are putting into the atmosphere. This is not likely to happen because corporations like Consol, who could be investing in ways to sequester their CO2 emissions, are instead investing their money on PR campaigns like the billboards and advertisements we see all around Pittsburgh, and now they are spending money on naming rights, which they will use as a strategy to further enhance their image and spread the word that they are actually the good guys, and that they are doing the right thing when it comes to developing this thing, this myth known as "clean coal.'

Bravo gentleman, and a big thank you to Mario Lemiuex, Ron Burkle, and the rest of the owners and management of the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey franchise for bringing us the Consol Energy Arena, or "Clean Coal Place", or "We are the power behind America" arena, or whatever the hell these imbeciles and climate change deniers decide to call it.