Nearly 30 years ago, the "No Nukes" concert generated a wave of publicity focused on the dangers posed by nuclear industry. The 1979 show followed the "meltdown" at Three Mile Island. Bonnie Raitt, Carly Simon, Poco, Doobie Brothers, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Bruce Springsteen, Crosby, Stills Nash & Young, and James Taylor were headliners at that Madison Square Garden event. That showcase provided a powerful PR platform that helped send the nuke industry into a two decade-long tailspin.
Fast forward to today. Protest warhorses Raitt, Browne and Stills are leading a renewed fight against nuclear power, which is now basking in the glow of "clean energy."
The savvy Nuclear Energy Institute presents nuke power as a non-greenhouse gas source of energy that should be right up the alley of those worried about global warming and drowning polar bears.
The musicians front a group called nukefree.org, and have modernized their PR campaign by cutting a video on YouTube.com, which updates Stills' classic, "For What it's Worth."
The NEI counters nukefree.org with an amateurish YouTube video featuring a self-described musician (and NEI staffer) named Elizabeth King.
With all due respect to Ms. King, couldn't the NEI come up with a spokesperson who could match the firepower of Raitt and Co.
Even better. NEI should look beyond aging Baby Boomer icons, and recruit a current "hot commodity" who could appeal to today's youth.
That would be worth a lot of positive PR.