Trick shot?

• Position: Letter to the editor

I'm puzzled and a bit worried by the use of the power plant photo on page 1 of the January/February 2007 issue. Perhaps I'm overly suspicious, but was this quite excellent photo selected because of the prominence of the discharges? This used to be a method used by high-school students to trick viewers into thinking that the emissions represented awful, awful pollution when the emissions were and are nothing but steam. World Watch can and should do better. There are plenty of coal-operation photos that wouldn't engender this suspicion.

Why not a photo of the enormous shovels used in coal operations, or a photo of two 100+ car coal trains passing one another in eastern Wyoming, one loaded and coming to Colorado and the other empty, going up for more. Or, with a spark of optimism, a coal gasification plant. Maybe next time!

JOHN R. BERMINGHAM

Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

Editor's note: Thanks for the compliment for Art Director Lyle Rosbotham's photo...