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Here’s a cautionary tale about petitions–which are increasingly becoming a substitute for real political activity, thanks to social media.

Last fall, a group called Citizens for Recycling First submitted a petition to the White House website. These folks don’t focus on recycling bottles or newspapers; they support the recycling of coal ash, the waste left after coal is burned. Their petition asked the administration to “protect coal ash recycling” by enacting disposal rules that do not designate coal ash as a “hazardous waste.”

Soon after, the group collected 5,400 signatures and said on its blog:

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Citizens for Recycling First has succeeded in gathering 5,000 signatures for its petition on a new White House website that promises a response from the Obama Administration.

Citizens for Recycling First is grateful to everyone who participated in getting friends, family and associates to sign the petition. The American Coal Ash Association and National Ready Mixed Concrete Association were particularly helpful in reaching out to their members.

The 5,000 signatures were particularly hard to gather because the White House website was frequently overloaded and unresponsive to people trying to sign.

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Subsequently, a nonprofit called the Environmental Integrity Project took a closer look at the signatures and saw that about 2,000 of the names were in Mandarin. EIG hired a translator to dig a bit deeper and found that “the vast majority of the Chinese names in the petition are not authentic.” Many appeared to be generated by software, and they described food items or used other terms not commonly used as surnames.

Among them: Steamed Bun, Older Sister, Steamed Bun Little Sister, Small Steamed Bun, Big Steamed Bun, Big Bear, Big Grey Wolf, Little Duck, Little White Rabbit, Yellow Tiger, Come to China Big, Come to China Cat, Come to China Donkey, Come to China Little Girl, Handsome Six, Handsome Eight, Handsome Good Looking, Handsome Dragon and the Most Handsome Guy.

In a press release, Environmental Integrity Project Director Eric Schaeffer said:

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If coal ash is so important to American jobs – as its Congressional supporters insist – why would the industry submit a petition with so many names in Chinese characters?

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I called John Ward, chairman of Citizen for Recycling First, to ask him what was going on.

“I don’t know what happened,” he replied. “We put a petition on the White House website. We don’t have any control after that.” http://www.marcgunther.com/2012/07/04/friends-of-coal-big-steamed-bun-
and-most-handsome-guy/. Just another example of how existing "energy providers" game the system.

How ironic that the "signers" using Chinese characters all come from Aurora, CO...home of, guess what? TONS of them can be found on the "petition"--all with either no indication where they come from, or with Aurora as the "address". I can't replicate the Chinese symbols, you have to go to the petition and scroll down to find them ( https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/protect-coal-ash-recycling-p
romptly-enacting-disposal-regulations-do-not-designate-coal-ash-/dG1sH81M). There are so many I lost count.

Some of them "signed" in English characters (also with no address or Aurora CO) are so silly it's obvious they're fake. "Names" like "eg a" and "bn v" and "fg h" and "dds h" are scattered among the Chinese characters--also with no origination or Aurora CO.

I mean, they're not even bothering to be SUBTLE anymore!