It’s been a tough couple of months for the coal industry’s campaign to minimize concerns about global warming and hawk “clean coal.”

Reports out of Denver indicate that the $2 million the industry – including the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity --  is spending to press the flesh at the Democratic and Republican conventions is “falling flat”.

But perhaps nothing has been a bigger flop this summer than the energy-industry financed  “Americans For Prosperity (AFP) nationwide balloon tour to “expose” global warming and constructive climate solutions.   

Boosters like to boast about how the AFP balloon tour hit 32 cities in 20 states this summer.  But the reality is that if this had been a stadium-rock tour, it would have  been cancelled for lack of interest … even before it got started.

Consider this comedy of errors:

• The much-ballyhooed AFP attempt to fly over former Vice President Al Gore’s house outside of Nashville was killed when the group failed to get the right clearances.
• The Dunder Mufflin Scranton office company picnic would draw a bigger crowd than these AFP “events” with pathetically small crowds in Missouri and Oregon.   Don’t take our word for it; check out the video and photos – including those posted by AFP itself!
• One major event never even got off the ground – literally! – in Oregon.
• Even after the conclusion of its summer tour, AFP is only about half of the way to financing the balloon tour's $500,000 price tag. Uh-oh - better call your top polluters, er, I mean donors!
• My favorite story from the “summer of no love” for global warming deniers came just last month when AFP was forced to cancel public meeting to denounce climate solutions due to ... wait for it! … Hurricane/Tropical Storm Fay!  The rich irony of the situation was not lost on MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, whose comments on it prompted this whiny response from the “Business Media Institute,” which is a project of the Exxon-funded Media Research Center, notorious for its right-wing views.

With the impacts of global warming becoming more plainly visible every day, it looks like Americans are pretty cool to the message of AFP and other Flat Earthers.