Green turds of desperation

Big Coal’s new campaign: choose us, not jobs and health 9

It was not so long ago that the coal industry could just issue propaganda without reference to coal’s problems. Coal was “reliable, affordable, and increasingly clean” and it powered green, useful things like Washington, D.C.‘s Metro system.

So imagine my glee when I woke up this morning and pulled the latest Southern Company insert from my morning newspaper. Here it is:

I think the androgynous yuppie happily contemplating the radioactive turd is supposed to convince us that said turd is actually a piece of coal that has been magically “greened.”

I was smiling, of course, not because this insert represented a new, revolting low in graphic arts, but because Southern Company now feels compelled to fight not so much for the ability to build new coal-fired power plants, but for survival.

All that climate organizing (and investment) seems to be getting to them. As much as the coal industry claims President Obama as an ally, he’s also the guy who said they’d be bankrupted if they don’t capture their carbon dioxide, which may be an impossible task—and is definitely exceedingly expensive and polluting.

And now, in a jobs and economy-focused Congress, Big Coal has a new challenge: arguing why they should be allowed to live when coal is increasingly being seen as a job killer: putting money into coal means less than half the number of jobs as investments in efficiency, conservation, or clean energy and $167 billion in extra annual health costs related to coal’s regular toxic pollution, not to mention the $271 billion annual drag global warming will exert on the economy by 2025.

Oh, and more than 1,000 people are about to participate in the biggest civil disobedience in U.S. history on climate issues—by protesting a coal plant.

Expect more green turds of desperation with your morning newspaper.

Glenn Hurowitz is the Washington Director of Avoided Deforestation Partners (www.adpartners.org), an organization dedicated to protecting tropical forests as part of the solution to climate change. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Politico, The Los Angeles Times, The American Prospect, and many other publications. He is the author of the critically acclaimed book Fear and Courage in the Democratic Party and has worked in a variety of senior positions in the environmental movement and on political campaigns. All his writing at Grist represents his own opinions and no organization should be held responsible for it!

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  1. JMG's avatar

    JMG Posted 10:31 am
    17 Feb 2009

    Sure enoughThat's the same Southern Company "sponsoring" the "energy news" at MNN.com, the bizarro-world version of Grist.  
    And they're pushing that same "common sense" nonsense.

    The 5% Project



    Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay.

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  2. human power Posted 11:05 am
    17 Feb 2009

    And yetWe have people who think of themselves as environmentalists who want to push for electric cars and plug-in hybrids BEFORE we green the grid. As with so many things in life, timing counts, especially if we are going to get off the coal bin.

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  3. Tasermons Partner Posted 11:14 am
    17 Feb 2009

    Same time, same place...We have people who think of themselves as environmentalists who want to push for electric cars and plug-in hybrids BEFORE we green the grid. As with so many things in life, timing counts, especially if we are going to get off the coal bin.
    I agree that it would best to power as much of the vehicles on a green grid as possible (after placing much more emphasis on public transit and mass transit, of course).
    But as was pointed out to me not too long ago, even the added emissions from a coal plant caused by an energy demand increase due to a full-electric fleet would still produce less GHGs than a fully gas powered fleet would.
    For the interest of time, the best thing to do would probably start the fleet conversions while greening as much of grid at the same time.

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  4. biodiversivist's avatar

    biodiversivist Posted 1:44 am
    18 Feb 2009

    Finally, some serious civil disobedienceCar efficiency does not need to wait for a greener grid.
    The coal companies are shooting themselves in the foot with these stupid ads. Carbon capture is not feasible, clean coal is an oxymoron.

    In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

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  5. amazingdrx Posted 2:29 am
    18 Feb 2009

    "Common sense" ="Uncommon senselessness".  All these ad campaigns need is translation from corporateeze to english.

    http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

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  6. mwildfire Posted 1:51 am
    20 Feb 2009

    which first?We should begin the conversion to an electric fleet NOW while beginning to green the grid NOW. Both will take time and we need to get started; furthermore, electric motors are so much more efficient that we're probably better off converting even if we used coal to power the grid. Especially since the alternative is not only petroleum-based oil, but also ethanol and coal-liquefaction plants. If you don't live in a coal state you may not realize there's a big push to build expensive polluting plants to turn goal into liquid fuel "to reduce our dependence on foreign oil."

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  7. amazingdrx Posted 3:16 am
    20 Feb 2009

    That's it wildfireProceed now on all fronts.  A few percent of conservation/efficienct savings added to a few percent renewable energy conversion per year will get the change to happen in time.
    It's not; get your plugin car ready, take 20 years to make the grid 100% coal free, then plugin your car.  It's plugin your car to the solar panels on your roof, right now.  Then watch as a smart grid, rolled out at the rate of a few percent of total grid capacity per year, gradually allows coal plant after coal plant and refinery and nuclear plant to be shut down.
    The old denier delayer talking point, "Renewable energy has gotta replace 100% of fossil and nuclear energy tomorow or it can't work".  Very popular, especially with wing nut media,  but very easy to defeat.

    http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

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  8. Pompey Road Posted 3:59 am
    20 Feb 2009

    Walking Wounded:Biodiversity,
     You can depend on coal when left to their own devices to self destruct over time, not to worry they are staying the course. The added negative press of Mountain Top Removal added to the outcry over co2 emissions is just more negative press they could be avoiding. This fact notwithstanding their shortsightedness in this regard will make things extremely difficult for them when they are forced to go back to underground mining methods.
    When they started to get heavily into MTR in the early 80's we lost thousands of underground mining jobs and it really hurt the local economy and the tax base. The several large underground union mines shut down and about 400 drift shaft underground mines. We went from 8500 miners down to just under 4000 thousand miners in my county alone, and still mine the same tonnage.  What happens is that when you have a versatile people who want to work they will leave the area to do so. It happened in the late 50s and 60's when the price of coal dropped. Instead of going up to the industrial north that is now the rust belt the 80's miners went south. The coal corporations lost thousands of years of underground mining experience and more importantly lost the tradition of sons following their fathers into the mines. It is difficult even in this depressed economy for them to entice people into underground mining for jobs that pay $60,000-75,000 a year starting out.
    When MTR is stopped and it will be, they are going to be in a world of hurt when trying to find a workforce for drift and deep shaft mining.
    So as they wasted 30 years and never developed coal gasification, developed a coal fuel the public might have let them burn. They also dismantled their own workforce at the source for underground mining.

    The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

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  9. biodiversivist's avatar

    biodiversivist Posted 4:55 am
    21 Feb 2009

    That's an interesting perspective, PompeyLearn something new everyday.

    In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

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