Lots of great stuff on The Enemy of the Human Race available today.
Kate mentioned CNN's segment on Coal River Mountain, where a crucial battle over mountaintop removal mining is playing out. Really a must-watch.
Also on CNN, an excellent commentary from Jeff Biggers, making the point that Appalachians themselves have made peace with the notion that coal is on the way out, and are hungry for candidates to offer them something new instead of pandering:
As one young Obama activist from southern Ohio recently e-mailed me: "Why is it that the rest of the country gets green jobs and a high-tech future, and then the candidates come here and say, 'and for you, Appalachia, here's another generation of coal, or worse, nuclear waste that has been refused in the West?'"
He's not alone. In a recent poll released by the Opinion Research Corp., the majority of West Virginian voters supported energy independence through wind and solar power over coal.
Don't miss today's edition of Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman, which hosts a debate between Mike Brune of the Rainforest Action Network and Joe Lucas of American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. Obviously I'm biased, but from reading the transcript it looks like Brune kicked Lucas's ass. Hard to defend the indefensible. You can find the transcript, and several options for listening, here.
Speaking of Brune, he was also interviewed by the Boston Globe, making the point that there is no such thing as "clean coal."
Finally, Slate's Green Lantern takes on the question: "Just what is clean coal?" Depends on who you ask.
Lawsuit accuses Virginia power company of poisoning Dominican community with toxic coal ash
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Tom Blees Posted 2:03 am
14 Oct 2008
Clean coal advocates do their best to convince people that sequestering carbon dioxide is all that needs to be done. Yet greenhouse gases are released during and after the mining process, gases that have no way to be sequestered because they begin to escape into the air as soon as the overburden is stripped away in opencast coal mines. Much of what is uncovered is carbon-rich shale and mudstone, and the methane, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide that they contain will continue to be released into the atmosphere. Amounts vary depending on the mine, but anyone who tells you that greenhouse gases are no problem if you use clean coal technology and carbon sequestration is not to be trusted. In fact, many coal seams contain so much methane that they are tapped for their methane rather than their coal. But those coal mines in which the methane is less concentrated simply release their often considerable quantities of methane into the air. Nearly 10 percent of atmospheric methane resulting from human activity is derived from coal mining.
Tom Blees, author of
Prescription for the Planet.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts."
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