West Virginia Dems Rep. Nick Rahall and Sen. Robert C. Byrd are fighting mad over some "despicable" anti-coal ads that have appeared in major publications recently.
The ads, underwritten by a natural gas company called the Chesapeake Energy Corp, show faces smudged with make-up meant to resemble coal dust under a headline reading: "Face It, Coal is Filthy."
The campaign was pulled in the wake of Rahall's and Byrd's furious objections that it was unfair and misleading. They say the people featured in the ads are models, not miners, and that the Oklahoma City-based natural gas company is parading as an environmental group concerned about the hazardous effects of coal when really they're just a "bamboozling" profit-seeker trying to swing business in their favor.
Well, this argument is all fine and good, except for one small issue: these ads depict a very real truth of life in the shadow of coal mining, and whether the people in them are real or the intent behind them is honorable is beside the much bigger point. Migrating, suffocating, ubiquitous coal dust is a hard and fast fact, as anyone who lives near a coal mining or processing facility can attest. If coal-loving congressmen want to ignore that or call the public picture of that an unfair and inaccurate stereotype, then they're either kidding themselves or being knowingly untruthful.
Face it, gentlemen: coal is filthy. Stop denying it, stop shifting blame, and start pressing the companies at fault to clean up their acts.
Copenhagen, U.S.A. December 7
Comments
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David Roberts Posted 4:32 am
01 May 2007
grist.org
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Laurence Aurbach Posted 4:59 am
01 May 2007
Of course, they'd have to be coal miners who'd just quit their jobs. No one else would be free to speak.
Ped Shed Blog
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evanthomaspaul Posted 5:11 am
01 May 2007
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:01 pm
01 May 2007
And Nuclear is more or less offlimits unless you want to go through a PR shit storm.
Of course you have people looking towards coal.
_
Now the issue I have with coal is:
1. I've heard that the ammount of energy cars use is about 10x that of our grid demand.
Yet our emmisions from electricity, primarily coal, are comprable to our oil emmisions.
Aka our coal emmisions are 10x higher per unit of energy.
(I need a source for this)
2. The Right is looking at coal as a magic cure-all for their energy needs.
It slices, it dices, and it even makes all the hydrocarbon fuels you could think of.
From diesel, to natural gas, to jetfuel, and even hydrogen or ethanol. And it can do it cheaply, and relatively sustainably compared to oil or natural gas.
All while trying to ignore those climate hystericalists. Cause if they did care, they'd notice that this kicks our CO2 emmisions into overdrive.
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:22 pm
01 May 2007
http://jcwinnie.biz/wordpress/?p=1206
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caniscandida Posted 10:47 pm
01 May 2007
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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Biodiversivist Posted 2:10 am
02 May 2007
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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