The stupid "there is no such thing as clean coal technology" yap is as just as stupid as those who don't want people to restrain animals or use them for anything, or for us to harm plants either.  It is tunnel vision thinking and proves the people have major brain malfunctions.  The same type of idiots promoted using food to create bio-fuels, and think bio-fuels are "cleaner" than gas and oil.  Idiots are also claiming nuclear plants generate "clean" energy because they don't release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, when they in fact create a poison so severe that it will threaten our race for tens of thousands of generations.

There is no such thing as any "clean" energy source.  Even windmill electrical generators, and solar collectors, require materials to construct them that must be mined, manufactured, shipped, installed and maintained.  Nothing just "cleanly" appears.

Idiots always just babble tunnel-vision retarded thought, while they pretend superiority of intelligence or morality.  Their efforts and the money would be better spent if they'd research the technologies that allow coal to be used more cleanly then pressure the politicians to legally require companies use them, instead of their just pretending superiority while babbling stupidly about ignoring a massively valuable resource that we have in abundance and that is needed to provide them with the conveniences of modern life that they enjoy and demand.

It is always easier to rant and cause further destruction to systems you're angry with instead of putting the effort into making thing better.  It is like hacking computer systems instead of writing better code to make computer programs operate better.  Being a babbling destructive idiot is easy, as politicians regularly prove, but creating something valuable requires effort of thought and an intelligence level above that of a vegetable.

My first book "Life is a Puzzle" was recently published by PublishAmerica.com, under my pen name of JosephThePoet.

The real argument is that "Clean Coal" as atleast Obama understands it, means specifically "Coal with Carbon Capture and Sequestration".
And that's what this ad is targeted at.

The main reason for the other connotation is mainly because coal advocates tend to switch between talking about Carbon Capture, and Mercury/Sulfur filters; Depending on who they are talking to.
As such it's necessary for this ad to cover both.

-David Ahlport

I would love to see an ad showing someone flipping on a light switch and the top of a mountain getting blown off. Just repeat it, several people throwing that light switch and an Appalachian Mountain getting blown all to hell.

Show some MTR sites with the caption there is no such thing as clean coal.

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.

Joe the Poet,

The coal corporations had over 30 years to develop a fuel that that the would would let them burn. Gasified coal is old technology but the cheap misers walked away from scores of gasification attempts in the late 70's. And even then your have the cheap bastards blowing up mountains and destrying Southern Appalachia just to save a few bucks on the ton over underground mining.

From the mining, the cleaning "wet sludge Ponds" the power generation, the "Wet Fly Ash Ponds" particulate matter, heavy metals, co2, coal is an earth killing medievil fuel source. For Christ sake man this is the 21st century, it is just time to get off this crap and find some renewable sustainable fuels that won't destroy whole regions of the earth with the mining process or the planet with it's end use.

No one wants to make coal better we just want it gone. If the crap was cleaner than sunshine and you are still blowing up whole mountains regions or ruining streams, rivers and water tables with the coal slurry's and sludge from the mining and cleaning process, it's still not worth the effort or the destruction.

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.

"Idiots always just babble tunnel-vision retarded thought, while they pretend superiority of intelligence or morality."

Don't be so hard on yourself.  

Maybe you could check into "clean" coal and find out that the liquified CO2 that needs to be compressed chilled, transported, and pumped somewhere, underground or under the ocean, ot shot into space, is twice the volume of the coal it came from.

Maybe then you would realize why this "clean' coal is just diversion and delay, not any kind of real GHG reduction plan.  That retarded tunnel vision thing could be overcome?

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

Let's show the US public what MTR looks like and the devestating impact on the watershed and people.  

Too many people confuse MTR with "strip mining" and think the coal companies "repair" the damage when they are done.

"We must be the change we wish to see in the world." -- Mahatma Ghandi

Coal is not clean.  Gas is not clean.  Oil is not clean.  Paint is not clean.  Plastic is not clean.   Wood is not clean.  No metals are clean. Using our toilets is not clean.  Get rid of it all.  We'll all live in caves and not burn wood to cook our food or to keep warm either.  Oh, and don't kill any animals to eat them or to get garments to wear, or harm any plants either.  This is the fantasy world of the fools.

THEY didn't do it right before, so let's just stop it all.  Let's stop using coal because people harvest and use it wrong.  Let's stop using wood because people harvest and use it wrong.  Let's stop using metals and plastics because people harvest those resources wrong.  And meanwhile I'll just get in my car and drive home to my warm home and cook my meal so I can sit and watch TV or go online and pretend I care about the environment and know what I'm talking about when I babble my foolishness.  Now, go ahead and tell yourself that you are smarter than a vegetable.

My first book "Life is a Puzzle" was recently published by PublishAmerica.com, under my pen name of JosephThePoet.

Pompey Road, that suggestion is f***ing brilliant! Talk about a powerful visual image. Oh, and Joe, it's time to take your lithium now.

The mellotron is your friend.

It may be we will have to strive for more fuel efficient cars, use bridge fuels such as NatGas and make a big push for mass transit as we develop batteries sufficient in reliability and cost for the electric car. It may be we will have to look for energy conservation and make the grid more efficient as we develop sustainable renewable alternatives to coal and oil. Everyone is aware of the pollution problem with all manufacturing even solar cells. Your position is extreme and even environmentalist look for moderation and common sense in all things. I will buy the silly looking light bulb even though it is powered by a coal powered power plant until the day it is lit with wind or solar. I may have to run my 4cyl Toyota a few more years and then go to a natural gas with my next purchase until they develop an electric battery powered car for the masses.

We are all aware that there is no such thing as a pollution free consumer society we just trade idea's and work the problem until that day, "if there is ever such a day" celebrating every little victory with the knowledge many of us will never see it in our life time. We do what is in our ability to do at the time in space we live in. Stopping MTR does not require a quantum leap in technology it only requires enough people saying enough. So I work toward what is within the realm of possibility and hope to see it in my lifetime, not as much for myself as for the ages I pass it down to.

Most people are not so concrete in their position that they will not undertake the doable while striving toward a higher goal. I see no harm in some going all out for zero environmental pollution as long as they are mindful of the people working the problem in increments or being practical and doing the feasible first.

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.

Another miner point I would like to make is we don't harvest coal we mine it.

 With some mining methods we blast it from the earth moving the overburden off the coal seam with giant earth moving machines, shoving that rubble over into pristine valley's covering up fresh water streams. The term harvest depicts reaping golden shocks of wheat from the land that renews itself in the spring. Even in the face of this extremely environmentally devastating mining method the more practical among us know we are not going to stop all coal mining and can live with that. With conventional underground mining you may remove a coal seam and the mountain may subside "be a few feet shorter" but we still have the mountain, the valley and the fresh water stream. We will do the underground mining even though we must send our people into a life of toil and extreme danger to mine the coal required for the 50% demand for power by coal.

However when we get MTR stopped we will work toward stopping all forms of coal stripping. We will work to eliminate the pollution of wet coal cleaning sludge and fly ash. We will work toward decreasing the demand for coal until we have achieved the final objective of doing away with the demand for coal. We have no illusions of having the ability to eliminate coal from the energy picture over night, a trillion dollar infrastructure has been built around it and we are in the middle of a serious economic downturn. In other words most of us are not so extreme or dogmatic in our methods or rhetoric. Just a persistent progression in incremental steps, maybe hoping for a technological breakthrough but being practical enough to attack the problem where we will have the most chance of success and then moving on to the next challenge.

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.

or is it Joe the Plumber?

get a grip dude.  jeebus.

ignoring for a moment that "clean coal" is a billion(s) dollar subsidy-dependent and hungry boondoggle; does not have a single proven, field tested technology in place; and that there are already better and most cost-effective ways to generate kWh in a less carbon intense way; and the American Council for Clean Coal Electricity's $50M advertising blitz the past year to pick the pockets of taxpayers, I guess we are all just suprised to now learn that "Nothing just "cleanly" appears."  stunning news that.

drop the the strawman "logic" and sophistry of "We'll all live in caves and not burn wood to cook our food or to keep warm either."  not one is saying that, and it is really easy to ignore your bloviating nonsense when that is the best offered to the conversation.

We have an abundant fuel source and we currently need the power to maintain our society, but the delusional think we should just stop using it immediately.  Don't change how we collect, harvest, gather, or mine (English variance child) the coal and use it, just stop using it is their retarded thinking.  Why are the fools not demanding we stop using all land and air carbon-fuel powered vehicles?  I bet they haven't turned off the electrical power to their homes because it originated from a gas, oil, or coal powered plant instead of from an environmentally cleaner source?

If they bothered to follow their stupid pretense of logic and applied it to other areas of abuse in our society then we should have to stop manufacturing, producing, and using everything.  If they applied the same thinking to the first times they attempted to walk then they would still be crawling, because they were falling down so should have stopped because they were walking wrong.

And of course those who choose to remain ignorant also don't have a clue about sciences and technologies so claim it can't be done.  The same ignorant people and "scientists" of the past claimed the earth to be flat and that we couldn't make things fly, like the same ignorant people and "scientists" today make casual comments and assumptions about life as if Darwinism is scientific fact instead of a failed biological theory about the beginning of life that is mathematically impossible based on scientifically applied math that uses even just the minimum number of biological variables needed to sustain life.  Too many so-called scientists choose to use only a few factors in their "science" or to deliberately leave out any factors (or parts of a theorem) that prove their thinking wrong, just like the rest of the ignorant babblers who refuse to learn or ever admit that they are ever wrong and just parrot the foolish babble of a group so they can feel they belong.

And the silly light bulbs have mercury in them, so are not environmentally intelligent products.  LED lighting is more energy efficient than the silly light bulbs, last longer, and don't contain mercury.  Real environmentalism thinking is not just jumping on popular bandwagons that are passing by and claiming one good factor about their concept, like less energy consumption then the current product, but is also looking into as many of the relational factors as possible.  If someone wants to be an environmentalist, not just a babbling pretender, than they have to think like scientists should and include the maximum number of variables they can think of just like the "less intelligent" life forms are intelligent enough to do so to increase their survival possibility in their environment.

My first book "Life is a Puzzle" was recently published by PublishAmerica.com, under my pen name of JosephThePoet.

After reading post from about every contributor to this blog I would be hesitant to call any of the people who hang out here stupid, delusional or any other of the derogative adjectives you carelessly use. I do not agree with some and some are amused I am sure by my lack of sophistication and even knowledge of the subject matter in some eco matters. As of yet even the most intellectual of the group has not applied such terms to the environmental neophytes that participate in the discussion on how best to save regional environments plus the planet at large.

I come from an area that has be exploited and decimated by the coal industry. From early in the last century when north east interest stole the coal and the mineral for pennies on the acre and used John Mayo's broad form deed to steal the land we have been exploited by coal. It is not within the scope of a blog to walk you through a portrait of life in Appalachia painted by the coal barons and corporations. The internet is rife with figures on the mine deaths from the early teens on through the killing coal field days of the 20's and 30's. When the bone crushing labor intensive underground mining did not suit their bottom line they started blowing up the mountains to get at thin seams of coal in the process leaving an ecological nightmare for the region to wallow in.

I watched my father get busted up in the mines 5 times before he got crushed to death in a mine roof collapse. I watched a valley rich with family history county history get buried for 2 one foot seams of coal and one 30" seam of coal 150 feet below the mountain ridge. I have been told that I am stupid for fighting Mountain Top Removal in the heart of the Appalachian Coal fields where it is done. Pissing off not only every powerful coal bought politician but numerous powerful people in high places in local and state government. Even family and friends who grovel at the feet of coal corporations for the few scraps that they let fall from the table call me stupid.

Never thought I would be called stupid on an environmental blog though. As might be assumed by someone who was raised in such a hard scrabble place I have thick skin and have also mellowed over the years. I will have to tell you however that flipping that light switch and the current flowing through it being generated by something else besides coal is still a stupid fantasy of mine. I may be jaded by the blasting that is shaking my home as I type or the noise of the tractor trailer coal trucks that keep me up at night. I will also offer an unorthodox opinion about your views concerning the individuals wanting to move to a more carbon friendly fuel source.

We did achieve a rapid transition from a lead additive in a fuel so I feel a rapid change is achievable. However I will admit the brain damage caused by the lead in the fuels and paint cause irreparable damage to some in our society before we could eliminate it. As evident by a person who comes on a blog such as this and banters about words like retarded, stupid and so on. If their brain consisted entirely of that leaded fuel it would not be enough to prime a piss ants go cart. People want a rapid transition from coal for various reasons and will fight for its demise even in the face of the seeming insurmountable odds of converting the lead altered addicted. I tolerate their  mentally challenged opinions for the same reason everybody else tolerates  my lack of subject matter environmental expertise but I don't have to tolerate their repulsive habit of labeling everybody that does not agree with their infantile arguments stupid or retarded.

You may have to rethink you commercial attempts at hawking that book in your signature quote also. Your abrasive style of blogging may not be conducive to effective advertising techniques if that is what you are attempting to do.

By the way Einstein, what are you trying to do here?

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.

This is simple, you need to really decipher what Joe is saying.

Translation?  "You kids get out of my yard!"  Hehey.

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

To something more like we are saying:    "You kids camp out in the yard during the MTR protest!"

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

Or you can keep your Studebaker until the Volkswagon I am on the waiting list for comes in.

The thing is obsolete, smoking and high maintenance, it's just getting to expensive to maintain and can't pass the emissions test anymore.

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.

My pappy suffered in the coal mining industry, so that proves it should be banned.  My pappy suffered or died in a farming accident, so let's ban farming.  My pappy got crippled in the fishing industry, so let's ban fishing.  My pappy died building homes and businesses, so let's ban building.  Electricity killed my pappy, so it should be banned.  My pappy was killed in a car accident, so vehicles should be banned.  My pappy was killed by a horse, so horse use should be banned.  My pappy was killed by fire, so we should ban using it.  My pappy died in a gold mine, so let's ban gold.  My pappy died eating, so we should all stop eating.  Can you grasp a pattern of incorrect thinking and faulty logic that fails to give any support to your argument for banning coal use based on the fact that people have suffered from the industry?

Their pappies all provided them with food, heating, and shelter working the available jobs to provide survival for themselves and their families.  What they supplied with their work also helped other families in society survive longer and with an increased level of comfort.  People and animals suffer and die in their environments but live longer by doing what they need to survive a little longer and to increase their family's survival time.  BUT, man is supposed to be intelligent and following that premise then logic would dictate that we as a race would be constantly correcting out the bad ways of doing things instead of continuing to needlessly threaten others of our race and our survival environment.  As animals that benefit form a structured social setting you'd think that we'd act more like brothers and family.  But instead we worship the individual's right to seek his every pleasure even to the point that the person's actions hurt others and threaten our entire race while we strive to destroy the family structure that benefits our society and race.  We are simple reaping the results of a life that we have selfishly chosen to sow.

Wake up to reality children.

We have to live in reality and the reality is that we need coal right now.  The delusional demand that we instantly stop all coal usage is proof that some people have a major brain malfunction and/or have very little understanding of the environment they live in or simple choose to not think.  Obama has a big stimulus bill and the force of law creating to make coal companies start right away to work towards operating more environmentally responsible if he'd care to use those tools, but just banning coal will destroy the society you live in and make it extremely hard for you and you family to survive in that kind of environment.

What do you think will happen if that power and heat source was instantly eliminated from the society you live in, especially if all coal powered plants were shut down then the world refused to keep loaning the US massively ridiculous amounts of money so the dollar crashes and we couldn't purchase the fuel supplies the country needs to function?  Even rebuilding new badly designed coal plants and getting at the coal will require the power we would not have.  Do you have your own horse to provide you with transportation and as a labour assistance device that someone else will steal, kill and eat to survive a little longer in that environment?

You don't need to understand electricity, combustion, or technology to know that it is everywhere in the environmental society you live in.  Just quiet down from your temper tantrum freaking out mentality thinking and look around you and start thinking about not having power sources.  Do this at home and at work, and while out walking or shopping.  Think about how food is grown, harvested, preserved, shipped, and stored at your grocery store or how you transport it home and store and cook it.  How about your bathroom needs and your other water usage, and the heat and light you use?

If you are going to get involved in trying to change society for the better then you should try to use a semblance of logic and not just babble foolishly.  Ever hear the saying that it is better to be though a fool then to open your mouth and leave no doubt.  If you are going to try to make the world better and wish to be thought of as environmentally intelligent and caring then don't you think it would be a good idea to put some effort into thinking about what you are proposing instead of letting the narrow minded person do the "thinking" for you?  Get involved or don't, but just babbling nonsense only hurts the environmental responsibility cause instead of promoting it.

My first book "Life is a Puzzle" was recently published by PublishAmerica.com, under my pen name of JosephThePoet.

...you must know how valuable your contributions to this blog are.  

To heck with the trolls.  Keep on keeping on.

Well as I recollect in 68 when the ol man bought the farm the 311 miners that died were some of the last generation that actually had to work in the mines. For years the toll was above 2000 a year and stayed above a thousand for decades. Hey I know they were a bunch of saps for digging dinosaur shit for a living that's why I never bought into keeping your frigging lights on with it. Leave it to a the dumb a#* mentality of a coal company to fix it so no one has to mine coal anymore and they don't  unless you pay them $80,000 a year, that's right Einstein most of that bunch of suckers digging shit left over from the Cambrian period make more money than most aspiring authors and their dime novels. Started stripping and let the underground mining go to hell in a hand basket and now that MTR is on the ropes they can't find anybody dumb enough to dig the crap that can pass the piss test. It's gonna cost ya big time for every kw from now on coal boy. Was over 125 a ton last year and it will go back up as soon as oil spikes again.

It's a given no body cares about dead  miners, or the southern Appalachia forest but not to worry the co2 crowd will have you down to ½ the present coal production for the U.S. in 10 years guaranteed. The scrubbers and the carbon tax will have you buying solar and liking it and if your wind mill ain't turning, the way you run off at the mouth you can probably spin it past the rev point by just talking your antiquated hog wash on windless days.

Coal is done, stick a fork in it. You should also realize you will be on the wrong side of the argument, and will be on the wrong side of history.  You are the guy who bought a whaling ship just as J D Rockefeller decided to monopolize the kerosene business. You can cling  to your fuel and thinking from the carboniferous period and rail against any kind of progress that frightens the institutionalized and the narrow minded. However you should realize anything you put in print on a blog will be in the permanent electronic record. I tire easily or to be exact get bored with bantering back and forth with dinosaurs. I will let the future decide the fuels of the future carbon boy.  I may dig this blog record back up in 10 years or so and write me a book about the fossil heads who had to be pried off the last coal fired power plant like a tree hugger off a redwood.

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.

Thanks Green Mom,

and I should know better than to be baited by a coal bought blogger. I will be back on a tread where I don't have to take an antacid or say hail mary's after I post.

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.

Only someone with a major brain malfunction would read into what I have said that I am for the same old same old, or that I am pro-abusive coal, oil, or gas businesses.

But the tunnel-vision "thinkers" don't bother with what is actually said and simple rant like children having temper tantrums.  They are also incapable of understanding that their extremely stupid theories of how to approach problems will destroy the very livelihood of those in their society.  Retarded approaches to problems only cause more problems and make things worse, but those who choose to remain ignorant don't understand that.

The fools cannot logically argue against what I have actually said, so they pretend I said something else and/or attack me whom they haven't a clue about.

I have been proposing our governments promote wind power and hydrogen fueled vehicle since that farcical Kyoto accord of trading pollution was being signed.  But the ignorant would not choose to use the internet, or any other resource, to do any research about that which they choose to foolishly babble about.  Ignorance is bliss, and requires a lot less effort.  

My first book "Life is a Puzzle" was recently published by PublishAmerica.com, under my pen name of JosephThePoet.

Give it up GreyFlcn,

He knows that I or most on here take this position and from a hundred different post if he would take the time to read a few before he rants.

Everyone understands the impossibility of calling for an instant moratorium on coal.

He is just trying to paint us into a corner in order to extricate himself from his coal pit.

and hawk his book

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.

With Grist we have the worst of both worlds in terms of trolls and incivility. There are anti-trolling and anti-incivility rules, but they are not enforced. So if a troll has had bad day because the other boys in the locker room have been snapping towels at him, and the cute nerdgirls in algebra won't talk to him, he can come here and take out his bad temper. Because the rules exist he won't be flame until he runs crying to his attic bedroom.  But because the rules are not enforced the troll can continue to be disruptive and insulting. I think this one of the reasons Grist gets so few comments. To post here you have to either be troll, or willing to take verbal abuse without fighting back. I think that is one reason the male to female ratio is even worse than your normal internet site in comments. Women have to put up with a lot more verbal abuse in circumstances where it is impractical to return to favor than men anyway. For that reason, they are less likely than men to volutarily subject themselves to that sort of nonsense volutarily. Grist either needs to start enforcing its rules, or let commentors enforce informal community standards via flaming. I don't much care for the second, but it beats what we have now - rules that apply to normal participants, but not to trolls.

And its not like you can't disagree here within the rules. Some of the pronuke people are examples of how to maintain a high level of civilty while disagreeing strongly with other posters.  

Ditto on 'harvest'. I grew up among an extended community of farmers, fishers and quarrymen. They would all of them be most bewildered to hear anything described as harvest that was not the product of tillage and planting in the cycle of the seasons.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

I agree Gar,

And agree, I admitted to the fact I was being baited but continued to let the discussion sink to a level below the dignity and standards of this blog.

Sometimes even when it's easy dueling with an unarmed man, it is not the honorable or mature thing to do.

I will apologize and will adhere to the higher standard of keeping the conversation civil or bowing out of the discussion.

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.

If we are on the same page as far as what a blog troll is and what flaming is, it is still better to just let a tread die.

It is no fun to troll alone...Should have known better.

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.

Pompey, you have never trolled. But the "don't respond to trolls" does not work for two reasons. First,any one person can ignore a troll, but ultimately someone will be provoked to respond. It is asking too much for everyone to ignore a troll.

Also in a case where the troll is mainly an insult troll, maybe he can be ignored. But what about a troll who repeats the same lies over and over? YOu ignore them and someone uninformed will be convinced or you respond and and devote a lot of bandwidth to rebutting the same lie repeatedly.

This is where the modererators need to take responsibility. Both insult trolling, and constant repetition need to be deleted. Alternatively there is Daily Kos moderation. Daily Kos has anti-trolling rules, but they are much more lenient than the rules posted here. Only the most extreme trolls get banned. But because the rules allow much stronger debate, the community members drive out the borderline trolls who play games with the rule.

But you know real enforcement of the rules does not have to mean  more work for the paid staff of Grist. Given posters right to police threads. Any poster who abuses that right by delete comments that disagree rather than comments that troll loses that right. Give poster who show exception talent for moderation rights to police other threads as well. I don't think there is any board on the Internet that has been successful relying only on paid staff for comment moderation. (Well boing boing has, but that is because they have a person who is paid to do nothing but moderate. I'm guessing Grist does not have the revenue to support something like that.) Hell, even some of our better commenters could probably be trusted wth moderation rights. Spread the work load, and we can minimize troll infestations.

Again, Grist could follow this general plan with different specifics. Trust somebody besides your paid staff to moderate. Use your best judgement as to whom to trust. You don't have to even have a fixed criteria. Just pick some people to ask to be moderators. Give the people you trust moderation rights. If you make a mistake, and someone abuses those rights, take them away and pick somebody else. A lot of posters, and commenters would be happy to share the workload. If you guys (Grist staff) don't have the time, take advantage of that, and get some troll-be-gone mojo. I predict that if you do that, within six months the number of people commenting will increase significantly. Zero additional money cost, higher page view count.

Joe Romm runs a pretty tight ship over at Climate Progress. As soon as he sees them he deletes already debunked denier points, and if a troll is being obnoxious Romm puts him on "moderation", so his comments don't appear until authorized.

Climate Progress is a great example of running a tighter comment ship than Grist. I'd bet CP has a lot less readers than Grist. But their threads have about the same number of comments. Higher comment to reader count - because they exercise troll control. Don't know if Grist has high enough advertising rates that fewer clicks mean significantly less money. I know funding is a mixture of donations and ads. But if advertising is a significant revenue source for Grist, then troll tolerance is costing them money.

We may know every denier talking point by heart, but most readers don't.  They tend to be swayed by them thanks to mass media spreading them daily as if they made sense.  and it's not just dridge, limboob, and fauxnews to blame. As we've seen, trusted sources like WaPo and the New York Times repeat them as gospel regularly.

By allowing this nonsense here, Grist puts the responsibility on us to do battle against them.  That hones our arguments and skills, which in turn sways reader's opinions.  It's not how we feel about trolls, it's the readers that count.  We already have the GHG battling fever.

Take a cue from Colbert and Stewart, Maddow and Olbermann, humor often works where reason fails.  Readers enjoy a laugh at the trollishness, and it swings them over to our side.  Does the motto still say: gloom and doom with a sense of humor?  Hehey.

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

I don't care who you are, That was Funny !

Great Ad.

I want to see it on TV as often as I see ads for Lysol, Automobiles, and Sarah Paulin !

" All we have to decide is what we are going to do with the time we are given ".- Gandalf the Grey