Green groups need an ad campaign with lots of pictures of clean power being deployed right now.  We should run commercials showing off wind farms, big solar in the desert, et. al., and narrated by the Governator (he'd do it -- California mostly doesn't use coal).  Then show blown-off mountaintops as the alternative.

We need a benefactor to pay for the ads, to counter the coal industry -- Google, are you listening?  Or Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, maybe?

one of my favorite lines from the Dune books

the stereotype Green is an angry fanatic INSISTING that people starve to save the endangered snail darters

I have seen lots of union bumper stickers with anit-enviro slogans

When coal says that Greens are attacking your pocketbook, Green arguments about hidden costs (not obviously out of your paycheck) and why we must pay the cost of getting rid of coal, are not going to resonate, I bet.

I could be wrong.  I do not really know.  I am not an expert.

But I think we need to hype alternative energy available NOW.  And push for the types of broad programs of modest measures (weather-proofing, geo units for cooling) etc. that Panogolin (sp?) was pushing yesterday.

Let the dry, reticient scientists keep their place as the clarion against the apocolypse.

I agree with green mom, need to hit coal corpoations with ads of our own. We use the word mountaintop removal and never add the word valley fill to it. The valley fill should always be mentioned, that is where the most destructive damage to the environment comes in to play. The mountain top removal is pushed over into a valley that is nothing more than a receptacle to dump the overburden to the coal company's. No coal in the valley just ruined to dump the refuse. They are to cheap even to do the original contour stripping that was mandated by federal law until George Bush. Alway, Always use the term Mountain Top removal and Valley or Hollow Fill together. Bambi is not shot in these commercials, he is buried with a D-9 cat bulldozer.

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 coal is going to play a large part in meeting the energy demands of the country we need to learn how to burn it clean. If one tenth of the cost of this Iraq war was put into clean coal technology we could solve the Co2 problem. A university presided over the first nuclear reaction. Cal Tech and M.I.T. is the answer. There is no need for Mountain Top Removal and Valley fills. Drift and Shaft mines leave less of an environmental footprint. In North Dakota there is a gasification plant that is meeting environmental standards. I would rather do water, wind and geothermal but I fear they will not combined meet our total energy needs. Particulate matter for coal is easily fixed. Solve the Co2 problem and restrict mining methods and by holding our nose we may have to tolerated some portion of it as an energy solution.

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.

In North Dakota there is a gasification plant that is meeting environmental standards.

Many coal plants, even traditional ones, meet "environmental standards".  "Environmental standards" for coal plants in the United States don't include GHG emissions.  It mostly pertains to things like sulfur and mercury content of release.

Sayin' they meet environmental standards is no big deal, 'cause our environmental standards don't include releases of CO2 and other GHGs.

Don't let 'em greenwash ya by sayin' that they meet "environmental standards".

my initial reaction:

Coal companies trumpeting that coal is dirty, but promising to fix it.

My guess is that the main effect will be to remind viewers "coal is dirty."

time will tell

ce1907, I believe you are right, they are running an ad in the tri-state area WVA, KY, Va. using a little cartoon bug to promote mountain top removal and valley fills. It does little more that to draw attention to the fact they are doing MTR&VF, has drawn negative response in the area.

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.

The side of common sense, you pick your battles carefully, the one's you can win, a head on assault on wiping out the total coal industry in one fell swope is not practical. I attack mountain top removal, its visable, its real and I don't know anyone who when shown a MTR thats walks away from it emotionless. 50% of our electricity is generated from coal, do you really think you will take it off line by using a frontal attack. The fruitless and expesive endeavor of trying to reduce the Co2 effect on global warming will be obvious. The U.N. has determined global warming is real, as soon as the next administration and the courts do coal will be in trouble. Right now they say down here in East Kentucky we are the Saudia Arabia of coal, thats a powerfull argument and speaks of energy independance. The deciduous forest they are destroying are as much a part of the lungs of this planet as the rain forest. Trying to sustain the last days of empire with an energy source that destroyed the planet due to Co2 emmissions is the way I would go about it. Just to attack coal for the sake of attacking coal will get you no where. Burn it if you can burn it clean and not have to strip the Eastern U.S. to do it. They will never be able to do a cost efficient process of Co2 removal. If on the outside chance they do we still win. No Co2 trading, no 5% allowable emmisions, no stripping the forest lands of the South East.

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.

to the last poster, picking your battles is easy for you if you're not living in the Appalachian coalfields or area.

which side am I on:

"On some positions a coward has asked the question is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right."
 - Martin Luther King Jr., November 1967

Greendays1 nice platitude on MLK day but you should have done a little biography work on me.

I live in the heart of the Appalachian Coal fields, Pike County Ky. I live directly under a Mountain Top Removal. A stone's throw, from the subject matter. I was born in a coal company house and my father died in a roof fall in an East Ky. Coal mine. I place articles in local Newspapers and tell my friends right here in the middle of coal country that they are wrong to the bone with what they are doing to the land. I put myself at risk with my convictions. Anyone can use the safety and cover of an online environmental site to spout about their convictions to their cause. "On some Positions a coward has asked the question is it safe" Come down and walk a mile in my shoes, dodge the 18 wheel coal trucks that run you off the road and watch the bullets kick up dust when the guards let you know you are getting a little to close with your camera. I fight MTR where it is done, and fight my friends who are doing it. You look good in print my friend, you talk the talk, come down here with me and walk the walk.

"Attack your enemy where he the weakest and not in his strong place"
                       Sun Tzu

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 Rd: My posting was aimed at those who don't share any sense of urgency about stopping mountaintop removal, and who say we need to use coal now, at whatever cost.  I'm sorry it seemed so aimed at you in particular.  Wasn't my intention.  You're obviously walking the walk.  (Several in my extended family in PA have suffered from black lung, so I write from experience, too.)  I'm just bummed  that more mainstream people outside of the coalfields don't put this on the front burner.

I see where the Sierra club stopped 27 coal powered power plants from coming online. One MTR in Leslie County Ky. on an Army Corps of Engineer was stopped by a lawsuit filed by the Sierra club. I have a friend in the Sierra club that keeps me informed of the activities on another Corps maintained property in Pike County Ky. The Corps did not buy the mineral when they purchased the property for the flood control project. The stripping has been going on there for years and continuous sinse 1977. For the life of me I can not see how any Federal Agency could be allowed to be in bed with a coal strip operation, much less one that is stripping the watershed on a Corps maintained project. They say you know you are having a bad day when you wake up with a 60 minutes crew on your lawn. I would love to see CNN do a special on this. I do not know which is the best route to fight this plague, courts or media. Sierra Club tells me since the Corps does not own the mineral there is nothing under current mine law to go after them with in court. Perhaps the media then, I would love for the Army Corps of Engineers to explain on a 60 Minute special how a Strip Job is conducive to flood control and how stipping the watershed serves their mission up there at Fishtrap Lake in Pike County Ky. The Dam failed in its mission in 77 sinse millions of dollars in damage occured below the project due to the massive flood in 1977. The Sierra Club says that by the Corps own admission the silt from the stripping is filling the dam at an accelerated rate. Greendays we all feel a sense of frustration when we can not seem to come up with a solution to this problem. I come on here in hope of finding someone with a solution either in the courts or the media. There is none so blind as those who will not see. Maybe, just maybe we can find some venue to shine a light on this blight. We are on the same page here, no offense taken.
My frustration also comes with a sense of urgency. A coal company has obtained a permit to mine a 6000 ft. stream area at Fishtrap in Pike Co. Ky. That permit area stream runs right into the lake. I just know from the topography this will be a Mountain Top Removal and Valley Fill. I not only live below a MTR I also live below this Dam as does several communities and one fair sized town here in Pike County.

Unbelievable if it were not for the fact it is starring us in the face.

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.

Just watched the CNN democratic debate being brought to us by Clean Coal commercials. An anti Co2 or MTR Special by CNN was a misplaced pipedream, let me be the first to admit it before someone points it out to me. I fear the corporate foot that has been on our throats down here for a century will stangle any serious debate on MTR or Co2 emmmisions in the media. Corporate News with Corporate views, what else is there to say!

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.