Personally, I'm not happy until every coal, mine, train, plant, ship and conveyer belt is a rusting relic and the last coal miner is giving talks in a museum in the room the last confederate soldier used to talk in.

Coal is the enemy of the human race; period. There is no clean coal.

Everything coal does now we can now do with electricity from a clean source or bio-sourced carbohydrates. Even transportation can be managed if we would just electrify the roadways.

NO COAL!!! FOREVER!

Put the Carbon Back

Thank you for this.  I'm linking to you to be sure.  It's too rich not to.  Thank you for making me guffaw.  The depth of entrenchment and "inertia" is going to be a real uphill battle unless Washington and Money are faced with a truly enraged, huge grass-roots public outcry.  

Sincerely
Furia

http://www.xanga.com/furia_fubar

All the Best, Furia - http://www.xanga.com/furia_fubar

...China: As glaciers melt and rivers dry up, coal-fired power stations multiply, including the news that

On a bad day - which can be hundreds in a year - the ancient city of Linfen in the northern province of Shanxi is environmental hell. Named by the World Bank last year as having the worst air quality on Earth, its 3.5 million people more often than not choke on coal dust; its soil and its rivers are covered with soot, and its Buddhas are blackened and shrouded in a toxic mist.

Put those out-of-work miners back to work installing and maintaining large-scale wind turbines and solar thermal collectors. May require some relocation, but the work's a whole lot safer and cleaner, and there's more opportunity for upward advancement too.

Ped Shed Blog

A man with nothing to lose makes a formidable foe.

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

Power and Money: IGCC and the myths about "clean coal"

By Matt Reitman

September 13th, 2006

The Joyce Foundation has awarded 3 million dollars to promote "clean coal" integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) coal-burning technology. IGCC is touted as the cleanest option for coal-fired power plants, but it is a new problem, not a solution. The awards are going to mainstream "environmental" organizations such as Clean Air Task Force, Clean Wisconsin, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Izaak Walton League, to get them to promote the technology. 3 million dollars is a serious amount of money - we could run the entire Campus Climate Challenge on that kind of funding. So, what's the real story here?

President Bush brags about his commitment to the "$1 billion, 10-year demonstration project" called FutureGen, leading the way for IGCC and now targeted at either Illinois or Texas. But there's a problem with IGCC: it does not help us to minimize global warming, and it relies on untested and even improbable science.

IGCC is supposed to be a savior technology. It is often discussed in tandem with a related carbon-storing technique called "sequestration," which involves injecting CO2 into geologic formations or the ocean, to hold the gas for long periods of time. But there is no proof or requirement that this technique will ever work or become implemented.

IGCC plants may also be less inefficient, especially with the addition of sequestration. Many companies are now promising IGCC plants and promoting carbon sequestration without any intention of actually doing it. Do not be fooled, any plant sited on a geologic formation near fault lines, wells, mines, or other potential instabilities (just about everywhere!) is not suitable for large-scale carbon sequestration.Joyce's money is promoting coal-burning without any explicit intention of mitigating the associated greenhouse gases. Even if sequestration does become a reality, no geologic formation is capable of holding CO2 forever, just as no landfill is capable of preventing toxics from escaping into the water, soil, and air (oh and by the way, IGCC's "cleaner" air emissions equals more toxic sludge). And global warming, last I knew, is sticking around for a while.

So, I checked the Joyce website out of curiosity, and they are not forthcoming about their sources of funding. Who is paying Joyce this money? Why are they so confident that it is money well spent? How much does Joyce's money affect the platform and autonomy of constituent organizations? Etc. etc.

The industry is using this as a strategy to divide and conquer environmental groups. There is nothing redeeming or sustainable about IGCC "clean coal" technologies.  Imagine if we had an economy based on clean renewables - what kind of "environmental" group would support a fossil fuel-burning industry? We need to stop letting corporations rule the frame and the rhetoric. It isn't "cleaner," it's "less filthy/deadly."

Also, we are running full speed ahead towards peak coal! And coal-burning is invariably poisoning our air and water, and adding to serious and immediate global warming problems. The money and resources being directed towards "clean coal" are squandered.

If we hope to really slow global warming, we have got to get these (dare I say it) anti-youth folks to get their heads around solutions: conservation, efficiency, and wind and solar. Otherwise, what a waste of valuable time and money!
There is no clean, safe way to mine coal.

There is no clean, safe way to burn coal

There is no clean coal.

There is only filthy coal, and filthier coal.
As a mountaintop removal community activist said last week - "even if rose petals come out of the smokestacks, we still pay with our blood."

Anybody disagree?
-----------------
At this site of It's Getting Hot in Here:
http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/478
------------------
Matt Reitman is an organizer with the Energy Justice Network
http://www.energyjustice.net
----------------------------
How NRDC Sold Out to Help Enron
By Sharon Beder
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2003Q3/enviros.html  
----------------------------
NRDC "Clean Coal" Mythology ~
http://www.nrdc.org/onearth/05fal/coal1.asp?r=n

Just watched Mr. Murray's "emotional video plea" and searched for "Robert Murray coal miner" on Google and up comes your wonderful site.

Here's that video in case it's not linked: http://www.breitbart.tv/html/4032.html

What a dipsh*t.  So myopic and self-centered.

Thank you for posting about this.

I agree with the other post here, though, that we need to keep in mind the families that depend on coal for a livelihood.  Unfortunately, there are no easy answers.  We can say "relocate them to solar", etc, but that's easier said than done.  I, personally, don't have the answer for them, though I am sure someone does.  All I know is we can't keep belching out coal smoke.  I gave my testimony at an EPA hearing about ten years ago in Philadelphia and I heard the stories from parents whose children were dying here in NJ due to the crap that PA coal-burning plants are putting out.  So many cases of asthma in children due to this crap.  One after another parents came forward.  Very sad.  My sister happens to be one of those afflicted with severe, life-threatening asthma for which she was hospitalized 17 times during the year I told the EPA what I thought about coal pollution.

I see no possible justification for this.  We need to CLOSE these plants NOW and use cleaner fuels.  Enough is enough.

End of rant

Again, this guy can go suck on a lump of coal for all I care.  His industry is KILLING PEOPLE and he's only concerned about his own business.  As*hole!

Okay, now I'm really done with my rant!

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