Little Daniella wants you to blog with her about clean coal

[SoCalDem]

What a CROCK 'o SHIT..

I wonder how many tax dollars are used in support of this nonsense:grr:

http://www.learnaboutcoal.org/

[Bluebear]

1. Excellent! I'll start....

Hi Daniella, I would like to blog today about Travis Singletary.



He is a coal miner. He works in unsafe conditions and could be buried alive at any time. Our President likes to go to Travis' holler and get votes. He tells them that Democrats will take their Bibles and enact gay marriage. It scares them a lot. Any other day of the year, Bush is cozying up to big coal, changing safety and health regulatory priorities in favor of big, big profits. That makes Travis sad in the end, and maybe dead.

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/1/3/94912/78006

[Ian David]

2. Why is it that the same people who believe in "clean coal"...

also refuse to believe in "safe sex"?

[Viva_La_Revolution]

3. Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC)

Formed in 2000 to develop astroturf support for coal-based electricity, Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC) promotes the interests of mining companies, coal transporters, and electricity producers.

From ABEC's website: "Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC) is a national, non-profit organization designed to promote a dialogue with community leaders across the U.S. on issues involving America's growing demand for electricity. ABEC will advocate in support of policies that strike the proper balance between protecting the environment and providing for continued economic growth and prosperity for America's working families.

"Because they recognize the essential role that electricity from coal plays in protecting the environment while providing over half of the electricity used each day in the U.S., America's coal-based electricity industry (producers, transporters, and electricity generators) have provided the primary initial funding for this worthwhile project." <1> (http://www.balancedenergy.org/about_abec.asp)

A domain name search reveals that ABEC's website is registered to the coal industry trade organization Center for Energy and Economic Development.

ABEC's promotion of coal-generated electricity ignores or downplays concerns about current industry emission levels and their links to health and environmental concerns.

more - http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Americans_for_Balanced_Energy_Choices

[hunter]

4. Well, that was toxic, right down to the code.

I liked this:

come to learnaboutcoal.org

We are sorry, it appears that you currently do not meet this sites technology requirements.
This is easliy remedied. Read blow to see what you need to enbale.
This site requires the Macromedia Flash Player 8.0 or greater. & JavaScript to be enabled.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser and be sure you have the latest version of the Macromedia Flash Player

I guess I need to know how to "Read blow" and "enbale."

[porphyrian]

5. Well, in fairness, there is a cleaner form of coal.

Without reading the propaganda about it, I learned twenty years ago in an ecology class about a process that scrubs some portion of the sulfur from coal which does make it less of a pollutant than unscrubbed coal. However, it is hardly clean, somewhat analogous to light cigarettes vs. regular.

[SoCalDem]

6. and of course the companies that use it "sell" their

pollution credits to companies that do not.. so unless you are lucky enough to live near a CLEAN one, you are screwed.

[porphyrian]

7. Well, on a global scale, it would be better if it was being used...

...instead of regular coal somewhere than nowhere, for what little good it may do. However, I agree that this is not a real solution, either locally or globally, given all the options in energy production.

[hunter]

8. The best thing you can do with coal is leave it in the ground.

Everything else you might do with it is bad.

[porphyrian]

9. Ideally, yes, but not realistically.

Entire towns rely on coal mines as a source of employment right now. The transition to clean energy is a lot more complicated than just leaving coal in the ground from now on. A reasonable and attainable goal, but complicated.

[hunter]

10. "Entire towns" are going to go below sea level.

This will be interesting. Who will win?

The coal towns or the coastal towns?

[porphyrian]

11. That may happen if we were to stop burning all fossil fuels tomorrow.

Scientists don't agree exactly on how many years ago the damage was done which is causing the changes in environment today, but some believe it goes as far back as the Forties or Fifties (some even earlier). It may not be enough to simply quit burning fossil fuels, it may require active reduction of greehouse gasses and/or production of atmospheric ozone etc. I'm not saying we shouldn't do anything just because people might be hurt by it, I'm saying, as I did before, that it's a lot more complicated.