***On now - CSPAN2 - 11:30am - Big Coal: The Dirty Secret ...***

[Viva_La_Revolution]

Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future
Jeff Goodell

Journalist Jeff Goodell speaks about his latest book, "Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future." During this discussion, held at Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver, Mr. Goodell examines the environmental, political, and economic issues surrounding coal. He also explains how coal is developed and argues that coal not only brings prosperity but contributes to poverty, illiteracy, and sickness in coal mining communities. Additionally, Mr. Goodell examines how coal has contributed to air pollution, mercury poisoning in fish, landscape deterioration, and global warming of the planet. He concludes that the negative factors surrounding coal should be addressed before building more coal plants.

Jeff Goodell is a contributing editor for Rolling Stone and a contributor to the New York Times Magazine. He is the author of "Our Story: 77 Hours That Tested Our Friendship and Our Faith," about nine Quecreek miners who were trapped underground, and "The Cyberthief and the Samurai," about the hunt for computer hacker Kevin Mitnick. He also wrote "Sunnyvale: The Rise and Fall of a Silicon Valley Family," his memoir.

Publisher: HOUGHTON MIFFLIN 222 Berkeley Street Boston, MA 02116

[patrice]

1. Flashback:

To pictures that were published after the Iron Curtain fell of what Coal did to the people who lived in the USSR's coal-mining regions.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

2. "Big Coal's goal is to keep us comfortable not curious"

Pg. 174


From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. After a generation out of the spotlight, coal has reasserted its centrality: the United States "burns more than a billion tons" per year, and since 9/11 and the Iraq war, independence from foreign oil has become positively patriotic. Rolling Stone contributing editor Goodell's last book, the bestselling Our Story, was about a mine accident, which clearly made a deep impression on him. Our reliance on coal—the unspoken foundation of our "information" economy—has, Goodell says, led to an "empire of denial" that blocks us from the investments necessary to find alternative energy sources that could eventually save us from fossil fuel. Goodell's description of the mining-related deaths, the widespread health consequences of burning coal and the impact on our planet's increasingly fragile ecosystem make for compelling reading, but such commonplace facts are not what lift this book out of the ordinary. That distinction belongs to Goodell's fieldwork, which takes him to Atlanta, West Virginia, Wyoming, China and beyond—though he also has a fine grasp of the less tangible niceties of the industry. Goodell understands how mines, corporate boardrooms, commodity markets and legislative chambers interrelate to induce a national inertia. Goodell has a talent for pithy argument—and the book fairly crackles with informed conviction. (June 8)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0618319409/002-3242545-6131249?v=glance&n=283155

[jean]

3. Gov Schweitzer (D), Montana, is pressing for ultra-clean coal technology

http://governor.mt.gov/hottopics/faqsynthetic.asp