Al Gore said it starkly: it's time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new dirty coal plants. If you’re a young person, looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now and not done, I believe we’ve reached the stage where…
If you stop to listen to the “solution” to the energy crisis, you’ll hear millions of people (including most politicians) reassuring themselves that coal will be the new oil, because the United States has plenty of it and because there is now a way to burn coal “cleanly.” This last…
An enthusiastic conservation effort, coupled with a wide variety of alternative sources of energy, will soften the blow of peak oil, but it might be too little too late. And it's incredibly difficult to get people to actually do something serious about conserving energy (see Janisse Ray's "Altar Call for…
Tell them what Architecture 2030 says about coal:
Because coal is the only fossil fuel plentiful and supposedly cheap enough to push the planet to 450 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. Because reaching 450 ppm (or possibly less) triggers potentially irreversible glacial melt and sea level rise.
Because 53% of Americans live in and around coastal cities and towns and, beginning with just one meter of sea level rise, many of these cities and towns will be inundated.
Scientists are forewarning that at approx. 450 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere, we will trigger potentially irreversible glacial melt and sea level rise “out of humanity’s control.” We are currently at 385 ppm, and are increasing atmospheric concentrations of CO2 at approx. 2 ppm annually. At this growth rate, we will reach 450 ppm in 2035 . . .
In the US, there are over 600 existing coal plants and 151 new coal plants in various stages of development.
Tell them that there is a smarter and better way. And a cleaner way. Tell them that mining coal is not only ugly, it’s dangerous for miners and everyone else.
Tell them to take a close look into a train car full of coal (as I did yesterday) and to ask themselves if coal looks like the fuel of the future.
I thought about coal as I noticed a train loaded with coal go by (I took these photos). I thought about how little most people know …
“The free market–the invisible hand–will take care of everything.”
I’ve addressed this topic of the free market as alleged panacea several times before. I’ve referred to this blind faith in the market as unsubstantiated. I’ve mockingly referred to the common belief in the wisdom of the invisible hand as a belief in the Fouth Person in the Holy Quartet. Why mock? Because stark shortages of critically important natural resources loom in every direction. And yet we’re in denial. You deny the denial? Then how is it that we tolerate, this year, big U.S. metropolitan areas like Raleigh-Durham and Atlanta had only a few weeks left of their municipal water supplies? We tolerate that we are drawing down unreplenishable water sources throughout the desert southwest. Intelligent civilizations don’t deny such dangers. They consciously deal with their problems.
I’ve just read a well-phrased description of why the modern version of the free market can’t save us from our problems regarding impending shortages of essential natural resources. The following quote is from a new book available free on-line from Population Connection: PLAN B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, by environmental analyist, Lester R. Brown (2008).
…Now with the economy as large as it is, the indirect costs of burning coal—the costs of air pollution, acid rain, devastated ecosystems, and climate change—can exceed the direct costs, those of mining the coal and transporting it to the power plant. As a result of neglecting to account for these indirect costs, the market is undervaluing
