Coal Is Not the Answer: Sierra Club Launches Coal-Debunking Campaign
Pushes back against coal industry PR blitz
You would have to live under a rock to have missed the massive media campaign coal industry groups have been waging over the last year or two. The language and symbols of clean coal now fill the airways on radio and TV; they appear on billboards, in talking points and even on websites like this one. The coal lobby has spent hundreds of millions of dollars this year alone trying to convince politicians and the people who elect them that coal is now or will soon be “clean.”
Big coal’s presence throughout this long election season as a major sponsor of the presidential debates from November 2007 to October 2008 stands in striking opposition to the absence of any substantive political discussions about climate change in the debates themselves.
But not everyone is buying it. As Kevin Grandia at DeSmogBlog points out, the Sierra Club just launched a PR push of their own, arguing that coal is not the answer. Here’s a little slice of the 116 year-old organization’s new debunking strategy.
Image: USGS
While clean, solar is still quite inefficient. In spite of all sorts of other technologies coming down in price dramatically since I was a child, solar seems to have somehow been immune to increases in efficiency or decreases in price. While it seems wonderful, I question whether the green being touted by solar proponents is that green which will line their pockets or that green which will help ours.
You are so right Dirk, America will never find a REASONABLE energy solution because of GREED causing ALL of the alternatives to be OUT OF REACH to the majority of the population. 5 - 10 YRS. cost recoup is simply NOT ACCEPTABLE or AFFORDABLE. In America, GREEN is spelled with a “d” - GREED - no different than Wall Street.
Yes, solar PV can be expensive, but if you think that solar panels somehow completely define the clean energy or the green movement, you are mistaken.
Cleanenergy, perhaps you could expand on your thesis that Greed causes “all of the alternatives to be out of reach.”
Germany has consumed a large portion of solar panels produced in past years due to government incentives. That I heard has expired, with new production lines are coming online, hopefully price of solar system will come down. Judging by the stock price of solar cell company, it is coming.
I really think it’s a myth that there aren’t affordable green energy solutions. True that solar pv hasn’t come down in price yet, but solar thermal panels have a 5-10 yr payback in most scenarios, which seems absolutely reasonable. Wind Turbines have a little longer payback (around 20 yrs) but are quite efficient (depending on your location). I guess i just see ‘clean’ coal as a short sighted solution, even if i give the coal company the benefit of the doubt that it is ACTUALLY clean.