By Dr Gideon Polya on April 14th, 2009
“The World is running out of time but there is still hope that reason, science and rational risk management will prevail.”
Before the global recession hit (and reduced the soaring price of fossil fuels), the “market cost” of the best renewables had become similar to that of coal burning-based power (see “Hope: best renewables cost same as coal power. “One Day Pathétique” Symphony painting”).
However an Ontario, Canada Government commissioned analysis has revealed that when you take environmental and human mortality impacts into account the “true cost” of coal burning-based power was 4-5 times greater than the “market cost” – this making the best renewables and geothermal much cheaper than the “true cost” of coal burning-based power (see “Ontario study identifies social costs of coal-fired power plants”).
Another way of seeing this is that it can be estimated (from arithmetic projection from the Canada study) that about 5,000 Australians die every year from the effects of deadly pollutants from coal burning (heavy metals, carbon monoxide, radioactivity, soot, nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide) i.e. Australia sacrifices 5,000 lives each year on the altar of heavily-subsidized coal burning-based power (see “How many people die from Carbon Burning and Climate Change each year?”).
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By Simon Leufstedt on January 28th, 2009
While surfing the Washington Post this blogger found a creative ad placement from the Reality Coalition (see image above), which purpose is to tell the American public that there is no “clean coal”:
“I noticed this the other morning when surfing the washington post’s website. When you enter a URL that can’t be found on their site, you get the message at the bottom of the image above, which is akin to a 404 messsage. A hearty well done to the folks at this is reality!”
The advertisement says: “This page does not exist. Kind of like clean coal.”
By Simon Leufstedt on December 11th, 2008
Yesterday it was revealed that on November 28 one activist managed to breach the coal-powered Kingsnorth plant, one of the most heavily guarded power stations in Britain. The activist singlehandedly managed to get in, stop the power station and get out the same way without being noticed or caught by the security on site.
The £12m defences of the most heavily guarded power station in Britain have been breached by a single person who, under the eyes of CCTV cameras, climbed two three-metre (10ft) razor-wired, electrified security fences, walked into the station and crashed a giant 500MW turbine before leaving a calling card reading “no new coal”. He walked out the same way and hopped back over the fence.
As a result the coal-powered Kingsnorth plant was shut down for hours, which apparently reduced the climate change emissions in the UK by 2%.
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By Simon Leufstedt on November 4th, 2008
John McCain, the Republican Presidential candidate, who failed to mention climate change in his acceptance speech, who picked a climate change denier as his running mate, who won’t regulate greenhouse gases, whose energy plan is mainly about offshore drilling and nuclear energy is continuing on his failed environmental and energy trail.
While campaigning in coal-rich Pennsylvania, the Washington Post reports, McCain promised he is a “coal booster” and that he would encourage the export of coal to other countries. He also claimed that coal will “create hundreds of thousands of jobs”.
“My friends, you know what Senator Obama said about a year ago, he said he had not been a, quote, coal booster,” he said, as the crowd booed. “My friends, I’ve been a coal booster and it’s going to create jobs, and we’re going to export coal to other countries and we are going to create hundreds of thousands of jobs. That’s going to help restore the economy of the great state of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”
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By Dr Gideon Polya on October 22nd, 2008
“You will be SHOCKED by the response…”
I belong to a Melbourne-based Climate Action Group called the Yarra Valley Climate Action Group (YVCAG) which is very active in public education through public meetings, participation in public demonstrations and by providing a series of very well-referenced Climate Emergency Fact Sheets on its website. Thus people confused by the vehement and dishonest denial by climate sceptics can use the YVCAG resource and discover what top climate scientists and top scientific bodies think about the accelerating global warming crisis by consulting “Climate Emergency: what top world scientific experts say“.
Our local Climate Action Group is variously linked to scores of like-minded Climate Action Groups around the Continent and Commonwealth of Australia through two umbrella organizations, namely the Climate Emergency Network and the Climate Movement. However our efforts at public education are negated by the Power of Money. Australia is the world’s biggest coal exporter with coal exports currently worth A$55 billion per annum; about 92% of Australia’s electric power comes from fossil fuel burning; and the Australian coal industry is worth in total about A$100 billion annually – with the coincident reality that Australia resolutely ignores the disproportionate impact it is having on the Earth’s environment through its world-leading annual per capita Domestic and Exported fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution.
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By Dr Gideon Polya on August 5th, 2008
Only a few weeks after the release of the Draft Report of the seriously flawed, pro-coal, Australian Garnaut Climate Change Review (4 July, 2008; see my critique on Green Blog, “Pro-Coal, Australian Garnaut Climate Review Damns Coral, Australia & World”), the Australian Federal Government has released a so-called “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme” Green Paper (16 July, 2008).
Unfortunately the Australian Federal Government Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) Green Paper is FATALLY FLAWED and if adopted globally would be a DEATH SENTENCE for the planet’s biosphere.
Australia is referred to as “Downunder” by people in the Northern Hemisphere but in so many things Australian mainstream media and politicians turn the truth upside-down as well – and this is outrageously so in relation to man-made climate change. The Liberal-National Party Coalition State and Federal Oppositions and the Labor Party State and Federal Governments (these major parties being referred to collectively as the Lib-Labs) pay public lip-service to the problem of global warming but their de facto policies support Australia’s world-leading coal exports and Australia’s 92% fossil fuel-based power generation.
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By Dr Gideon Polya on June 14th, 2008
The image shows the old Cahokia Power Plant in Sauget, IL which has been decommissioned for 31 years. Photo:
Jay DuggerTop British climate scientist Professor James Lovelock FRS has warned that over 6 billion people will die this century due to unaddressed climate change. Already 16 million people die avoidably in the world each year due to deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease (see: “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007). It is already clear from declining agricultural production due to drought and massive storm surge disasters in India, Bangladesh, Burma and the US that global warming is already impacting on global avoidable mortality.
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