“This is not what I voted for,” Bill Maher said on his HBO show Friday night, arguing that Barack Obama has maintained his personal popularity but failed to make real progress on climate change, the economy and health care in USA.
Well it seems Obama’s solution to man-made climate change is to stick with the Bush climate ruling and paint our cars and roofs white. Although painting our roofs white to reflect the sunlight is a cheap way to fight global warming (some claim white roofs is the equivalent to taking the world’s approximately 600 million cars off the road for 18 years) reversing his pro-coal stance somehow seems like a better and more direct solution to the climate crisis.
And just like Maher said, “this isn’t what I voted for”, or why we endorsed you.
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?”).
Last year I reported about Vattenfall, Europe’s third-largest energy company which is entirely owned by the Swedish government, and their latest greenwashing campaign. Their campaign involved a “climate manifesto” to hide their own dirty businesses, and on top of that they also created loads of small yellow plastic men which they placed around the world to show their “environmental support”.
Back then the greenwashing campaign faced protests from environmental organizations such as Klimax and Greenpeace. And last week the “Yellow Army Fraction” liberated 44 of these yellow plastic men from one of Vattenfall’s offices in Sweden:
“Yellow plastic figures has been Vattenfall’s way to try fool the public that they’re actually doing something about the climate change other than pollution through large scale coal fire power plants. What they didn’t take into consideration was the fact that the figures would come alive and organize! Today the Yellow Army Fraction liberated 44 of their fellows in their struggle to crush Vattenfall and their dirty industry and saving the planet in the process. No more coal!”
Top US climate scientist Dr James Hansen shares his thoughts about Coal River Mountain and Barack Obama’s coal policy in general in a letter titled: “Tell President Obama About Coal River Mountain“.
“Coal River Mountain is the site of an absurdity.
[...]The issue at Coal River Mountain is whether the top of the mountain will be blown up, so that coal can be dredged out of it, or whether the mountain will be allowed to stand. It has been shown that more energy can be obtained from a proposed wind farm, if Coal River Mountain continues to stand. More jobs would be created. More tax revenue would flow, locally and to the state, and the revenue flow would continue indefinitely. Clean water and the environment would be preserved. But if planned mountaintop removal proceeds, the mountain loses its potential to be a useful wind source.”
You can read and download the report that Hansen is talking about over at Coal River Mountain Watch.
In his second and third interview George Monbiot meets Fatih Birol, the International Energy Authority’s chief economist, and Shaun Spiers, head of the “anti environmental” organisation the Campaign to Protect Rural England.
Britain’s leading green commentator tackles the International Energy Authority’s chief economist, who reveals for the first time a startling and worrying prediction for the date of peak oil.
In the third of his groundbreaking encounters with the figures whose decisions shape our environment, George Monbiot gives the head of the countryside watchdog, the Campaign to Protect Rural England, an unforgettable grilling, asking why it opposes windfarms – but not opencast coal mines
Be also sure to check out the very first interview with Yvo de Boer, the current Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
With Parliament in recession for Christmas and the Christmas-New Year holiday), the pro-Coal Australian Government that presides over the Developed World’s worst per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) polluter and the World’s biggest coal exporter – climate criminal Australia – has finally announced commitment to a derisory “5% reduction on 2000 GHG pollution by 2020”.
This appalling decision has drawn trenchant criticism from Australian scientists and environmentalists (indeed a courageous young woman protestor who shouted “NO!” was hauled from the Australian PM’s press conference. This appalling decision is in stark contrast to the Climate Emergency Facts (from top Australian and world climate scientists) and the Climate Emergency Actions required to deal with the Climate Emergency that are summarized at the end of this article (see “Climate Emergency Facts and Required Actions” on the Yarra Valley Climate Action Group’s website.).
I have presented below a very detailed critique of this appalling, irresponsible, selfish and incompetent decision by the extreme right wing, Bush-ite Rudd Labor Government – a decision which, if adopted globally, would be tantamount to Terracide (destruction of the Earth’s Bisophere) and global Climate Suicide. A top Australian climate scientist Professor Andy Pitman responded to the Australian Government’s “5% off by 2020” by saying that we need to keep atmospheric CO2 to below 450 ppm to avoid a catastrophic 2 degrees C temperature rise and that means global 25%-50% reduction on 2000 GHG pollution by 2020.
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%.
Al Gore and the Alliance for Climate Protection, Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the League of Conservation Voters have launched a “Reality Coalition” to tell the American public that there is no “clean coal”.
“The reality is that there’s not a single home or business in America today powered by clean coal,” said Brian Hardwick of the Alliance for Climate Protection. “If coal really wants to be part of America’s energy future, the industry can start by making a real commitment to eliminating their pollution that is a leading cause of global warming.”
Hardwick continued: “It is high time for the coal industry to come clean and admit to the American people that today clean coal is not a reality. No matter how much they say it in their advertising, coal can’t truly be clean until the plants can capture global warming pollution. With so much at stake, we can’t afford to hang our hats on an illusion.”
Al Gore talked about the failing auto industry in USA, “clean coal” and the environmental work being done in China in a recent interview with Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria.
In the interview Gore said that he thinks that the whole auto industry needs to be “transformed”, and that the auto makers in USA “should make a transition as quickly as possible toward plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.”
ZAKARIA: Would you bail out the carmakers? GORE: Whatever assistance might be forthcoming should be focused on speeding the changes that are absolutely essential to ensure that our companies are competitive in the global marketplace. When I was vice president, I initiated a program called the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles. The federal government invested over a billion dollars in partnership with the Big Three to focus on the accelerated development of advanced high-efficiency vehicles. But as soon as they felt they were off the hook at the end of 2000, they pulled the plug and walked away.
If you live in northern Europe you might have heard about a new “climate manifesto” from Vattenfall, Europe’s third-largest energy company which is wholly owned by the Swedish government.
With this “climate manifesto” Vattenfall is a trying to influence politicians and governments to put a global price on CO2 emissions, support (read financial support) climate friendly technologies and implement climate requirements for products. It all sounds good but this is just another greenwashing campaign from a dirty energy company.
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In his second and third interview George Monbiot meets Fatih Birol, the International Energy Authority’s chief economist, and Shaun Spiers, head of the “anti environmental” organisation the Campaign to Protect Rural England.
