Web Watch: ‘Coal makes us sick’
The YouTube audience is currently eating up comments by Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid that burning fossil fuels creates health hazards.
Reid’s comments however were phrased more bluntly than that: “Coal makes us sick,” he said.
That pill isn’t settling well with a number of folks. To people already skeptical of global warming, like this gentleman, Reid’s comments and his choice of words apparently seems like another dubious claim. Others just think that with energy prices the way they are, ignoring any source is wrong.
On the other hand, there are plenty of people who believe that fossil fuel consumption and its related pollution has an impact on air quality thus heath. And others are skeptical that coal can ever be “clean.”
I’m not wading into that debate, but I wonder how Reid’s comments will play, say in southern Illinois, where folks sit of some of the U.S.’ biggest coal reserves. And then you have the issue that both Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain support “clean coal” and “carbon capture” programs.
(Just last week, I posted on the whole idea of FutureGen, the now scuttled next generation power plant that had been planned for central Illinois.)
On the other hand, more and more folks are buying hybrid cars and calling for new environmental regulation.
Anybody have some thoughts? Reid’s clip is below.
I am glad that the “neo-cons” are obviously immune to asthma, emphysema, COPD and other respiratory diseases, it must be all of those Bush Tax cuts that have given them stronger immune and respiratory systems.
But let’s put off any meaningful energy and pollution reform policy for another generation, after all, all we need to do is to burn more coal and drill for more oil and everything will be hunky-dory (or in the Bush-Rove Neo-Con sense Honky-Tory). By then we may be dead, and the next 2 - 6 generations may have to clean it up, but it is not our problem.
But if you like to be able to breath fresh air and drink water that is not polluted, or, be able to go swimming in your favorite river, lake, or ocean without worrying about what might be in the water around you (other than pee), just perhaps you might want to think a little longer about your environment.
I am sorry, but fresh water and clean air need to be considered the right of all living things on the planets, not just those with enough money to buy it. This is not a “right” or “left” issue.
Below are some links to various takes on “killer smog” or “killer fog” that came as a result of coal burning and industrial smokestack pollutants prior to the introduction to “cleaner” alternatives in the West, and the same problem cropping up now is Asia:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=873954
amos.indiana.edu/library/scripts/smog.html
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/298/5601/2106b
http://www.cdnn.info/news/eco/e050811.html
And for general and satellite information try:
http://www.weather.gov/airquality/
Sure Senator Reid made a short hand comment, but this issue will not go away. Air and water pollution do not care a whit about your political position.
It is in Democrats best interest to keep oil prices high and keep up the rhetoric until the elections. They will continue to fight drilling, new refineries, coal production, and nuclear energy until their candidate is in office…then they’ll have a “change of heart” and vote “yes” on these issues.
While drilling for oil in Alaska/off shore won’t have an immediate affect on supply, it should affect speculating on higher prices.
Tree-huggers are the achilles heel of the Democratic Party and, with the latest polls showing the majority of Americans wanting to drill in our own country, it will be interesting to see how much more the Party will be willing to bend over for them.
Well, it’s appropriate that this topic seems to create more heat than light, for that is what coal and oil do. In the average power plant, most of the energy released by burning coal is lost up the smokestack. And in a car burning gasoline, most of the energy is lost out the tailpipe.
Breaking any addiction is hard. But you don’t cure a heroine addiction by procuring more heroine. You have to go through withdrawal. I don’t think that weaning ourselves off of our addiction to coal and oil will be easy. But I think we can do it, and like an addict who stops using, we’ll be better off for it.
RHarnack……..Let Reid and Obama spread that BS to the people of Ohio and Pennsylvania and will see who wins the election in November. I will let you fire all these hard working middle class citizens working in the coal industry. What’s next Milk makes us sick! Oh yes and please don’t write a book as your entry next time….we could do without the useless links.
well, I’d like to thank RHarnac…
I never like being cast as a ‘we’
’cause it takes so much effort to research
what the heck it is ‘I’ think…
but thanks to RHarnac…
that mystery link hooked me up
with a cool ten grand…
…who knew????
and even with inflation
that’s real money!
To all my fans-
Thank you for your praise
Faint though it may be;
Thank NOAA.gov
Whose planet charts I love.
But most of all,
I want to thank,
All those whose science
Has no rank.
To quote Bennett Cerf, we have officially gone from “bad to verse”.