Coal as an energy source has two (and only two) things going for it: it’s cheap and abundant. Both the USUS and China have tons of coal under their surfaces, and huge appetites for burning this dirtiest of fossil fuels. Mining, hauling and burning current coal could supply the world with electricity, possibly for centuries. But if this happened, we probably wouldn’t be around that long to enjoy it. After coal blackens the skin and lungs of miners, it continues to foul the Earth in other ways, including:
- Burning coal emits far more climate-warming emissions than oil or gas.
- Methods such as mountaintop removal destroy local ecosystems.
- Acid rain with sulphuric and nitric acids harm flora and fauna.
- The American Lung Association estimates that there are 23,600 premature deaths each year in the US from coal-burning power plant pollution.
- Huge amounts of fresh water are used in coal plants and released, no longer fresh.
- Toxic sludge from mining taints the soil and then seeps into the groundwater.
- Most of the human-caused mercury in our environment is from coal mining and burning.
The US has more than 500 coal-burning power plants. According to The Union of Concerned Scientists, in one year, one coal-burning power plant can produce:
- 170 pounds of mercury (merely 1/70th of a teaspoon falling on a twenty-five-acre lake can make the fish unsafe to eat).
- 225 pounds of arsenic (this can cause cancer in one out of 100 people who drink water containing 50 parts per billion of arsenic).
- 114 pounds of lead.
- 4 pounds of cadmium.
- Trace levels of uranium.
- The list of other toxic heavy metals continues…
Forty-nine states have issued fish advisories due to high mercury content. Creatures at the top of the food chain, such as humans and dolphins, bioacccumulate these heavy metals and other toxins causing serious health problems.
Barbara Hirsch owns a classical recording company (opus1mobile.com) in Santa Barbara, and besides wishing for the world to be a better place, manages to be relatively happy.
Sources: pewclimate.org/global-warming-basics/coalfacts.cfm
The myth of clean coal is explored in filmmaker David Novack’s documentary: Burning the Future: Coal in America. According to his exposé, all coal mining is destructive to an ecologically diverse region of America. burningthefuture.org –– FMT
Rainforest Action Network Executive Director Michael Brune’s new book, Coming Clean: Breaking America’s Addiction to Oil and Coal hirsch(published by Sierra Club Books), not only talks about how coal is detrimental, but also offers a vision of the possibilities for a clean energy future. Brune was involved in civil disobedience in June, 2009, in West Virgina (along with other protestors including Daryl Hannah) in an effort to bring an end to the contentious and environmentally damaging mining practice of mountaintop removal.comingcleanbook.com –– FMT
By Barbara Hirsch
