pudge's Journal: Environmentalist Religion

On the local news tonight, a group of leaders of various houses of worship of various faiths -- Christian, Jewish, something called Earth Something Or Other -- banded together to oppose coal-burning energy plants.

But that's not the joke, hold on.

At first I thought it was going to be because so many people die from mining coal. But no, it is because, they say, people get sick from coal being burned. Which is true, but obviously not nearly as true as they made it sound. And what about the people who die from not getting enough heat, or from other related problems, because we don't have enough electricity because we shut down all the coal-burning plants, which supply the majority of our electricity? And besides, I thought environmentalism was already a religion unto itself?

That's not the joke either.

One of the church leaders said that if we do not stop coal-burning plants for the next generation, there may not be a next generation.

OK, now you can laugh.

Since obviously burning coal does not actually kill significant numbers of people, let alone whole generations of people, I wonder if his saying so was not a prediction about the deathly powers of coal, but a threat to destroy everyone on Earth if his demands are not met. Ready the Cobalt Thorium G!

uhh

[mackil]

They may have had a point 100 years ago (minus the no next generation bit), but through technological advances over the last 20 years, coal has become one of the cleanest forms of producing energy available.

Well

[ces]

I must say I'm for not buring fossil fuels to produce electricity. But most environmentalists would disagree with my solution which is to replace the fossil plants (coal, gas, oil) mostly with nuclear power.

I for one am not willing to freeze in a cave in the dark for the sake of the environment ...

Re:Well

[pudge]

I have no problem with that, and support it. But you can't just shut down the coal plants. Nothing can replace them on a broad scale *except* for nuclear plants, and we've not built a new one in about 30 years.

Oh, and I found the link [king5.com] to the story. My quote was somewhat off, but not enough to make a difference. And of course, they do not offer nuclear as an option.

What's really crazy to me is that anyone sees this as a religious issue (well, except for maybe the Earth Ministry lady); it's one thing to t

Re:Well

[ces]

I have no problem with that, and support it. But you can't just shut down the coal plants. Nothing can replace them on a broad scale *except* for nuclear plants, and we've not built a new one in about 30 years.

Well I'm certainly aware that any generation from shut down plants needs to be replaced with something else.

My order of preference is:
1) conservation (a lot more potential here than most realize without any real changes in comfort or convienience).
2) wind. It looks like wind power is getting pretty pr

Re:Well

[pudge]

Well older technology coal plants are actually pretty nasty.

Sure. But they do not threaten all life on earth or entire generations of humanity. Nothing remotely close to that. If they did, none of us would you know, be here to write about it. :-)

Industrial Revolution proved that Coal is Safe

[Dark Coder]

Hey! During the Industrial Revolution (1880 to 1910), ten thousands of coal-fired plants sprouted around the North American country side.

Coal-firing barely made a deathly dent into the population growth... Just that weaker kinfolks died off to make ways for stronger kinfolks. But it was certainly at LOT less rate than our today's auto accidents.

So, coal-fired killing people? Apparently, so... at least, the human race came out stronger.

Today's auto-accident, however, does NOT improve the human race (beca