Opposition takes on coal plants:
Sammy Prim says he always thought environmentalists were “a little bit nutty.”
Then a New Jersey-based utility, LS Power, decided to build a $2 billion coal-fired power plant here, just a few miles across the Chattahoochee River from his rural Alabama home. If built, it could emit up to 9 million tons of carbon dioxide, the primary gas blamed for global warming, every year.
“I’ve been a Republican my whole life, but I’ll be doggoned if Al Gore isn’t right,” says Prim, 64, a retired radiologist. “Is it fair for you and me — this generation — to pollute for all the generations to come when we’re already seeing the effects — global warming, mercury, particulate matter?”
The article has a lot more to say about coal-fired generation and this one project, in particular, but the part I quoted pegged my outrage scale.
Why oh bloody freaking why is it that so many people in the world can’t grasp the simple fact that global warming is global and a peaking of the world oil supply affects the whole world? Why do so many people bounce through life in cruise mode, paying more attention to which celebrity got paparazzied coming out a club sans underwear than real issues that will affect them and all of our children for generations to come, until one of those issues literally impacts them or shows up on their doorstep?
What ever happened to vision and imagination? What the hell ever happened to enlightened self-interest, or even (gasp!) altruism?
Will we need an oil slick or coal plant or natural gas pipeline right on top of every single voter and consumer before we pull our collective heads out of our collective asses and show more survival instinct than your average sea sponge?
I know, I know–it’s an information problem. People are acting rationally because they don’t understand the gravity of the compound situations we’re facing. This is, in fact, why I’ve dedicated my career to writing about these topics and running this site.
But damn, people, it would be nice if a few more of you out there, aside from those who read this site, would care as much about yourselves and your own kids as I do and did something positive.
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October 30th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
“I’ve been a Republican my whole life”
Lol, now how can you hold that against a guy Lou?
October 30th, 2007 at 6:16 pm
The whole pollution thing has gotten some additional attention, and will be hard to beat. When Kansas stopped two coal fired power plants from being built, because of CO2 emissions, it set the stage for the same actions by other states. If other states don’t do the same thing, they will be likely to be the subject(s) of lawsuits themselves for not preventing pollution. The Supreme Court has already held CO2 to be a pollutant, so the lawsuits will definitely have not only merit, but get good results. Hopefully, the plant referred to above will be stopped in this fashion.
The Air Quality Division of the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality had a good reponse a few months ago for a hearing about Clean Air Mercury Rules, and their board was very responsive. If a very conservative state like Oklahoma can get a good response out of the regulatory boards, everyone in every other state should sit up and take notice and likewise pay attention to the Kansas decision. The fat lady hasn’t sung on either of these decisions, but she is warming up.
And, yes, I was one of the twelve speakers at the Oklahoma hearing on the CAMR. I am not a good speaker, but I gutted it up and stood up there and said my piece as best I could. If I can do it, so can anyone else who is so inclined. (And, none of the Board members laughed, at least not audibly.)
October 31st, 2007 at 11:49 am
disdaniel: Actually, I don’t hold being a Republican against him. I’ve never been a member of that party, and likely wouldn’t become one short of being incentivized with a gun to my head or regular access to a minivan full of drunk cheerleaders (no one tell Mrs. Lou about that part, please). Neocons, as in the loons who tried to get Bill Clinton to sign on to regime change in Iraq in 1998, in part over oil, are a whole other sphere of bee stuff, though. Those people I detest and want to see banished from power permanently via the ballot box.
Woodchuck: Good on ya for standing up, both literally and figuratively! I agree that we’re likely seeing just the beginning of a sea change in US electricity generation. The evidence is so overwhelming that building new coal plants is Not a Good Idea that I expect to see a lot of social and legal downward pressure on them, even before we take some sort of overt regulatory action to limit them.
October 31st, 2007 at 4:24 pm
Interesting topic, but what can we as an individual do about it? I am under the impression that we are already (the human population of the Earth as a whole) reducing or have reduced ozone layer destroying chemical emissions, but regarding greenhouse gas emissions (mainly CO2); even if we each reduce our emissions, if there are more of us on the face of the Earth, then each one of us who is contributing to global warming would need to massively cut our own contributions.
To be more specific, if the human population doubles, then each human would need to halve the amount of pollution they create in order to stop an increase in total pollution. To reduce the total outputs of humans, we would need to each make a larger reduction in our own contribution.