Watching the Olympics on Sunday night, I was shocked, amazed and dismayed to see a "clean coal" ad, apparently part of a new campaign to capitalize on recent political gains. Even more outrageous? The star of the ad, a personable young coal worker, made a connection between working in the coal industry and his brother serving overseas.

What does his brother, who is a soldier, have to do with clean coal? Oh, nothing. That was just another dirty emotional blackmail trick to try to make you think it's patriotic to support strip mining, black lung and air pollution.

It's bad enough that they are flat-out lying about clean coal. The technology does not exist, and if they can even figure out how to burn coal without the poisonous emissions, there is still the problem of how destructive it is to get it out of the ground. To drag our troops into it too? That's just disgraceful.
As I have said many times (Gillian Caldwell, the head of 1Sky.org even used my line with President Obama!) clean coal is a Unicorn. A nifty idea but merely a figment of an energy company executive's imagination.

Besides the dirty facts about burning coal -- like greenhouse gases and mercury emissions -- and the sad truth that the number of coal mining related jobs declines each year as the process is mechanized and automated, and that it's still incredibly dangerous for the brave workers who descend into those shafts, there is the environmental devastation that comes from getting it out of the ground.

Mountain top removal is the "cost-effective" method of coal mining where you blow the top off a mountain (literally, with dynamite) to get to the coal seam underneath it. Negative impact includes deforestation, water pollution, and destruction of wildlife habitat. Even coal miners think it's a bad idea!

I know we can't just switch to solar, wind and geothermal power, but if we want to create jobs, protect the environment, reduce our global emissions, and create a sustainable energy system for future generations, it's counter-productive to put any resources into the outdated and flawed coal industry.

And by the way: I have several family members in the service, who have done multiple tours of duty overseas. I support them wholeheartedly. And their service has nothing to do with clean coal! It's offensive that the coal industry -- or some manipulative shill at their ad agency -- is trying ride on the coattails of their sacrifice to trick patriotic Americans into agreeing with a bad idea. During the Olympics! I can't believe anyone was cynical enough to think it was a good idea to include that in the final cut of that ad!

To summarize: Alternative energy: yes. Clean coal: no. Our troops: seriously, don't bring them into this.

Clean Coal Runs Manipulative Ads During the Olympics originally appeared on Green Daily on Tue, 16 Feb 2010 12:05:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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