Coal Is Deadly To Our Health, Our Economy, And Our Planet

On Sunday, March 1, hundreds will rally outside 3 Massachusetts coal-fired power plants (Salem - noon, Holyoke and Somerset - 1 p.m.), standing with others across the country to demand that our state and nation end the deadly use of coal and start building a secure green economy.

The next day, renowned authors/activists Wendell Berry and Bill McKibben will be joined by thousands of people - young and old alike - in a mass act of civil disobedience at the Washington DC coal plant that literally powers the Congress with dirty energy.

Saying NO to coal, and transitioning to clean renewable energy NOW is a critical triple win for our economy, environment and health.

Coal is the dirtiest of all fossil fuels. “Clean coal” is a fiction created by tens of millions of lobbying/advertising dollars. Carbon Capture and Sequestration technology is not available yet for years to come, and safe storage of captured carbon dioxide (CO2) is a big question mark. From mining to burning to waste disposal, coal threatens our health and safety. Mountain-top removal mining, and the release of mercury, acid rain chemicals, black soot, etc. into air and water, causes serious soil degradation, ecosystem destruction, and a host of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, including lung cancer. Coal generates the highest greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per unit of energy obtained, and has a large reserve, making continued reliance on coal without immediate phase-out incompatible with any scenarios of reducing atmospheric GHGs to a safe level in time to avert irreversible catastrophic climate changes, according to a group of top international scientists including Dr James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Similarly, the only way we could possibly achieve such reductions is by leaving the higher emission grades of oil (like tar sand, that President Obama is securing from Canada) untouched and un-emitted, and where the natural environment is most fragile.

Accelerating growth of GHG emissions has exceeded the worst-case scenario ever modeled. Fossil fuel and cement emissions grew 3.5% per year between 2000-2007, compared to 0.9% per year in 1990-1999. 2008 was even worse.

We are on the verge of triggering powerful planetary amplifying loops of irreversible climate cascades that are beyond human control. Methane, a GHG 25 times more potent than CO2, is already bubbling out of the Arctic Sea bed in “methane chimneys” due to thawing permafrost. Melting ice plus darkening by black soot causes less ice deflection of solar energy and faster warming. The Arctic Ocean is predicted to become ice-free in summer by 2013, 80 years ahead of predictions, while on Greenland and West Antarctica, melt water flows under land ice sheets through holes and cracks to lubricate its rush into the ocean! And as the ocean, soil and biosphere warms, they absorb less carbon, eventually turning from carbon sinks to sources. Forest fires are one example that releases hundreds of years’ worth of stored carbon from trees into the atmosphere, and it’s becoming more frequent as warmer temperature and reduced rainfall in many areas leads to dryer forests and higher tree infection rates and mortality.

Sea level rise predictions have not taken most of these amplifying mechanisms into account, since they are too complex to model, and, like ecosystem collapses, can occur in a non-linear, abrupt fashion once tipping points are passed. Species extinction rates are already many thousands of times above evolutionary background rates. The potential breakup of the Greenland ice sheet alone would raise the sea level over 20 feet – displacing up to 23 million in the US alone. In Massachusetts, large sections of greater Boston would be underwater, including parts of Arlington, Belmont, Cambridge, Somerville, Malden and Medford.

Without an all-hands-on-deck mobilization of our civilization, we are rushing into a global catastrophe never before imagined. Disappearing glaciers, fast changing climate zones and desertification means dwindling water supply, famine, ecosystem collapses, spread of tropical diseases, mass migration and war. “Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,” concludes a 2004 Pentagon analysis. “Once again, warfare would define human life.” - A conclusion echoed by Lord Nicholas Stern, an eminent economist, who this past weekend told two dozen environment ministers, climate negotiators and experts before their visit to the Antarctic, that the consequences of insufficient action is “extended world war".

Not only is a rapid phase-out of fossil fuels, particularly coal, our only chance of averting climate catastrophe, it also provides a desperately needed – and permanent – major stimulus to our unraveling economy. Shifting to renewables means shifting hundreds of billions of dollars per year from foreign fuel purchases into green jobs creation within our own economy. And, every $ spent on green energy creates over three times as many jobs as in coal and oil. Vast military expenditures used to secure fossil fuel access, currently estimated at well over $200 billion/year, would also be freed up.

In short, the solution to climate crisis also provides economic security, job security, and national security. It will restore health to people and the planet.

Join us on Sunday March 1 in demanding rapid phase-out of coal from this planet. Details see: securegreenfuture.org/stopcoal Help spread the word, and call your legislators to demand “Stop Coal/Tar Sand, Save Our Future!”

State legislators: http://www.mass.gov/legis
MA Congresspersons: http://capwiz.com/lcv/dbq/vote_info/

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Maggie Zhou, PhD & Jill Stein, MD
Secure Green Future/Massachusetts Coalition for Healthy Communities
www.freewebs.com/maggiezhou/globalwarming.htm