Green Options » coal industry

10 Practical Suggestions for How a Polluting Company Can Easily Reduce its Greenhouse Gases

Susan Kraemer — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 18:59:31 +0000

Chances are, if you run a major polluting company, you’re not reading cleantechnica. But you never know. So here’s my advice, based on my experience writing about energy; gathered into one easy quick read for the non-eco reader, on how a polluting company can benefit from the new energy bill requirements to cut carbon emissions.

Environmental Defense Fund: Global Warming by the Numbers - 13 Scary Facts

edfblog — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 18:38:10 +0000

Friday the 13th just got a little scarier. Here are 13 facts about the realities of global warming.

The numbers speak for themselves — we must make 2009 the showdown year for global warming action. There is no time to lose.

35%

Increase in the global carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels since the Kyoto Protocol was signed in 1992.

388.57 ppm

Average concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in May 2008, a record high.

541 – 970 ppm

The projected concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by 2100 under a business as usual scenario where we don’t dramatically reduce global warming emissions.

260 – 280 ppm

Average concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere before industrial emissions.

Coal Lobby Co-Opts Obama Message in New Ad

Timothy B. Hurst — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 03:16:58 +0000

You don’t see commercials for biotech companies that do stem-cell research do it. You’re not seeing wind turbine manufacturers buying ad-time and doing it. So why is it that the “clean coal” industry group running primetime television commercials taking soundbites and snippets from what Pres. Obama has said about coal. Yes, during his campaign, Mr. Obama did say he would look for ways to burn coal cleanly, but the key here is that the coal lobby wants you to think that such technology already exists - and it most certainly does not.

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Coal Is Not the Answer: Sierra Club Launches Coal-Debunking Campaign

Timothy B. Hurst — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 17:16:47 +0000

Pushes back against coal industry PR blitz

You would have to live under a rock to have missed the massive media campaign coal industry groups have been waging over the last year or two. The language and symbols of clean coal now fill the airways on radio and TV; they appear on billboards, in talking points and even on websites like this one. The coal lobby has spent hundreds of millions of dollars this year alone trying to convince politicians and the people who elect them that coal is now or will soon be “clean.”

Big coal’s presence throughout this long election season as a major sponsor of the presidential debates from November 2007 to October 2008 stands in striking opposition to the absence of any substantive political discussions about climate change in the debates themselves.

But not everyone is buying it. As Kevin Grandia at DeSmogBlog points out, the Sierra Club just launched a PR push of their own, arguing that coal is not the answer. Here’s a little slice of the 116 year-old organization’s new debunking strategy.