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Strategies & Market Trends : Galapagos Islands -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Oral Roberts who wrote (56266)	2/12/2008 1:35:45 PM
From: Jorj X Mckie	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 57110

I wrote a letter to the editor to the LA Times in November in response to a GW biased article on coal. One of my points was that as long as we are addicted to the niceties in our lives, there aren't going to be a whole lot of changes. Following is the original letter that I wrote. The published version was edited and appeared in the LA Times on November 24, 2007. In the Novemer 18th article "Coal addiction hinders climate cleanup", there is a focus on punishing coal users through economic sanctions. It is no wonder that there is no progress being made to reduce coal consumption in developing nations, let alone the U.S. We are ignoring the basic fact that there is a huge demand for energy and the best alternative energy sources are regularly blocked by some of the same interests who are worried about coal as an energy source. Europe was held up as an example where CO2 emissions have been reduced. France gets 76% of its energy from nuclear power plants. Are we ready yet, to remove the obstacles to building more nuclear power plants? What about hydroelectric power? Which rivers are acceptable to dam? Or maybe a tidal power plant at the mouth of the San Francisco Bay? Whichever way we choose to generate power is going to have some sort of liabiliity. But to ignore the demand part of the equation without a way to fill that demand will result in us doing a lot of whining with little resolution to the CO2 emission problem. Recently while in the Pennsylvania coal country, I saw a bumper sticker that said "Ban Coal - Let them freeze in the dark!". With 65% of the U.S. (and world) power generation coming from the burning of coal, we certainly would be freezing and in the dark without it. Until we are willing to entertain alternatives to coal on a much larger scale or at least to give up the luxuries we get from burning coal, like lights and refrigerators and the internet, we shouldn't be talking about bringing the UN in to hand out economic sanctions.