Written by Claire Christensen, leader with Washington University’s Green Action
Toss a handful of college students and a few community members into a National Coal Council Coal Policy Committee gathering and what do you get? A canceled meeting and an early lunch.
The National Coal Council would be reviewing a final draft of a study on deployment of carbon capture and storage technologies and would present their findings to the Secretary of the Department of Energy Steven Chu.
So what’s so bad about carbon capture and storage technologies? In itself, absolutely nothing. In fact, I strongly encourage it. However, when it’s used as an excuse for America to CONTINUE using coal it is simply unacceptable. The label “Clean Coal” is false advertising and purposefully misleading.
According to a study by Dr. Paul Epstein, Director of Harvard Medical School Center for Health and the Global Environment called, “Full Cost Accounting for the Life Cycle of Coal,” published in 2011 in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences,
Each stage in the life cycle of coal-extraction, transport, processing, and combustion-generates a waste stream and carries multiple hazards for health and the environment. These costs are external to the coal industry and thus are often considered as “externalities.” We estimate that the life cycle effects of coal and the waste stream generated are costing the U.S. public a third to over one-half of a trillion dollars annually.
Industries need to stop funding false solutions and tackle the real problem: the use of a dirty, inefficient resource that harms the climate through emissions, our country through its extraction, and our people through its presence. As conscious citizens, we have to draw attention to the use of coal propaganda and its detrimental affects to our country and our future.
On Tuesday at about 11:10 a.m., only ten minutes into the Coal Policy Committee’s meeting, students from Washington University’s Green Action group and activists from Climate Action St. Louis unfurled a banner declaring “Coal is Never Clean” and sang “Clean coal is a dirty lie.” As a member of Green Action, I took pictures to document the members of the St. Louis community standing up for what they believe in.
The National Coal Council meeting stalled as the police escorted us out of the building. The committee then canceled their meeting early, had lunch, and disbanded.
What does this mean for us? Success! We interjected our voice into their meeting of false solutions.
But this is only one small success in an incredibly large fight.
The coal industry is deeply entrenched in our society. The CEOs of both Peabody Energy and Arch Coal are even members of Washington University’s Board of Trustees. Their money and influence is everywhere. However, our action on Tuesday is a small glimmer of hope.
We need the leaders of our country to invest their time and effort into real solutions and renewable energy resources. Not in the future. Not next year. NOW. We will stand strong at the next meeting of coal executives –and the meeting after that– until they understand that we won’t back down and we won’t be ignored. We know coal is dirty, and we’re building a future without it.
Less than fifteen students and community members delayed a meeting of some of the most powerful industries in the country. Think of the potential power of hundreds, even thousands of participants!
We have a responsibility to the environment and to the millions of people affected by the poor choices of the coal industry today. With events like Power Shift coming closer –where ten thousands participant unite for one common cause– CHANGE IS POSSIBLE!
So from one small student in the middle of St. Louis to every reader out there… Get up! Get organized! AND GET GOING!
Please explain to me what your alternative solution to coal is. You’d better say “nuclear or natural gas,” because if you’ve drank the Kool-Aid about wind and solar providing our power needs going forward, you’re wrong, wrong, wrong. DO … THE … MATH.
Unless you’re willing to get used to regular electricity blackouts; unless you and everyone else in our society is willing to put away your cell phones, get off your computer, have one light on at a time and only when necessary, I suggest you open your eyes. The 1960s singing and chanting is all fun and happy, but again, do the research.