Its always about the money - the environment is just an excuse of the big money boys. Practically all of the national environment movement has been taken over by big money.

PS: They really should liquify that coal and make gasoline to lower or gas cost.

Thanks
JK

Whatever, JK, but liquifying coal is a horribly dirty and health-hazardous operation -- compounding the already dirty, destructive, and health damaging consequences of the mining coal in the first place.

And, coal liquification (or gassification) is an energy net-negative (like the ethanol scam), to boot -- it takes more than a unit of energy to produce a unit of coal liquified or gassified energy.

Stopping the Keystone Pipeline will send Canadian Oil to China. I'm glad that Gaia will still be receiving CO2 from producing countries, while Americans pay a premium carbon tax to stop global Climate change.

Mojo : Whatever, JK, but liquifying coal is a horribly dirty and health-hazardous operation
JK: Got any proof of that? All they do is react carbon with water to get hydrogen to combine with carbon to make liquid fuel? What is “horrible dirty” about that? What is “health-hazardous” about that? Please show us some citations (no greenie propaganda please.)

Mojo : compounding the already dirty, destructive, and health damaging consequences of the mining coal in the first place.
JK: Again, lets see your evidence (no greenie propaganda please.)

Mojo : And, coal liquification (or gassification) is an energy net-negative (like the ethanol scam), to boot
JK: Unlike the ethanol scam, coal to liquid has been making profits for decades. AS NO SUBSIDIES NEEDED! I’m suprised you, as someone frequently commenting on such things, does not know this. Just google “Sasol”, “coal to liquid”, “coal gasification”. Even the New York times had an article on this about a year ago.

Mojo : it takes more than a unit of energy to produce a unit of coal liquified or gassified energy.
JK: So what?
Coal to electricity loses 2 units of energy for each unit converted. It is worth the price to get energy in a more convenient form. And well worth the price. (Do you know anything about energy?)

Thanks
JK

"Once it goes through our environment on the way west, it will come back through our environment in the form of air pollution."

Yeah, right. If we don't ship our coal to China you think they're going to shut down their coal burning plants? Sorry, they're just going to burn someone else's coal and we'll be out of some good jobs. Can't we allow this country to produce something any more?

Yeah, JK, I know lots about energy -- and I don't have the time to prove it you, even if I wanted to. Your mind's kinda constricted on energy and our environment, apparently. Search "coal" on bojack and look at some of the strings regarding Hayden Is., for example (if I recall correctly). There's high quality references there for some of the questions you ask.

Oh, get off your high horse. The rocky mountain coal is going to get to Asia one way or another. Better to bring a boost to the ports of Morrow and Saint Helens than British Columbia, or California. You won't know the difference in our environment regardless.

What is it with Oregonians that they want to go out of their way to be poorer such as the commentary above?

This poverty trap thinking is only too well demonstrated by the governor and other Democrat leader policies of not wanting to export logs to China and other countries. Why are logs any different than wheat, corn, blue berries or anyother farm product exported in raw form to Asia? Answer: It isn't!

Exporting logs - what with domestic housing industry in the tank - is the only game in town right now. Let rural folks make a living for god sakes!

Either we can accept that we have a natural resource someone wants and is willing to pay for, and to take some of that money...

Or...a quick little search on a tool called Google Maps (or Google Earth) will show you where that coal will end up before being loaded on a ship to China: At a coal ship terminal, located just a mere 3,000 feet north of the U.S. Border, a couple miles west-northwest of Point Roberts, Washington. It'll still pollute our country, and we won't be able to do a damn thing about it.

It's easy to be environmentally pure when it's someone else's job that will disappear.

It's apparently even easier to be so cavalier about liquidating the natural world for cash, especially when other people suffer continuously in, and from, the proximate extraction of it, and the distant conversion and consumption of it, and the remote sequestration and compounding of disproportionate wealth in the trillions because of it.

FYI -- Part 1 --

Dirty Business
http://dirtybusinessthefilm.com/

The trailer (3:23)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EZj7dZKxFU

FYI -- Part 2 --

Global Temperature in 2011, Trends, and Prospects
James Hansen, Reto Ruedy, Makiko Sato and Ken Lo
18 January 2012
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2012/20120119_Temperature.pdf

Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future
by Jeff Goodell
http://www.powells.com/biblio/62-0618319409-0

FYI -- Part 3 --

The Coming Decline and Fall of Big Coal
September 28, 12:47 PM ET | By Jeff Goodell
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/the-coming-decline-and-fall-of-big-coal-20110928#ixzz1jyp1gRU4

Excerpt:

The end of coal in Appalachia doesn't mean that America is running out of coal (there’s plenty left in Wyoming). But it should end the fantasy that coal can be an engine of job creation – the big open pit mines in Wyoming employ a tiny fraction of the number of people in an underground mine in Appalachia. And for a variety of reasons – railroad congestion among them – Wyoming coal is never going to ramp up production enough to have a meaningful impact on job creation. For better or worse, the bulk of coal industry jobs are in Appalachia – and when that coal is gone, so are the jobs.

More important, the decline of Appalachian coal means it’s time for every political candidate with national aspirations to stop kissing the industry’s ass in important swing states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. The future of these states depends on their ability to re-invent their economies, not preserving a relic of the past. The relevant questions now are: How do we move beyond coal? How do we bring new jobs to the coal fields and retrain coal miners for other work? How do we inspire entrepreneurialism and self-reliance in people whose lives have been dependent on the paternalistic coal industry?

It also means it’s time to stop letting Big Coal spike every conversation about climate and energy policy. For decades, climate and energy policy has been held hostage by bullshit arguments from the coal industry that any attempts to reduce greenhouse gas pollution or shift to renewable energy will bring economic ruin to America.

Well, the decline and fall of the coal industry shows that just the opposite is true: Our future is not dependent on burning more coal, but on getting off it as quickly as possible and creating a new economy based on clean, renewable energy. It may be too late for West Virginia to save itself from the ravages of Big Coal. But it’s not too late for America.

Rick Santorum's Big-Coal Buddies
The "local" company Santorum brags about helping was a coal mining giant that gave him tens of thousands of dollars during and after his time in Congress.
By Kate Sheppard and Adam Serwer | Wed Jan. 11, 2012
http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/01/rick-santorum-coal-buddies

FYI -- Part 4 --

Romney energy aide has financial ties to Big Coal
The man formulating Romney's coal energy policy runs a lobbying firm that works for a huge coal company
By Justin Elliott | Sept 12, 2011

Mitt Romney adviser Jim Talent, the former senator from Missouri, is formulating Romney’s coal energy policy while also running a lobbying firm that works for the huge coal company Peabody Energy.

I wrote last month about Talent’s secretive work as co-chair of the Washington lobbying firm Mercury Public Affairs. Talent is not an officially registered lobbyist (even though Mercury’s website says he offers “lobbying” services), so disclosure rules don’t apply to whatever work he does for Mercury. Talent, Mercury, and the Romney camp have all declined to comment on which corporate clients Talent works for.

But the Boston Globe notices that Romney’s big new economic plan includes an energy policy statement by Talent that sings the praises of coal.

Continue Reading http://www.salon.com/2011/09/12/jim_talent_coal/

Salazar’s Folly
Opening Up Federal Lands to Big Coal
by Joshua Frank And Jeffrey St. Clair
March 23, 2011

In a move that is likely to go down as one of the largest energy policy blunders of the Obama years, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Tuesday announced that his office was opening the door for 2.35 billion tons of new coal mining operations in Wyoming’s stretch of the Powder River Basin.

It’s all about the money, of course and it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Ken Salazar pressed the green light for more dirty energy development instead of funding renewables.

The Powder River Basin (PBR), like most coal producing regions in the county, is not certified as such. Meaning, mining operations in the area do not entirely fall under the rubric of the Federal Coal Leasing Amendments Act of 1976 (FCLAA). As such, taxpayers are being hoodwinked into believing leasing our public lands to Big Coal is good for the government’s piggy bank.

It’s not. Here’s the story. During the 1970s there was a public lands coal-leasing moratorium put in place for the United States because of wild mining speculation and lack of transparency. The moratorium ended in 1980, and then acting Interior Secretary James Watt began selling coal leases all over the Powder River Basin. Then, in the late 1980s, PBR was decertified as a coal-producing region; therefore leases on public lands would no longer have to follow the guidelines offered up in FCLAA.

It was a brilliant maneuver conjured up by the legal minds paid for by Big Coal and backed by their allies in Congress. To this day the government has been selling off public land at below market value, which in the end bolsters coal’s competitiveness with cleaner energy sources like wind, solar and geothermal.

Con't at http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/03/23/salazar-s-folly/

Bob Clark....Why are logs any different than wheat, corn, blue berries or anyother farm product exported in raw form to Asia? Answer: It isn't!"

There are differences between agricultural products that are fairly renewable and sustainable, versus products like lumber and coal, lumber being on the slow side and coal is un-sustainable.
.......So, the infrastructure of non-renewable resources are, "One and Done", while sustainable/ renewable products can have multi-generational lengths of lifespan.

We need products that we can trust it for the long term, as soon as the oil is sapped dry and then cooked with natural gas to turn it into coal gas, then we are out of an industry, but who bears the burden, it is never the generation that does the agreeing.

Mojo : Yeah, JK, I know lots about energy -- and I don't have the time to prove it you, even if I wanted to.
JK: I see. That’s why you said “And, coal liquification (or gassification) is an energy net-negative”

You present energy loss as unusual – you don’t appear to understand that most energy conversions are net negative. Motors. Transformers. Power plants. Heat engines.

Thanks
JK

Mojo : FYI -- Part 1 –...FYI -- Part 4 --
JK: Wow what a list of credible sources:
A movie production.
James Hansen who gets arrested protesting coal and revises climate history on a regular basis.
And some far left rags.

Got anything credible?

Better yet, you made the following specific claims, please back them up with credible data:
liquifying coal is a horribly dirty
liquifying coal is health-hazardous
Note that you were not referring to mining, just the conversion.

And for these explain how this is in any significant in view of the fact that all energy conversions involve losses:
coal liquification (or gassification) is an energy net-negative
it takes more than a unit of energy to produce a unit of coal liquified or gassified energy.

PS: it takes two - three units of thermal energy to produce ONE unit of electric energy. (More usually three.)

Thanks
JK

Jason: We need products that we can trust it for the long term, as soon as the oil is sapped dry and then cooked with natural gas to turn it into coal gas, then we are out of an industry, but who bears the burden, it is never the generation that does the agreeing.
JK: By the time that happens, we won’t care because we will have better sources of energy. That is the lesson of history: we don’t run out, we find something better. The stone age didn’t end for the lack of stones. Same for the bronze age, iron age, whale oil, horse transportation, streetcars. Heck, they might even figure out how to make wind and/or solar practical in another hundred years.

Thanks
JK

Enjoy your game of Twister, solo, Jim. Adieu.

Mojo,
Does this mean you are not going to show us any real evidence of your claims?

Thanks
JK

http://oregonbusinessreport.com/2011/09/hope-for-portlands-industrial-land-shortage/

JK,

Can we agree that it took millions of years to sequester all this carbon (let's call it a bazillion tons) in the Earth?

If so, can we agree that it is being released quickly, i.e. a couple hundred years, back into the atmosphere?

I'd like to know if we can agree on this.

Disclaimer:
I am clearly not a scientist.

Which coal plant did you grow up near JK?
http://www.sierraclub.org/coal/map/

When China burns the coal, the mercury and other toxic byproducts are going wherever the wind/water currents take them. How about a little social justice for those who have no voice in these insane money grubbing decisions. The mercury levels in the aquatic world are skyrocketing as they are continuing to rise everywhere.

I thought Mojo did a nice job of delineating the nefarious connections between sell-out politicians and the dirty coal industry.

Mojo lost his credibility when he cited James Hansen.

Don't forget about the cumulative and escalating acidification of the oceans from the deposition of SO and other aerially emitted compounds, as well as the CO2 sinking that's massive there and massively emergent now, too.

And, air "scrubbers" in the smokestacks of coal burning facilities only dislocate the bulk of the mercury and other metals (arsenic, cobalt, iron, manganese, aluminum, etc.), radionuclides, and chemicals into a wastewater effluent stream that gets into the oceans via river systems.

Some basic info, for starters:

http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/Ocean+Acidification

http://www.skepticalscience.com/ocean-acidification-global-warming-intermediate.htm

Hello sheila,
Always good to hear your comments and for justice of all living things.

Skeezicks: Can we agree that it took millions of years to sequester all this carbon (let's call it a bazillion tons) in the Earth?

If so, can we agree that it is being released quickly, i.e. a couple hundred years, back into the atmosphere?
JK: That is one credible postulate: all that CO2 was removed from the atmosphere millions of years ago, now we are putting it back. That is helping to keep CO2 above the danger level where plants cannot grow.

sheila: Which coal plant did you grow up near JK?
http://www.sierraclub.org/coal/map/
JK: The Sierra club has zero credibility. They repeatedly present information in a manner designed to lead people to conclusions that are incorrect. Please quit relying on any greenie group - most of them exaggerate danger in order to scare people into giving them money. BTW, all of the well known ones are international, multi-million dollar corporations.

You probably don’t know what life was like before coal. Man burned forests and dung in stoves & fireplaces, instead of gas ore electric heat. Candles stunk up homes and caused fires. There was no refrigerator, TV, telephone, modern industry. These all need coal. Without coal there would be NO industrial revolution. Hopefully you support nuclear as an alternative to coal, otherwise you are advocating a return to pre-industrial days where the average lifespan was a few decades. I assume you know we have no other choice for energy.

I’d also guess that you don’t know that automobiles cleaned up the cities’ biggest health problem - horse emissions & disease.

Thanks
JK

JK,

Well there it is, thank you.

You have just confirmed that throwing all the carbon back into the atmosphere causes climate change.

As you say, the changing climate is allowing plants to grow, i.e. life to exist, inferring that until recently, we were headed for extinction. Thankfully we have intervened on Nature's indifferent course. You are also agreeing that this a man made change.

So now the question is, what other positive results may we expect from all that carbon and CO2 suddenly thrown back in the atmosphere?

Disclaimer: I am not an engineer or a scientist.

Skeezicks: You have just confirmed that throwing all the carbon back into the atmosphere causes climate change.
JK: That’s quite a leap to a conclusion:
1. Man is putting back carbon that was previously in the atmosphere.
2. Therefore man is causing warming!

You left out a few steps (plus a few other details):
1. Climate is warming beyond natural causes.
2. CO2 is the cause in the real atmosphere.
3. Warming is undesirable

You also have to deal with the little problem that the sun is a better correlation with temperature than CO2.

Thanks
JK

JK-

I didn't say warming, I said climate change. You're leaping here, not me.

I said we put carbon in the atmosphere, you changed it to CO2.

You agreed that climate change is man made.

Now you're saying that warming is due to increased CO2 which is, in part, man made.

The question remains if climate change or global warming is a good thing or not. According to you, CO2 makes plants grow and that is a good thing. Seems like a pretty simple conclusion to me.

But you also make emotional arguments while pretending to be some kind of expert. One of your denigrating arguments was that Hansen gets arrested for protesting, therefore he should be discounted.

Have you ever been arrested for what you believe in? Like Galileo Galilei? When did you last work for NASA? I forget.

Hmmm, let's start at the beginning Karlock. I'll make it easy:

Is the Earth round or flat?

Disclaimer: I'm not an engineer, a scientist,or a protestor.

The mercury levels in the aquatic world are skyrocketing as they are continuing to rise everywhere.

Perhaps, but clearly there is room for much, much more - after all, according to the greenies, CFLs are "green and sustainable" (they also contain mercury, which is why if you break one, you should ideally call in a hazmat team).

No hypocrisy there....

Skeezicks: I didn't say warming, I said climate change. You're leaping here, not me.
JK: Climate change is the replacement term for global warming after the Al Gore crowd fiogured out that the earth was about to quit warming.

Skeezicks: I said we put carbon in the atmosphere, you changed it to CO2.
JK: Are you now reverting back to the arguments of the 1970s when carbon (soot) was going to cause an ice age. Amazingly the solution was the same as Hanson’s: shut down modern society by shutting down fossil fuel use. (At the time, probably, primarily coal)

Skeezicks: You agreed that climate change is man made.
JK: Quit lying

Skeezicks: Now you're saying that warming is due to increased CO2 which is, in part, man made.
JK: Quit lying

Skeezicks: One of your denigrating arguments was that Hansen gets arrested for protesting, therefore he should be discounted.
JK: That is correct. Hanson showed himself to no longer be a neutral (if he ever was) investigator of facts.

Skeezicks: Hmmm, let's start at the beginning Karlock. I'll make it easy:
Is the Earth round or flat?
JK: Quit wasting our time.

Thanks
JK

JK, Max: Where did you guys learn rhetoric and debate, Dammasch? Please take a remedial course. Ciao.

JK,

Ice Age? Let's leave your wife out of this.

Seriously, are you able to cite whatever science you use to base your ideas that climate change and global warming are good for plants and therefore good for the planet?

And we might follow the money on those studies, too. Let us know.

Disclaimer: I'm not a scientist, engineer, protestor or misogynist.

Max,
Wow. For a lunker, you are dead on regarding the CFL's. It's like a monkey with a typewriter thing, eventually you were going to cough up something readable.
Good job dude!

Skeezicks,
Again you distort what I said.

Let me repeat: CO2 is good for plants.

That's all I said.
Thanks
JK

Skeezicks: And we might follow the money on those studies, too. Let us know.
JK: No need to. It is well known that the climate alarmists are getting billions, while the major skeptics are mostly unfunded.

BTW: scientists at the CRU, the IPCC's foundation, actually solicited money from oil companies. And Al “sex kitten” Gore has made millions from spreading the climate scare.

Multi-million dollar multinational corporations contributed about 1/3 of the papers used by the IPCC.

Read the actual Climategate emails and you'll see that you have been had by Al Gore's buddies.

Thanks
JK

"Climategate" exposed: Conservative media distort stolen emails in latest attack on global warming consensus
December 01, 2009 7:20 am ET
Since the reported theft of emails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, conservative media figures have aggressively claimed that those emails undermine the overwhelming scientific consensus that human activities are causing climate change, dubbing the supposed scandal "Climategate." But these critics have largely rested their claims on outlandish distortions and misrepresentations of the contents of the stolen emails, greatly undermining their dubious smears.
http://mediamatters.org/research/200912010002

Jon Stewart Rips Media For Ignoring 'Climategate' Debunking, Covering McRib Instead (w/VIDEO)
Huffington Post
First Posted: 10/27/11 10:51 AM ET Updated: 12/27/11 05:12 AM ET

On Wednesday night's "Daily Show," Jon Stewart picked up on a story that rocked the science world in 2009: the email hacking that exposed hundreds of exchanges between global warming scientists known as Climategate.

If you remember, the emails weren't a big deal because they proved anything, but because they suggested irregularities in data which in turn encouraged climate change skeptics to continue to deny global warming. As Stewart reminisced with a series of clips, Fox News pundits and conservative analysts on all the 24-hour news networks had a field day proclaiming that these emails proved global warming was a fraud. And it worked, too. As Stewart pointed out, studies show the amount of people who acknowledge global warming dropped nearly 20% since the emails were leaked.

Given the media circus that was Climategate, Stewart was shocked to learn that a study done by a noted climate change skeptic AND funded by Tea Party oil tycoons the Koch brothers which intended to disprove global warming recently reaffirmed the science behind it. What shocked him even more? How little coverage the findings, printed in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, received compared to that of McDonald's "McRib."

Watch the full segment above (or click here to watch on "The Daily Show" website) and be sure to watch Senior Correspondent Aasif Mandvi's follow-up report below.

Weathering Fights - Science: What's It Up To?
Science claims it's working to cure disease, save the planet and solve the greatest human mysteries, but Aasif Mandvi finds out what it's really up to.
Wednesday October 26, 2011
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-october-26-2011/weathering-fights---science---what-s-it-up-to-

Mojo quoted MediaMatters:
But these critics have largely rested their claims on outlandish distortions and misrepresentations of the contents of the stolen emails, greatly undermining their dubious smears.
JK: You have to be kidding! MediaMatters as a credible source - laughable.

Lets look at some of those “outlandish distortions and misrepresentations:”

Phil Jones - head of the Climatic Research Unit

Draft Contributing Author to the Summary for Policy Makers, and Coordinating Lead Author of Ch3 of the 4th UN IPCC report on climate change, AR4)
Jul 8 16:30:16 2004: I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is! (1089318616.txt)

16 Nov 1999: I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline. ( 942777075.txt)

------------------- Note: this is an extremely important admission: the “decline” he
-------------------is hiding is the temperature decline since 1961, in the tree ring data,
-------------------while the actual temperature rose. The existence of this decline suggests
-------------------that tree ring data can’t be trusted for any period, since it deviates
-------------------from measured temperatures in one period (after 1961.) This
-------------------is crucial as much of the IPCC case rests on tree rings.
Kevin Trenberth
Draft Contributing Author for the Summary for Policy Makers, contributing author to Ch 1, a lead author for Ch 3, and contributing author to Ch 7 of the 4th UN IPCC report on climate change, AR4.)

12 Oct 2009: ... we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on record. (...) and it smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. (...) The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't. (. . .) Our observing system is inadequate. (1255352257.txt)
-------------------
Oct 14, 2009: We are not close to balancing the energy budget. The fact that we can not account for what is happening in the climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopeless as we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not! It is a travesty! (1255523796.txt)

Michael E. Mann
Creator of the famous “hockey stick” shaped temperature curve prominently featured in the UN’s third climate report (tar) used by Al Gore.

27/10/2009, 16:54: As to the issues of robustness, particularly w.r.t. inclusion of the Yamal series, we actually emphasized that (including the Osborn and Briffa '06 sensitivity test) in our original post! As we all know, this isn't about truth at all, its about plausibly deniable accusations. (1256735067.txt)

Tom Wigley
Contributing Author to Ch 10 of of the 4th UN IPCC report on climate change.

Oct 14, 2009: ... there have been a number of dishonest presentations of model results by individual authors and by IPCC. (1255553034.txt)

You are ignorant because you refuse to look beyond the leftie/greenie world view.

Thanks
JK

And you're just plain ignorant, Jim. Sheesh. Now your latest whacky claim is to know what I look do and don't look at. No matter what, how you get from point A's to point C's is not a unique phenomenon, alas. "Jumpin' Jim Karlock."

JK there are a lot of good people doing good work for the ‘greenie organizations’ as you call them, however, when you find the likes of Henry or Merritt Paulson on the board of a nonprofit, you should question the organization's motives, ethics and real estate dealings. There will be resource exploitation, they are strategically maneuvering for the water, coal, minerals etc. on lands everywhere, I get that.

http://www.nationalcenter.org/PRPaulsonNatureConservancy606.html
http://www.nature.org/aboutus/governance/latin-america-conservation-council/index.htm

“You probably don’t know what life was like before coal.” I think I have an inkling. My mother is the first in my family with a written language, this language, before that ours was an oral history told in our own languages. There are many indigenous people here in the Pacific Northwest who know what life was like before coal and nuclear energy. We were doing just fine thank you very much.

The quality of life is decreasing for every living thing. The cancer rates are skyrocketing and with it we will soon see a reversal in the increase in life span.

This is the new culture, sadly everywhere:
http://olsonfarlow.com/portfolios/chinas-comfort-class

Thanks for the kind words clinamen.

http://olsonfarlow.com/editorial-images/china-one-dirty-coal-power-plant-online-every-four-to-five-days

There is a (dirty) coal power plant coming online every four to five days in China that could power a city the size of San Diego. Energy is wasted on an epic scale. One hundred cities with populations over 1 million faced extreme water shortages last year. China’s survival has always been built on the notion of a vastly powerful, infallible center. Thus, China has poor foundations on which to build the subtle network of institutions and accountability necessary to manage the complexities of a modern economy and society. The lack of independent scrutiny and accountability lies behind the massive waste in the Chinese government and destruction of the environment. Air pollution kills 400,000 people prematurely every year.

And yes, our desire for bright shiny useless, plastic junk, will come back on us.

Mojo: Now your latest whacky claim is to know what I look do and don't look at.
JK: Just a simple observation: you would not have said ”critics have largely rested their claims on outlandish distortions and misrepresentations of the contents of the stolen emails”, if you bothered to see if there was an other side (either that ,or you are being dishonest.)

sheila: There are many indigenous people here in the Pacific Northwest who know what life was like before coal and nuclear energy. We were doing just fine thank you very much.
JK: Now tell us about their average life-span, infant mortality, intertribal wars, slavery, education level, freedom, security of food.

sheila: The cancer rates are skyrocketing and with it we will soon see a reversal in the increase in life span.
JK: Not really, cancer is mostly a problem of old age. We have cured many of the causes of death at an early age, so are left with those things that cause deaths at an older age such as cancer. Curing cancer will be the next major medical advance.

sheila: There is a (dirty) coal power plant coming online every four to five days in China that could power a city the size of San Diego. Energy is wasted on an epic scale. One hundred cities with populations over 1 million faced extreme water shortages last year.
JK: How are these two things related? (It appears to be China’s problem.) Why do you care? Why should we care? (If you decide to tell us Chinese pollution is reaching the USA, please provide actual measured numbers compared to actual threshold of harm levels.) Further, I hope you are not suggesting that poverty stricken people should not use fossil fuels to improve their living condition.

sheila: China’s survival has always been built on the notion of a vastly powerful, infallible center. Thus, China has poor foundations on which to build the subtle network of institutions and accountability necessary to manage the complexities of a modern economy and society.
JK: Nice description of the problems of big government. Of course the opposite is a free market which simply lets people decide on what they want and lets other be free to fill those wants. Such markets have been with us since the days of the earliest settlements of primitive man. Unfortunately modern planners think they know how to make it better!

sheila: Air pollution kills 400,000 people prematurely every year.
JK: I have seen that claim. I have also seen claims that it is complete bull excrement. Please support that claim with a credible source. (As always, multinational, million dollar green corporation propaganda is NOT a credible source.)

Thanks
JK

Karlock, you're really goofy -- and a reckless reader. Apparently you're not happy enough trying to stuff your word pretzels into people's mouths, you've got to stuff obvious 3rd party quotes there, too. Maybe you need to get offline and go see a doctor. Really.

Could Rising Healthcare and Utility Bills Get Kentucky Off Coal?
Forbes.com | Jan. 24, 2012

Make no mistake: Kentucky is a coal state. Legislators have lined up time and again in support of the industry. The state’s governor famously told the EPA last year to “get off our backs” about the environmental impacts of coal.

But a report released this morning indicates that the winds of change may be blowing. The Health Impact Assessment on Coal and Clean Energy Options in Kentucky, prepared by the Kentucky Environmental Foundation collates all the available peer-reviewed reports on the health impacts of both coal production and various types of renewable energy production, in an attempt to encourage legislators who have historically ignored the environmental impact of coal to take a look at the health impacts associated with various energy production decisions.

****

The combination of rising utility bills and higher-than-average healthcare has residents starting to think coal may not be king after all. Marzian says she has no expectations that the Clean Energy Opportunity Act will pass this year, but that there is more dialogue now than there has been in the past, and more communication between the coal camp and the environmentalists. “We need to work with the coal folks, and reassure them that looking at renewables can be good for them too,” she says. “Once people know we aren’t interested in putting them out of work tomorrow, they’re more open to looking at new ideas.”

****

Coal industry spokespeople have long maintained that there are no negative health impacts to coal production, but the evidence is getting increasingly harder to discount, as are the stories of local residents, who are beginning to speak out against the companies.

"Anyone who says fly ash is not hazardous has never lived in close proximity to an ash landfill,” says Cathy Little, who lives near the Cane Run coal plant and coal ash site in Louisville. “This landfill is almost full and ash flies off the top of it. It’s on our cars, in our yard, and more importantly in our lungs. That combined with the smoke coming from the stacks creates dirty air, and yet the company is asking to build more. We have no buffer zones between our homes and the plant–our homes are within 50 yards of the ash hill and pond. The ash is everywhere. It’s hard to get it off our furniture–it takes an ammonia-based cleaner to get it off. Just imagine that same ash in your child’s lungs, concentrated with heavy metals. I don’t know what it’s done to my nine-year-old granddaughter in the short term or how it might develop in the long term, but many of the residents around here are suffering from respiratory illnesses, cancer, the list goes on and on.

Stories like Cathy’s are increasingly common in the state, as are studies like the one published in Environmental Research last year that found a 26-percent increase in the risk of birth defects in mountaintop mining communities, after controlling for all socio-economic risks, smoking, level of education and other factors.

Complete article at --
http://www.forbes.com/sites/amywestervelt/2012/01/24/could-rising-healthcare-and-utility-bills-get-kentucky-off-coal/

And for extra credit:
Fox News Inspiring Climate Science
Forbes.com | July 22, 2011 http://www.forbes.com/sites/amywestervelt/2011/07/22/fox-news-inspiring-climate-science/

sheila: The cancer rates are skyrocketing and with it we will soon see a reversal in the increase in life span.
JK: Not really, cancer is mostly a problem of old age. We have cured many of the causes of death at an early age, so are left with those things that cause deaths at an older age such as cancer. Curing cancer will be the next major medical advance.

Cancer is the leading cause of death by disease among U.S. children 1 to 14 years of age. Furthermore, there has been an increase in the incidence of children diagnosed with all forms of invasive cancer, from 11.5 cases per 100,000 children in 1975 to 14.8 per 100,000 children in 2004.

From The National Cancer Institute - Childhood Cancer Factsheet
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Sites-Types/childhood

[T]he 5-year survival rates for all childhood cancers combined increased from 58.1 percent in 1975–77 to 79.6 percent in 1996–2003 (2). This improvement in survival rates is due to significant advances in treatment....Long-term trends in incidence for leukemias and brain tumors, the most common childhood cancers, show patterns that are somewhat different from the others. Incidence of childhood leukemias appeared to rise in the early 1980s, with rates increasing from 3.3 cases per 100,000 in 1975 to 4.6 cases per 100,000 in 1985.

See also: Cancer Epidemiology in Older Adolescents and Young Adults 15 to 29 Years of Age, Including SEER Incidence and Survival: 1975-2000
http://seer.cancer.gov/publications/aya/

Excerpt:

• Non-Hispanic whites have had the highest risk of developing cancer during this phase of life, and Asians, American Indians and Alaskan Natives the lowest.
• Males had a worse prognosis than females. African Americans/blacks, American Indian/Alaska Natives had a worse prognosis than white non-Hispanics and Asians.
• At the beginning of the last quarter century, the diagnosis of cancer in 15- to 29-year-olds carried a more favorable prognosis, on the average, relative to cancer at other ages.
• Since then, there has been a lack of progress in survival improvement among older adolescents and young adults relative to all other ages.
• Survival improvement trends portend a worse prognosis for young adults diagnosed with cancer today than 25 years ago.
• The survival deficit is increasing with longer follow-up of the survivors, and is worse in males.

P.S.: Cancer is very big business, and a growth industry, Jim. Certainly, it's touched a lot of people who are regulars here on Bog's blog, too.

Peace, Jim. Best wishes, Mojo.

sheila: There are many indigenous people here in the Pacific Northwest who know what life was like before coal and nuclear energy. We were doing just fine thank you very much.
JK: Are you seriously saying that a society that had not invented the wheel, had no written language, heated with open wood fires, (dying early from the wood smoke inhalation), practiced slavery, mostly had not developed agriculture and died of cut fingers “doing just fine”!

All I can say is that you are going to love the world the Sierra Klub and other multilateral, multi-million dollar corporate greenies are leading us to. You’ll love watching half (or more) of your children die of cut fingers, or be eaten by those cuddly bears and wolves.

PS; Upthread you mentioned mercury pollution. Two questions:
1. How does the level of mercury pollution compare to the threshold of harm to humans? (Verifiable numbers please.)

2. What percentage of annual mercury emission is due to those power plants you are complaining about compared to natural emissions? (Verifiable numbers please.)

Thanks
JK

Mojo: you've got to stuff obvious 3rd party quotes there, too. Maybe you need to get offline and go see a doctor. Really.
JK:As usual you are wrong - all of the climate scientist’s quotes were by ME FROM THE ORIGINAL SOURCES. That is how you get accurate information. NOT doing that is why you are wrong about most things you have posted here.

Mojo: Could Rising Healthcare and Utility Bills Get Kentucky Off Coal?
Forbes.com | Jan. 24, 2012
JK: Why don’t you have a look at the actual study and see what it says AND since close to 50% of the peer reviewed papers turn out to be wrong, be sure to compare it with other studies. Once you do that, get back to us with an accurate representation of the current state of knowledge (which may change). Please note that the greenie multinational, multimillion dollar corporations never look beyond the headline because that is all they need to convince people like you to give them money.

Mojo quoting JK: sheila: The cancer rates are skyrocketing and with it we will soon see a reversal in the increase in life span.
JK: Not really, cancer is mostly a problem of old age. We have cured many of the causes of death at an early age, so are left with those things that cause deaths at an older age such as cancer. Curing cancer will be the next major medical advance.

Mojo: Cancer is the leading cause of death by disease among U.S. children 1 to 14 years of age. Furthermore, there has been an increase in the incidence of children diagnosed with all forms of invasive cancer, from 11.5 cases per 100,000 children in 1975 to 14.8 per 100,000 children in 2004.
...
• Non-Hispanic whites have had the highest risk of developing cancer during this phase of life, and Asians, American Indians and Alaskan Natives the lowest.
• Males had a worse prognosis than females. African Americans/blacks, American Indian/Alaska Natives had a worse prognosis than white non-Hispanics and Asians.
• At the beginning of the last quarter century, the diagnosis of cancer in 15- to 29-year-olds carried a more favorable prognosis, on the average, relative to cancer at other ages.
• Since then, there has been a lack of progress in survival improvement among older adolescents and young adults relative to all other ages.
• Survival improvement trends portend a worse prognosis for young adults diagnosed with cancer today than 25 years ago.
• The survival deficit is increasing with longer follow-up of the survivors, and is worse in males.
JK: How does any of your response relate to my claim? Where are your numbers comparing young people cancer with old people cancer?

For that matter where are the charts showing changes per capita of the various cancers for various age groups over multi decades of time?

Next what is the evidence as to the cause? (It might not be what you think.)

Again, you have just wasted our time with non-relevant stuff.

Thanks
JK