the return of coal

With oil prices skyrocketing everyone is busily looking for relief. They are also busily ignoring the simplest and by far the most rational solution: consume less. Reducing consumption is what people should focus on now. More than half of our energy use is downright wasteful and does nobody any good whatsoever. It is wasted in heating and cooling of empty residences, office buildings and the like. It is wasted in illuminating the night -and quite often the day- sky. It is burned up sitting in endless traffic jams and countless trips to the shopping mall where we buy more energy-hogging appliances, tools and toys.

And speaking of shopping malls, Memorial day is just around the corner. A double whammy. Big sales and the the official start of what is known as the (summer) driving season. For good measure stores have been announcing pre-Memorial Day sales. Why not get into the action a bit early? Anything we can do to support waste. How many people remember what Memorial Day is all about?

The reason why people ignore the best solution is simple: nobody stands to gain anything from less consumption. Nobody makes any money this way. As a matter of fact, many stand to lose money if consumers were to decide to stop wasting stuff. Our economy is totally dependent on discretionary spending. So spending less means recession, a word we have learned to fear as the black plague. And speaking of black, the black stuff known as coal is making a comeback.

However, we do not want to think of coal as black. That carries bad connotations. Coal is so polluting that lobbyists have coined the term clean coal. Clean coal is mirage much like those now-empty homes in the Arizona desert. That is why companies are starting to run ads to convince us there is such a thing as clean coal. Doublespeak anyone?

The run to coal is accelerating and with every rise in the price of oil, the pace increases. The NYT ran an article recently documenting the return to coal. Unfortunately for the environment we all live in, the US has plentiful coal supplies. And so does China. The two biggest polluters on the planet have the largest in-house reserves. Reserves to their ever increasing energy thirst. Nothing much good can come of this. It is akin to a bunch of heroin addicts with their own poppy growing plantations.

The Bush administration is not sitting still either. Ever busy behind the scenes to do whatever it can to please the energy industry, the administration is quietly attacking existing EPA rules. It aims to overturn as many as it can, while taking the teeth out of the others. Federal laws and regulations are weakening under its relentless onslaught. The situation has gotten so out of hand that states and local governments have tried to pick up the pieces. And here is where the Bush-Cheney legacy is perhaps most telling. The Federal government is working overtime trying to repeal, stall, or nullify state and local initiatives. Talk about Republican values and less government intervention.

The government is also promoting its assets. The Department of Energy website proudly proclaims:"Coal is one of the true measures of the energy strength of the United States. One quarter of the world's coal reserves are found within the United States, and the energy content of the nation's coal resources exceeds that of the world's known recoverable oil. Coal is also the workhorse of the nation's electric power industry, supplying more than half the electricity consumed by Americans. " Hallelujah. Citizens rejoice. Start your plug-in hybrids and inhale those fumes.

We surely have enough coal here to turn our little planet into another Venus. For those of you who haven't caught on yet, the rules of the game are quite simple. He or she who dies with the most goodies wins !