News
NY Times Columnist Tom Friedman Urged to Look at Entire Life Cycle of Coal
Thursday, March 18th, 2010
Instead of interviewing only corporate CEO’s and clean tech innovators, it’s time for Friedman to come down to the dusty soil and interview coal miners, afflicted residents and farmers and children in the coalfields, and the millions of people who are paying the price for many of these so-called “clean energy” alternatives.
-Jeff Biggers, in a recent column for the Huffington Post.
Friedman, in a recent column, quoted a Peabody Energy official as saying that with a new burning process in place, “coal-fired power would become more than 100 percent clean.” While this technological innovation may reduce emissions around coal-fired power plants, heralding it as a complete solution totally ignores the health, economic and environmental problems of communities where coal mining occurs.
Friedman’s column is an example of the huge blindspot in the “clean coal” rhetoric, and of an unwillingness to look at the entire life cycle of coal-fired power. It promotes a “solution” that in reality would only increase the daily suffering of people in coal-mining areas. Biggers wrote, “Instead of continuing the staggering human and environmental costs of coal for another century, you would think Tom Friedman–and our nation–would pursue truly clean energy alternatives today.”
