Whose Planet Is It, Anyway?

Take OUR Planet Back!

Will.i.am with Al Gore

Gore shows Senators New Climate Slides

Al Gore testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations at a hearing entitled "Addressing Global Climate Change: The Road to Copenhagen" on January 28, 2009.

His written testimony stated: "Most importantly, as long as we continue to depend on dirty fossil fuels like coal and oil to meet our energy needs, and dump 70 million tons of global warming pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet, we move closer and closer to several dangerous tipping points which scientists have repeatedly warned – again just yesterday -- will threaten to make it impossible for us to avoid irretrievable destruction of the conditions that make human civilization possible on this planet." His full written testimony is here.

In addition to his testimony, he presented an update of his slide show. A video of Gore's slide presentation is shown below in 2 parts.

First Part:


Second Part:

Risks of Coal Power Investment

NEW YORK - Coal-fired power plants are among the top emitters of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas contributing to global warming. A major owner of coal-fired power plants has agreed to let investors in on the financial costs of global warming. NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced Thursday that the energy company Dynegy Inc. has agreed to put detailed information in its financial filings on any material business risks posed by the outcry over climate change. That could include warning investors about looming government regulations that might make it more expensive to emit carbon, or the possibility that the company could be sued over pollution.

"You must disclose the risks that you are taking, and when you're building a coal-fired plant, you are truly creating many issues for years to come," Cuomo said. About the disclosure, he said, "It's not just good public policy, it's the law".

The agreement is the second of its type. Xcel Energy made a similar promise to Cuomo's office in August and the attorney general has pressured three other power firms to follow suit: AES Corporation, Dominion Resources and Peabody Energy.

Environmentalists applauded the deal. Former Vice President Al Gore, who appeared alongside Cuomo as he announced the arrangement in Manhattan, called the disclosure requirement "a new model to combat global warming."
The full reports are here and here.

Coal Power: Clean and Green?

While traveling along Interstate 70 in Pennsylvania, I saw several billboards like the one shown here. The message reads: "Welcome to Coal Country. COAL. Pennsylvania's #1 fuel for Electricity. NOW Clean and Green with New Technologies".

Amazing! Coal power is not only Clean, but also Green? Really? Ironically, one of the billboards was sited right in front of a wind farm! The wind turbine blades were spinning around, generating REAL Clean and Green Electricity. No need for a billboard advertising clean and green wind power when you've got the real thing! Big Coal is funding ads for the clean & green coal myth in order to remain in power, in more ways than one. Who are they fooling?

I don't know about you, but my image of coal is quite different than that portrayed by the coal power industry and their advocates. Everything about coal is dirty, and certainly not green: from extraction (including mountaintop removal, mining, and toxic runoff into waterways), to transportation (CO2 emissions plus coal dust from open railroad cars), incineration (massive CO2 emissions plus mercury, oxides of sulfur and nitrogen causing smog and acid rain, ozone pollution) and waste disposal. The photo of the two coal miners portrays some of the realities of coal...Not clean, Not green. Everything about coal is also Not healthy for people and other living things.

Coal power is on the way out, and renewable energy is moving in. Al Gore recently raised the bar on the clean energy time-line, calling for 100% renewable energy within 10 years. The coal industry is desperately fighting this sort of thinking, and is struggling to clean up its act and even trying to green it's image. Don't buy it. There's no such thing as clean coal power, and there never will be. And coal will be green...when pigs can fly.

A transition to 100% renewable energy would mean that coal miners will loose their jobs. Aware of that important concern, Al Gore said "We should guarantee good jobs in the fresh air and sunshine for any coal miner displaced by impacts on the coal industry. Every single one of them." I agree wholeheartedly.

POWERFUL SPEECHES by AL GORE in BALI

Videos of speeches by Al Gore at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Bali, Indonesia
- Particularly moving parts: Planetary emergency, Arctic ice melting, Challenge to speak out, U.S. obstructing progress, Future hope (4 min.): Click here.
- Full speech (10 min.): Click here.