Go coal! Go McCain!

[JR: McCain's policies would hit coal about as hard as Obama's. Oh, wait, I know, you just assume that McCain is lying about his plans to cut carbon emissions 60% to 70% by 2050. Yeah, that's the candidate to vote for -- the one who supports your position is only if he is a serial liar.]

http://www.sfgate.com/ cgi-bin/ blogs/ sfgate/ detail?blogid=42&entry_id=23562

Relevant comments are from 23:30 – 19:30 minutes. Here is my transcript. Just the comments that are in addition to the Youtube video and what Joe has provided above.

- – - – - Website audio – - –

Caillie Millner(?), one of the editorial writers. So Senator, you introduced a bill promoting coal-to-liquid fuels and then you said you’d only support them if they produced fewer greenhouse gases than gasoline. Now, all the scientific evidence points to coal being dirtier than pretty much anything else. So how are you going to square your support for coal with the need to fight global warming?

Obama – Oh, uh, I’ve already, I’ve already done it. You know, I voted against the Clear Skies Bill. In fact I was the deciding vote, despite the fact that I’m a coal state and that half of my state thought I’d thoroughly betrayed them. Because I think clean air is critical and that global warming is critical.

[ Skipping comments already blogged above ]

Obama – The point is, if we set rigorous standards for the allowable emissions then we can allow the market to determine, and technology and entrepreneurs to pursue what’s the best approach to take. As opposed to us at the outset saying – ‘here are the winners that we’re picking’ – and maybe we pick wrong and maybe we’d pick right.

http://www.sfgate.com/ cgi-bin/ article.cgi?f=/ c/ a/ 2008/ 11/ 03/ MNTL13SU6S.DTL&hw=marinucci&sn=001&sc=1000

McCain’s campaign just decided to highlight it now and spin it as a leak.

It is just recently being mined and exploited by an increasingly desperate right wing media.

80% of US CO2 emissions come from just 620 old coal plants.

Per MIT: “The central problem, Hogan says, is that 80 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide from electricity generation, and about a third of the nation’s overall emissions, come from just 620 coal-burning power plants. Thus, any attempt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions must focus squarely on addressing these plants.”

And…

A third of new capacity added last year was wind power
“For the third consecutive year, wind power was the second-largest new resource added to the US electrical grid in terms of nameplate capacity, behind the 7500 MW of new natural gas plants, but ahead of the 1400 MW of new coal. New wind plants contributed roughly 35% of the new nameplate capacity added to the US electrical grid in 2007″

But FutureGen was a boondoggle, and nobody in the coal industry responded in a way that might discourage similar charlatanry in future.

On the other hand, CO2 is not by far the only pollution problem that comes with coal. There is mercury, particulates, and many others.

A vote for John McCain is a vote for death by climate change.

Giving him the benefit of the doubt and accepting that he knows what the truth is, there is not other conclusion then John McCain wants us dead.

My friends, that’s just not pro life.