Did the President have his fingers crossed

[pscot]

when he promised clean power?

the greenhouse gas reductions that will result from President Obama's Clean Power Plan, will be wiped out if his administration allows planned new coal leases to go ahead in the Powder River Basin mining region of Montana.

Right now, the Obama administration's Bureau of Land Management is planning to give out 16 new leases to coal companies to extract a whopping 10.2 billion more tons of coal from the Powder River Basin. If these leases go ahead and all of that coal is mined and burned, it would result in 16.2 billion more tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide being pumped into our atmosphere.

That is an absolutely astonishing amount of pollution. To put it into perspective, the total carbon emissions globally from fossil fuels in 2013 was 9.9 billion.

But here's the thing: if the coal is mined in the United States, but not burned in the United States, and is instead shipped overseas, the Obama administration does not have to take any responsibility for the resulting greenhouse gas emissions.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-grandia/upcoming-decision-by-obama_b_7455736.html?utm_hp_ref=gre

[arcane1]

1. Outsourcing emissions is a huge PR scam.

Maybe this is "clean" coal

[pscot]

2. Yeah, that's gotta be it. Clean coal

[kristopher]

4. That article is only a small slice of the picture.

It's an important on, and I'm not arguing against the general thrust of "it's a bad idea".

But...

This is also relevant to understanding the situation:

Fossil industry faces a perfect political and technological storm
http://www.democraticunderground.com/112786289

[GliderGuider]

3. It reminds me of a song by Tom Lehrer

"Vonce ze rockets are up, who cares vhere zey come down? That's not my department" says Wernher Von Braun...

"Hey, the carbon was in solid form when we dug it up and sold it to China! We are not responsible for what they did with it there!"