Thom Hartmann - Clean Coal - Lesson or Peril?

[thomhartmann]

Run time: 10:12 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ2QEl5h-FI   Posted on YouTube: April 09, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: April 10, 2009 By DU Member: thomhartmann Views on DU: 951

 
Clean Coal - Lesson or Perils? Thom mixes it up with Carrie Lukas on shutting down the coal industry www.iwf.org

[tabatha]

1. Carrie Lukas is an idiot.

She does not understand that the world's resources are finite - and many people are quite happy thank you not indulging themselves at others' expense.

[JDPriestly]

4. She is also wrong about Europe.

Everything is smaller in Europe. They don't have the wide open spaces that we have. Obviously, Europe has been home to complex societies for much longer than the U.S. That is why they generally live in smaller houses. But Thom is correct -- they live just as well as we do. Their houses may be smaller, but they enjoy better transportation, wonderful public parks and recreation facilities. If she is living in Austria, she knows that much of that country is mountainous and not easy to farm or live on. Europeans enjoy just as high a living standard as we do, but their environment is different than ours.

And, Europeans do travel -- a lot. They have fast trains and great transportation.

And, by the way, Thom could have asked her about the Austrian Kindergeld and health care system. I lived there some years ago and the social services were wonderful. Three years of free, half-day kindergarten in perhaps the best-run kindergartens in the world for every child.

[MedioGringo]

6. Oh they have wide open spaces...

...ours have been eaten away by urban sprawl. Texas is wide open but it's all private land. In places like Spain and France where cities are much more dense, once you get out of the city you're right out into beautiful countryside. Watch the Tour de France this year and you'll see.

Her argument that people don't have lots of kids in Europe because they can't afford it is BS too. How many poor people have 15 kids in the US? How man rich people have 1? Also, how much does is cost to send 2 children to college and pay for their health care for 18 years in the US, and how much does it cost in say France? Kids are way more expensive to raise here.

[JDPriestly]

8. I lived in the countryside in Germany. There aren't really very

many open spaces of the kind you find here in Wyoming or the western U.S. Try driving from L.A. up the eastern Sierras. There you see wide open spaces. I cannot think of any area in Europe in which there are national wilderness or park areas of the size of King's Canyon, Yellowstone or other American national parks of that size.

[MedioGringo]

9. Haha you're right about Wyoming, I've been there...

...and it's WIDE open. The national parks are definitely one of the best things about the US. I'm in NY now and we have the Adirondack park which is the size of Vermont. There's nothing that big in Europe. But when I was there, because of the denseness of the cities, I felt like you got out of the city and into the countryside much faster and less of it was ruined by urban sprawl. Plus you have the most amazing little rural villages up in the mountains that we don't have here, so I guess I'm sort of unfairly including those when I'm talking about open spaces.

[MedioGringo]

2. Grasping. At. Straws.

Actually, I'd love clean coal. We have enough coal to power the US for 100 years. By the time it runs out we'll be on cold fusion power. So if we can just get the clean technology right, we can survive off of coal until solar, wind and fusion become practical and cheap.

[20score]

5. One big problem with clean coal that isn't mentioned when people try to sell it, is the

extraction process.

Not even close to "clean."

[MedioGringo]

7. Hmm didn't know that...

...perhaps the extraction process can be cleaned up? I need to do more research.

[20score]

3. Good debate. I do wonder how she would react in a debate about over-population.

Although there are many here on this site that don't understand how that effects quality of life.

K&R

[ihavenobias]

10. K & R # 5 n/t

[Overseas]

11. Nov 2008 storm about Obama "wanting to bankrupt the coal industry"

The Wonk Room at Think Progress reviews the Nov 2008 right wing storm about candidate Obama calling for a cap and trade system:

Both presidential candidates, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) have called for a mandatory cap on carbon emissions in the United States. Coal-fired power plants, which produce about 49 percent of U.S. electricity, account for 83 percent of power-sector emissions. Because of the global warming footprint, the cheapness of coal-fired electricity is illusory. Under a cap-and-trade system, the cost of those emissions — now a market externality — would have a dollar cost. In a January 2008 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Obama used blunt language to describe how a cap and trade system would change the future of the power sector:

That will create a market in which whatever technologies are out there that are being presented, whatever power plants are being built, they would have to meet the rigors of that market and the ratcheted-down caps that are imposed every year. So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted. That will also generate billions of dollars that we can invest in solar, wind, biodiesel, and other alternative energy approaches.

The right wing has gone insane over these remarks, falsely claiming that Obama said he “will bankrupt the coal industry.” This false claim is the headline of a Newsbusters story — the same right-wing front group that falsely attacked Al Gore using doctored audio clips. This time, the piece is based on an anonymous YouTube video. After being pumped by a top link on the Drudge Report, the right-wing — including the Weekly Standard, Michelle Malkin, and Power Line — went wild and repeated the lie that Obama talked about “bankrupting” the “coal industry.”

Full Article here: http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2008/11/02/obama-coal-plants/

[Overseas]

12. Europeans do have a better quality of life with a smaller carbon footprint

Better national health systems -- nonprofit health care, free from fears of bankruptcy for a serious illness or accident

Better mass transit -- sure they cover a smaller land mass, but their great mass transit enables Europeans to travel to other countries more easily, and within their own countries

Better public education

Better food supply -- more whole foods, more monitoring and regulation of food safety, more relaxed enjoyment of sharing meals as leisurely entertainment

More support for small businesses and local markets rather than chain stores that eliminate local businesses by price gouging on products imported from countries with lower wages

Better support for labor unions and less of a gap between CEO and worker pay

[librechik]

13. Thanks for joining us, thom!

and welcome to DU!