Phasing out coal is the most significant environmental change the US can make

I'm sorry?!?! You are kidding aren't you!?!

Could you show us the part of the legislation that supports your opinion?

Sediment in waters ways is pollution. To argue it isn't is just plain bizarre.
What don't you understand about s32 of the EPP(Water) QLD?

Soil is a natural substance beneficial to plants. It can also be a pollutant. Just like CO2

 

No that is a view of the Earth from space. You do know that we can see photos of the Earth taken from space nowadays don't you? But then, I guess you'd rather believe what someone tells you rather than seeing with your own eyes...

 

Wow - you really don't get it. A single picture? Yeah, and..

No citation for the picture, so who the hell knows where it came from.

It clearly has been enhanced - maybe time for glasses for you?

No time series = no basis for any change etc...

Anyone who thinks a single doctored picture of anything is - well - not going to understand the science they seek to

 

Not according to Michele Bachmann:

 

I guess you'd rather believe what someone tells you rather than seeing with your own eyes...

 

someone should challenge Bachmann to suck on a tank of pure CO2 for a minute as it's so harmless...the cliche "kill two birds with one stone" comes to mind...

 

Sorry for the delay.
just on treasury analysis that the Gillard governement proclaimed agreed with her

http://www.countercurrents.org/polya180711.htm
Have you refutable evidence?

 

Perhaps you should have taken into account

Perhaps if you do not understand what this implies (which I am sure you do not)

As to your sediment.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/sediment

Perhaps we should rid the world of river beds, dirt, water... Do you really understand the terms you write? According to you everything is a pollutant.

I’ll get back to about your last, obvious, ill-informed request.

 

But coal is bad, right? Just ask President Obama, any of his so-called environmental and science advisers, and any major environmental organization. This kind of thinking leaves America vulnerable, particularly in light of the fact that a growing population requires the production of more energy, particularly electricity.

What you’re not being told is that, ever since the enactment of the Clear Air Act in 1970, as amended in 1990, the most stringent air pollution law in the world has been in effect. American industry has spent an estimated $350 billion since 1970 to clean the air and each year the cost for pollution control runs about $33 billion.

According to the Electric Power Research Institute, pollution control equipment accounts for up to 40% of the cost of a new power plant and 35% of operational costs. These costs represent about $10 billion of the nation’s electric bills each year and consumers will pay more if the Clean Air Act is amended to be even more stringent. A single “scrubber” in a coal-fired plant can cost more than $100 million to construct and many millions to operate. There are at least 200 of these in operation or soon will be. Someone has to pay for all this clean air and that someone is YOU.

All around the world coal continues to be the energy source of choice. Americans who have plenty of it should, by any rational standard, be thrilled to use it. When our domestic coal is exported, it generates $4.1 billion and presently represents 2.5% of all U.S. exports.

For these reasons, the electricity it produces, the jobs it represents, the value as an export, and the way it does all this without polluting the air, there is ample cause to celebrate coal, glorious, coal.

Editor’s note: If you want to follow energy trends and news, visit http://masterresource.org. It’s an excellent source along with www.energytribune.com.



http://anxietycenter.com/energy/main.htm

 

Especially where you live, eh?

Citation for the costs please - no citation = highly suspect.

Citation for the cost of NOT cleaning up the air please, because without that you are only telling one side of the story.

 

Of course someone has to pay. Unless you want our cities looking like this:


The cost of cleanup are part of the hidden costs of using FF. That is why it is unfair to compare cost of using FF with cost of using alternative energies without taking into account hidden costs such as environmental costs

source of image: Chinadigitaltimes.net

 

That's the way it works. The environmentalists ought to be honest about all of this instead of continuing to condemn the US. We are by far the cleanest nation on the planet.

 

That is factually incorrect based on the Environmental Performance Index (EPI).

"Columbia University's Center for International Earth Science Information Network and Yale University's Center for Environmental Law and Policy developed the index to highlight the cleanest countries, and give laggards the opportunity to benchmark efforts to improve their own environments and the health of their citizens.

Switzerland tops the list with an overall EPI score of 95.5 out of 100, while European countries account for 14 of the top 20 environmental performers. Europe has the infrastructure to provide clean drinking water and treat waste water, lowering the likelihood that Europeans will suffer from waterborne disease. Europe scores consistently well in EPI's environmental health ranking, which measures the effects of pollution on human health.

A second broad measure, ecosystem vitality, measures the health of fisheries, the amount of greenhouse gases a country pumps into the air and how well it preserves the diversity of its plants and animals. On this measure, the performance of developed countries diverges. Scandinavia, with its low population and vast open spaces, enjoys pristine forests and relatively little air pollution.

The U.S., once a leader in environmental protection, has failed to keep pace. "Starting 25 years ago, the United States started to fall behind in relative terms. Before that time, Europe always had dirtier air and drinking water," says Mark Levy, associate director of Columbia University's earth science center.

Then-President George H. W. Bush signed the last significant American air quality legislation in 1990, an amendment to the Clean Air Act. The U.S. scores a meager 63.5 on the ecosystem vitality scale, vs. an average score of 74.2 for the world's richest nations. The U.S.' overall EPI score is 81, putting it in 39th place on the list."

http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/15/worlds-cleanest-countries-business-energy-clean-countries.html

 

Yet Europe just went through an e-coli outbreak. Does the report cover the particulate pollution from the diesels European's love?

Does it take into account that Europe, having been civilized for thousands of years, builds compact (public transportation friendly) cities, not out of environmental concerns, but because they needed every scrap of land for farming?

How many people in the US are harmed by this low EPI score? How many would be saved with a score of 100? How does that number compare to those injured and killed in econobox car crashes?

 

That is a food handling issue - not the same thing. Nice try.

 

If fecal matter isn't pollution, we don't have a clean waterh problem...

Same thing.

 

No, not the same thing. Nice (second) try however.

 

Then, you can be exposed to unlimited amounts of fecal matter without harm?

Fecal matter and CO2 are both biological byproducts. Burning fossil fuels just releases biologically concentrated carbon.

You can't have it both ways.

 

Here is the NASA pollution map. It shows PPM for all "irritating or dangerous" particulate matter.

The outsourcing of our heavy industry has resulted in China picking up the nasty environmental costs, while we have cleaner air than Germany, Belgium and France.



America is the country contributing the LEAST to world wide air pollution. You people are full of it with your chicken little claims.

 

Sediment certainly is a pollutant when it is added to waterways.

As you quoted for us:

Indicators for environmental values
8.(1) An “indicator” for an environmental value is a property that is able
to be measured or decided in a quantitative way.
Examples— The concentration of chromium, pH value and Secchi disc clarity are commonly used indicators.

Do you know what a Secchi disc measures? Probably not - let me tell you. Turbidity.

An “indicator” for an environmental value is a property that is able to be measured or decided in a quantitative way. Turbidity is able to be measured or decided in a quantitative way. Increasing turbidiy impacts on a waterway's environmental values. To increase turbdity is to pollute the water.

Putting sediment into a waterway increases turbidity. It is pollution. That is why it is an offence under s32 of the EPP (Water) QLD


Soil is a natural substance beneficial to vegetation It may also be a pollutant. Just as CO2 is a natural substance beneficial to vegetation It may also be a pollutant.

Yes - please do that. I can't wait.

(NB - I did warn you not to try to argue environmental legislation with me. You are way, way out of your depth.)

 

Faecal matter is a naturally occurring plant food.

There seem to be many here that want to tell us that "naturally occurring plant foods" like CO2 can't possibly be pollutants. Perhaps you could tell they are full of faecal matter.

 

Nice strawman! A map of particulate matter does not include all forms of pollution. The discussion was on the total cost (including environmental) of FF use. How is sand over the desert relevant?
China has areas with the worst pollution followed by the US and then Europe.

source ESA

 

We exchange CO2 with each other, and with other animals, all day long with no ill effects.

Exchanging even a small amount of fecal matter results in illness. Fecal matter is so effective, it has even been weaponized.

Which is the more dangerous "pollutant"?

 

That is ridiculous - we're talking about massive scale, trillions of tons here, not what you exhale.

If we were pumping trillions of tons of an acid called C5H4N4O3 you'd want that regulated as well. (btw - this is uric acid)

 

I'll ask my friend Dirty Sanchez, and get back to you.