Celebrate Our Coal, Come On!

onNov 13, 2007 @ 16:36 PST

This is probably not the celebration Kool and the Gang had in mind when they wrote their hit song “Celebration.”

But its America’s overabundance and over-reliance on the dirtiest form of electrical generation that has one industry front group celebrating.

Check out this website run by an organization called the “Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC), and in particular their “50% TV Spot” video. Apparently we should all be celebrating the fact that the United States generates 50% of its electricity from coal and there’s enough still in the ground to last another 200 years!

Now Kool and the Gang might not be to keen on all this – coal-fired electrical generation remains the dirtiest and most green house gas intensive form of energy.

I’m more inclined to think that those most likely to celebrate this are the 27 coal-based electrical providers listed as supporters on the ABEC website.

By Kevin Grandia

Kevin is a contributor and strategic adviser to DeSmog. He runs the digital marketing agency Spake Media House. Named a “Green Hero” by Rolling Stone Magazine and one of the “Top 50 Tweeters” on climate change and environment issues, Kevin has appeared in major news media outlets around the world for his work on digital campaigning. Kevin has been involved in the public policy arena in both the United States and Canada for more than a decade. For five years he was the managing editor of DeSmogBlog.com. In this role, Kevin’s research into the “climate denial industry” and the right-wing think tank networks was featured in news media articles around the world. He is most well known for his ground-breaking research into David and Charles Koch’s massive financial investments in the Republican and tea party networks. Kevin is the first person to be designated a “Certified Expert” on the political and community organizing platform NationBuilder. Prior to DeSmog, Kevin worked in various political and government roles. He was Senior Advisor to the Minister of State for Multiculturalism and a Special Assistant to the Minister of State for Asia Pacific, Foreign Affairs for the Government of Canada. Kevin also worked in various roles in the British Columbia provincial government in the Office of the Premier and the Ministry of Health. In 2008 Kevin co-founded a groundbreaking new online election tool called Vote for Environment which was later nominated for a World Summit Award in recognition of the world’s best e-Content and innovative ICT applications. Kevin moved to Washington, DC in 2010 where he worked for two years as the Director of Online Strategy for Greenpeace USA and has since returned to his hometown of Vancouver, Canada.

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