Celebrate Our Coal, Come On!

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This is probably not the celebration Kool and the Gang had in mind when they wrote their hit song โ€œCelebration.โ€

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

Check out this website run by an organization called the โ€œAmericans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC), and in particular their โ€œ50% TV Spotโ€ 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 200ย 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 ofย 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 ABECย website.

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Kevin is a contributor and strategic adviser to DeSmog. He runs the digital marketing agency Spake Media House. Named a โ€œGreen Heroโ€ by Rolling Stone Magazine and one of the โ€œTop 50 Tweetersโ€ 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, Kevinโ€™s research into the โ€œclimate denial industryโ€ 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 Kochโ€™s massive financial investments in the Republican and tea partyย networks. Kevin is the first person to be designated a โ€œCertified Expertโ€ on theย political and community organizing platformย 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 worldโ€™s best e-Content and innovative ICTย 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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