Forum Post: Send a letter to the POTUS and share it with the Public. Subject: There is no such thing as clean coal. 8/09/2012
Posted 11 years ago on Aug. 9, 2012, 9:30 a.m. EST by DKAtoday
(33802)
from Coon Rapids, MN
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
If you don't Speak-Up Speak-Out - Who Will??? Fossil Fuel???
Obama Slams Romney For Having Admitted Coal Plants ‘Kill People’
The Obama campaign should pull its cynical pro-coal campaign ad.
Part of leadership is having the courage to tell the truth even when it's difficult.
And right now we need leadership from President Obama to overturn a decision by his campaign to run radio ads in Ohio which promote coal and incredibly actually criticize Mitt Romney for saying (when he was a different person, in 2003) that the pollution from coal plants kills people.1
The reality is that Romney's campaign is being buoyed by a massive injection of cash from fossil fuel polluters like the Koch brothers. And he's pulling his pro-coal talking points straight from the Tea Party. So an ad suggesting that President Obama is more coal-loving than Romney isn't just cynical, it's misleading.2
The ad reflects clear political pressure President Obama is feeling in swing states like Ohio.
But is the Obama campaign actually misguided enough to think that anyone whose number one issue is promoting dirty coal would also be misguided enough to vote for Obama instead of Romney?
The real story is that, while President Obama has a mixed record on coal, he's done some very good things — things Mitt Romney would reverse on day one. Even though the Obama campaign ad criticizes Romney for saying that coal pollution kills people, President Obama's EPA has implemented the long-overdue Clean Air Act update to limit, for the first time, toxic mercury pollution from coal plants. It also introduced the Carbon Standard, which, while it does little to fundamentally reduce pollution, is a vital recognition of the need to cut off polluters' ability to freely dump climate-heating carbon pollution into our atmosphere.
President Obama's have-it-both-ways, "all-of-the-above" rhetoric threatens not just to undermine these policies and others that support clean energy, but to undermine the progressive support for his candidacy that helped usher him into office in 2008.
The people of Ohio know that fossil fuel pollution tends to punish most those who can least afford to move away from it. From lung disease for generations of miners who have been left with no choice but to work in coal mines, to water pollution which increases cancer rates, to power plant pollution which causes everything from asthma to neurological damage. And of course the climate pollution from burning coal is an ominous and growing cloud over all of our futures.
As the leader we elected on his lofty promises to stop the rise of the oceans and heal the planet, President Obama should be laying out a better way forward. Not perpetuating the myth that burning coal has a viable place on a livable planet, or criticizing "Etch-a-Sketch" Romney for a fleeting and long-gone true statement about dirty coal.
Click below to automatically sign the petition: http://act.credoaction.com/r/?r=6936852&p=ofa_coal_ad&id=44822-4904244-ZEF7ZHx&t=10
Thank you helping to keep our country moving forward, not backward.
Elijah Zarlin, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets
P.S. — Here's the full transcript of the ad:
Barack Obama: "I'm Barack obama, candidate for President, and I approve this message."
Narrator: "When he ran for President, Barack Obama pledged to support clean coal and invest in new technologies. And here in Ohio, coal production has increased 7% since Obama took office. Ohio coal jobs are up 10%. Obama's also made America's largest investment ever in clean coal technology. A $5 billion effort to create the next geneartion of coal fired plants. And under Obama natural gas production is at an all time high. With shale gas deposits across Appalachia, thousands of good jobs are on the way. And Mitt Romney? He's attacking the President's record on coal. But here's what Romney said in 2003 at a press conference in front of a coal plant: 'I will not create jobs or hold jobs that kill people. And that plant, that plant kills people.' So when it comes to coal, ask yourself: Who's been honest, and who's playing politics?"
Barack Obama: "Paid for by Obama for America."
1. "New Obama ad hits Romney on coal 'kills people' remarks," Politico 8/6/12
There is no such thing as "clean" coal.
Images for coal ash spill Tennessee
http://site.pfaw.org/site/R?i=fpQqgmTwryElDB-lATsbNg
Inside the Tennessee Coal Ash Spill - The Daily Beast www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/07/17/toxic-tsunami.html Jul 17, 2009 – Inside the largest industrial spill in American history. How coal ash ruined one Tennessee town—and why it could happen again.
Images for coal ash spill lake Michigan
U.S. EPA Sued over Toxic Coal Ash Disposal
Environmental Groups Target Coal Ash Disposal
Coal Ash Sites Across the Country - Sierra Club
Spread the word.
You want proper jobs stimulus?
You want a strong and clean Power/Energy Infrastructure?
You want to stop poisoning the air land and water?
You want to save the environment from destruction for fossil fuel extraction?
WE HAVE THE NEEDED TECHNOLOGY - "NOW" - WE JUST NEED TO USE IT.
Spread the word.
Green Tech. New and improved - now with Liquid Metal Battery for efficient power storage and distribution.
This is where we should be going: Green Energy we have the technology we just need to use it. This is what I am talking about. A clean future to be implemented NOW!
http://www.hopewellproject.org/
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/ff_new_nukes/all/1
FuelCell Energy http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/news/progress_alerts.cfm/pa_id=600
You have got to watch this vid: The liquid Metal Battery - another piece to the puzzle.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/donald_sadoway_the_missing_link_to_renewable_energy.html
Additional Liquid Metal Battery links.
http://lmbcorporation.com/files/flyerFinal.pdf
Support green energy technology - industry - jobs. Save our world save our economy.
Rework free trade agreements as they are currently detrimental to the Business, Employment, Economic and Environmental health of the USA and in extension the world.
Put an end to outsourcing for Profit over People and the environment.
Stop world wide corporate abuses of people and environments.
If you would like to contact the President or the Whitehouse:
http://www.barackobama.com/contact-us/ or email info2012@barackobama.com
You can also make contact here:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments
GoodNight GoodMorning GoodDay GoodAfternoon GoodEvening EverBody. See ya'll again in about 8hrs or so.