We Might As Well Face It- We Are Addicted To Coal

A few weeks ago two of us bloggers went to hear RFK Jr. speak at an event hosted by the NRDC. Let me just say up front- this man is my hero. He does everything I want to do! He is a lawyer but he fights against big polluters and advocates on the behalf of communities. He even sued Smithfield Foods- the pork company that was fodder for many of my grad school papers. He is a senior attorney for the NRDC, chief prosecuting attorney for Riverkeeper, and President of Waterkeeper Alliance. A little known fact- he is also an expert falconer. It would be hard to sum up everything he said. For that, I highly recommend his book Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy.
However, I will provide you some highlights of the night. First of all this talk was a welcome change from the Net Impact conference. That conference was highlighted by the financial gains that can be had by going green- something I just could not get on board with. One of the first things Mr. Kennedy said was that we need to protect our environment for ourselves and for good health! Amen! An investment in our environment is an investment in our future, our children and our health.
During the Bush years this country was run on "pollution based prosperity". I had some idea that the Bush administration was sprinkled with execs from the oil and energy industry, but after reading Kennedy's book I am appalled by the ridiculous cronyism that took place in the last 8 years. The people in charge of monitoring environmental policies are the ones breaking them everyday.
America suffers from a horrible disease- carbon addiction. We just cannot quit it. There are many other ways to provide energy to our country but we are ruled by the carbon class. The oil and energy companies are so in bed with the government and are major drivers behind energy and environmental policy. The government gives $1.3 trillion to oil subsidies. WHAT??? Perhaps that money would be more useful for organic food subsidies or wind turbine subsidies. Kennedy said that every nation that has decarbonized has experienced instant prosperity.
Mr. Kennedy wasn't saying anything new that we all haven't heard before. We must must must must wean ourselves from carbon. He provided some other little factoids that I find very persuasive:
1. We spend about $1 million a year on every soldier fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. If we ended the wars we could spend that money on solar, wind and geothermal energy.
2. We cannot have high speed rail in this country because all of the tracks are warped due to coal cargo trains.
3. We use 1,000 gigawatts of energy per day and 500 of those are carbon based.
4. $135 billion is spent on health care due to exposure to particulate matter and ozone.
I think as we head into Copenhagen these are all interesting things to think about... I thank Mr. Kennedy for reigniting my passion and reminding me why I switched careers in the first place.