Perhaps the scariest piece of this article is the opening:
According to the American Heritage Dictionary, a suicidal act is one that is “dangerous to oneself or to one’s interests; self-destructive or ruinous.” By this standard, the coal boom that is currently sweeping America is the atmospheric equivalent of a swan dive off a very tall building. At precisely the moment that scientists have reached a consensus that we need to drastically cut climate-warming pollution, the electric-power industry is racing to build more than 150 new coal plants across the United States.
We really are committing suicide…just in the slowest, most painful way possible. If its not my generation, its the next one that will be most threatened.
I agree that what is driving this effort is money. Take, for instance that TXU’s third quarter profits for 2006 were $1 billion — which the article points out, is more than Google and Apple combined. The race to build these new 150 coal fired plants makes more sense — there’s billions in contributing to our own extinction.
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Written by Japhet
Topics: Finance