Coal: The Most Inconvenient Truth

Today’s New York Times discusses a coal mining accident which has killed 35 miners and trapped 44 in Pingdingshan, in China’s Henan province. The accident came only three days after Chinese Deputy Prime Minister Zhang Dejiang announced that coal miners’ safety was a priority. But coal endangers more than just those who excavate it. In the latest edition of Boston Review, Victor and Morse examine the perils of the status quo and the improbability of dramatic change.

In their article, V&M note that “every stage of the coal business is hard on the environment.” They contend that to check the progress of global warming, scientists estimate that emissions need to be halved by 2050. “For countries that care the most about global warming,” they argue, “a global halving of emissions means making much deeper cuts of their own so that developing countries that put a lower priority on the problem have room to grow.”

As the Kyoto Protocol, an international and legally binding agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, nears expiration in 2012, global leaders can only confront or postpone grim choices. The Bush administration did not send delegates to Kyoto, and Obama supported clean coal technology as part of his campaign. In December, international climate talks in Copenhagen, hosted by The United Nations Framework Read the rest of this entry »