- Almost 40% of U.S. global warming emissions come from 501 coal fired power plants. That's more than all trains, planes and cars combined, and the equivalent of 371 million automobiles.
- Americans emit 10x more carbon dioxide per person than in China, 20 times more than India.
- Just 50 new power plants would eliminates ALL the gains from the Kyoto protocol agreement.
Global warming is a serious problem with potentially dire consequences for civilization. Where does coal fit into this picture? About one third of CO2 emissions comes from coal, more than the emissions from auto, rail, and plane transport combined. As of this writing, there are over 100 new coal plants proposed in the United States, alone. Building even a fraction of these plants would introduce so much new CO2 into the atmosphere, that it would become impossible or extremely costly to achieve any net reductions in US CO2 emissions over the coming decades. This process is unfolding in the face of an explicit warning from the scientific community that the U.S. must reduce its emissions by 80% over the next 40 years if we hope to avoid the worst of the effects from Global Warming. And yet there are efforts underway to undermine the belief that coal is a threat. Here we will explore Coal and Climate Change in the following sections:
- If You’re Not Convinced
- Coal Combustion's Contribution to Global Warming
- Health and Environmental Effects of Global Warming
- Carbon Sequestration