8 Ways to Sunday

What’s the word for the condition of being frenemies? Frenemiship? Franimosity? Someone help me out here, this is driving me nuts.

Sightline Daily pretty much hits the nail on the head, calling out “clean coal” as a mythical creature. The technology to capture and sequester carbon emissions from coal plants is entirely theoretical, and probably won’t be ready for practical application for another twenty years. We need climate change solutions that work now.

What the article doesn’t mention is that the process of extracting coal from the ground will always be incredibly dirty and environmentally unsound. Even if the carbon capture and sequestration tech was ready today, getting the coal from the earth would still require mining operations with devastating environmental impact.

Coal is one of the most abundant natural resources in the United States, and one of the most readily-available fossil fuels in the world. While there’s value in researching cleaner ways to exploit this resource, our focus should be on renewable energy sources that provide a cleaner long-term solution.

(Props: Seed’s Daily Zeitgeist and WorldChanging)

Update: The Reality Coalition TV Spot

12/13/2008 — An organization calling itself The Reality Coalition (a joint project of several environmentalist groups) has started running a sarcastic TV spot that points out the imaginary nature of “clean coal” tech. I caught it today while I was making and eating lunch.

I’m glad to finally see a counter to the coal industry’s disinformation campaign. If you’re interested, the Reality Coalition website has facts and details about coal’s environmental impact.

So icanhaz.com is my new favorite way of making short URLs, because LOLcats are still awesome. Shut up, they are so.

I challenge you to listen to “(Drawing) Rings Around the World” by Super Furry Animals without getting the urge to dance around the room. Seriously, if you don’t at least bop around in your chair a bit I’m pretty sure you have no soul.

Ignore the mediocre video; just close your eyes and soak up this song. Better yet: turn up the volume, step away from the keyboard, and dance like no one’s watching.

‘Scuse me; I have some boogieing to do.