Coal-fired power stations are death factories – close them:
“The climate is nearing tipping points. Changes are beginning to appear and there is a potential for explosive changes, effects that would be irreversible, if we do not rapidly slow fossil-fuel emissions over the next few decades. As Arctic sea ice melts, the darker ocean absorbs more sunlight and speeds melting. As the tundra melts, methane, a strong greenhouse gas, is released, causing more warming. As species are exterminated by shifting climate zones, ecosystems can collapse, destroying more species.”
Read this article by James Hansen, one of the world’s foremost climate change experts and wonder why the UK government seems hell bent of approving the Kingsnorth coal-fired power station. James Goddard is director of Nasa’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies in New York.
“Coal is not only the largest fossil fuel reservoir of carbon dioxide, it is the dirtiest fuel. Coal is polluting the world's oceans and streams with mercury, arsenic and other dangerous chemicals. The dirtiest trick that governments play on their citizens is the pretence that they are working on ‘clean coal’ or that they will build power plants that are "capture-ready" in case technology is ever developed to capture all pollutants”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/15/james-hansen-power-plants-coal
And “we must make coal-fired energy less toxic”
The Observer 15th February 2009
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/15/carbon-capture-coal-energy
And “How Britain can take a lead in the carbon battle”
The Observer 15th February 2009
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment