Saturday, December 13, 2008

The War Between The Climate Change Trade Associations

They spend hundreds of millions of dollars fighting each other on television, in newspapers and on Capitol Hill. And America's energy soul is at stake. So is the planet's climate. Yet will these expensive ad wars make any real difference. Wouldn't that money be spent better if invested in technology, including renewables and carbon dioxide capture and conversion?

The Alliance for Climate Protection is the environmental groups' coaliton that is sponsoring those goofy 'clean coal' ads [ThisIsReality.org campaign] you see where the guy in a hard hat goes through a door and stands in the desert, then points out the clean coal technology at work--but nothing is there but desert--get it? The coalition includes the Sierra Club and National Resources Defense Council, among many others. The coal industry formed a trade association called the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity to promote its product.

While the Alliance for Climate Protection and the American Coaliation for Clean Coal Electricity spend hundreds of millions fighting with each other, the Center is promoting a practical solution to the problem of carbon dioxide capture and reuse. It is called Energy Defense Reservations and generally converting carbon dioxide into gasoline. Since the federal government is in a generous mood, it should direct significant funding into the EDR, oxycombustion retrofits and pipeline construction.

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