Coal the true bad guy?

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By Bram Kivenko on 19 February 2012 - 11:14pm

Here is an article in the Globe and Mail.  It's instructive to read it to understand what appears to be the latest strategy in evading criticism from ACC advocates.  I hope you'll see, just as I did, that the analysis in the article completely misses the point, which is the carbon footprint as a ratio of useful energy extracted (among other things.)  It's obviously easy for Harper to blame all the world's problems on coal instead of oil sands.  The argument is fundamentally disingenuous.

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You are not alone

Submitted by David Barclay on 22 February 2012 - 9:20am.

You can't fool ALL the people ALL the time.  But it is irresponsible for the Globe to even publish this 'story' (i.e. distortion) without a rebuttal article.

Thanks for bringing it to light.  Some responses:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/feb-22-letters-to-the-edito...

Respectfully, D. Scott Barclay

HuffPo points out tar sands/coal connection

Submitted by Erich Jacoby-Hawkins on 26 February 2012 - 11:40pm.

This article at the Huffington Post makes some good points, one being that oil (diesel) is a vital ingredient in the mining and transport of coal. So proposed pipelines to the US or "gateway to Asia" are a key part of enabling American and China to burn more coal.

You can't treat a massive undertaking like the tar sands in isolation - it's intimately tied in to all the other major GHG source activities, including not just coal but deforestation and sprawl and agri-industry.

Erich Jacoby-Hawkins, Barrie ON - although I'm on Cabinet (Nat'l Rev. and Ecol. Fiscal Reform), views here are my own and may not reflect official GPC positions. Please visit www.ErichtheGreen.ca