samhill wrote:What are we supposed to do allow something to keep running even if it's costing people their health & messing up the environment
it's progress but you'll notice I said it was short sighted on the part of the power companies & hopefully something cheap & safe will come along.
http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/201207 ... debar.aspx
What's the official position now?
We view natural gas as a significant source of air and water pollution and greenhouse-gas emissions. In addition to its large climate footprint, the extraction of natural gas is having a big impact on rural communities, state forests, and the landscapes that we've worked hard to protect. Our primary goal is still to retire coal plants as quickly as possible and replace them with genuinely clean energy like solar and wind. Investing in gas actually hinders deployment of wind and solar, so we want to leapfrog gas as we move to a clean-energy future.
What about recent studies that suggest that the extraction and burning of natural gas has a bigger impact on climate change than coal does?
They're alarming. Studies in places like the Marcellus Shale and Colorado have shown that the greenhouse emissions from natural gas are much, much worse than originally thought. Unfortunately, there isn't yet a comprehensive empirical analysis of the full carbon footprint of gas. So the Sierra Club—along with almost every other environmental group—is calling for a full study that documents those emissions and the extent to which they can be controlled or avoided altogether.