We're Going to Continue Building Coal-Burning Power Plants

Until cost-effective new forms of energy that don't emit carbon are developed, coal burning power plants will be needed to fuel growth. This was demonstrated in South Africa lately, which was seeking World Bank funds to build a large coal plant. Building carbon-spewing plants is anathema to the global warming crowd, but without energy, how do you improve people's lives? Roger Pielke, Jr. is a professor at the University of Colorado who blogs about climate issues, and he's sort of in the middle of the dispute regarding climate change. Here's his post on the issue. And for a thought-provoking blog on the real meaning of "Earth Hour", and the need to relieve the billion or so people living in "energy poverty," take a look at Leigh Ewbank's post at the Breakthrough Institute. Consider this:

This thinking [that humans and their activities are by nature non natural and not part of the environment] is still prevalent in environmental thought and action, and has no doubt motivated the anti-Earth Hour backlash. Created by the US based libertarian think tank the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and promoted in Australia by the Conservative Leadership Foundation, Human Achievement Hour seeks to reframe energy use as a symbol of human greatness, not sin. It is a conservative rejection of a moralizing climate change discourse that promotes self sacrifice and the notion that humans ought to be ashamed of enjoying the benefits of a modern economy. Some environmentalists will dismiss the conservative critique that Earth Hour ignores human achievement as more right wing madness, reminiscent of the US Tea Party movement. Yet, the conservative claim is valid, and environmentalists ignore it at their peril.