Notes from My Purple State: "A Coal-Fired War"Jesse Zerger Nathanbyline‚ Feb. 07‚ 2007The game is up. Actually, it’s been up for a while. But now, there must be no doubt, says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—an organization of several thousand scientists from all over the world—that the human consumption of fossil fuels is radically altering the global environment. Temperatures and sea levels are rising at higher-than-predicted rates. Stronger storms can be definitively linked to global warming, warns the organization. And yet, for some reason, a hodgepodge of blind or fearful or bullheaded Americans still want to invest in a fossil fuel future. Sunflower Electric Company, a Kansas-based utility, has asked the state for permission to expand its already existing coal-fired power plant in Holcomb, Kansas into three new 700 Megawatt guzzlers. And in this purple state, that request has made coal the most divisive issue since Darwin. |