Climate Change and Coal

Coal mining is notorious for trapping miners and causing black lung, but that isn’t why Jim Hansen, the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, calls coal-fired power plants “death factories” and urges world leaders to close them.

Climate change threatens the world’s water resources, coastal communities, and our continued existence on planet earth. And coal is fueling climate change: 40 percent of America’s greenhouse gas emissions come from coal-fired power plants, which pump out billions of tons of carbon pollution annually.

The coal industry and their lobbyists want you to believe coal is clean, but it’s a dirty lie. From mining it to burning it, coal is a filthy source of energy and will never be “clean.” The truth is that coal pollutes our water, devastates forests and mountains, kills wildlife and causes climate change. Coal has poisoned our drinking water and our fish, contaminating out bodies and babies with mercury and other toxins.

Clean coal is a dirty lie, and our campaign against it hits its one-year anniversary in February. Our efforts to raise awareness on thedirtylie.com, support member organizations with local advocacy, and create e-activism are ramping up to take on the investment bankers who are bankrolling the coal industry and its destructive practices.

In an upcoming event (kept on the down low for now), we’re partnering with other environmental organizations to protest JPMorgan Chase’s use of your money to fund clean coal’s dirtiest little secret—mountaintop removal coal mining—despite portraying themselves as a squeaky clean financial institution.

We’ll announce the details of that event soon, but anyone can sign up for alerts about the soon-to-be-announced event, take action and get information about the amazing atrocities the coal industry and its backers are committing, at thedirtylie.com.