April 30, 2010

Earth Day Reminder of Fossil Fuel Costs


The oil rig which exploded off the Louisiana coast, a tragic reminder of why the movement that mobilized forty years ago for Earth Day is still so necessary, has now sunk below the waves in a fiery grave, spilling thousands of gallons of oil underwater with eleven men dead. 


Grist's Jonathan Hiskes notes that this comes within weeks of:
– The awful coal-mine explosion that killed 29 men under the criminal safety record of Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship.
– The crash of a coal freighter into the fragile Great Barrier Reef as it tried to take a shortcut from Australian mines to Chinese furnaces.
– The Tesoro oil refinery explosion that killed five workers in Washington state.
– The spillage of 18,000 gallons of crude oil from a Chevron into a canal in the Delta National Wildlife Refuge, also in Louisiana.
The cold reality is that fossil fuel production, just like its combustion, is neither clean nor safe, despite the endless propaganda from the mouthpieces of Big Oil and King Coal.

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