My family and I had the opportunity to travel to Nashville, Tennessee for a conference held by a “green” company.  Since we love to travel, we drove the many miles across Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky and Tenessee to get to our destination.  Car travel allows us to see many things we wouldn’t see if we took a plane. 

As we traveled down Interstate 79, I spotted a billboard that had me practically yelling at my poor husband.  “Did you see what that said?!  Can you believe that?!!” My husband who had been quite correctly looking at the road while he drove calmly said, “What did you see?”.  I’m afraid I didn’t calmly reply.  ”That billboard back there said ‘Coal – Clean Green Energy’ ! ”

My husband was sure I had read it wrong but I assured him it was true.  And I find that I wasn’t the only one who noticed. The “Coal as Green Energy” campaign is funded by the coal industry itself even though it wants to appear to be a grassroots effort by families to promote coal as a non-polluting energy source.  This is probably one of the most laughable ideas I have ever seen.  I live in Western PA and I can tell you coal is anything but clean, green energy!

The FORCE group that started this campaign was started and paid for by a coal company.  The president of FORCE (who also happens to own a coal industry related company) actually goes so far as to say that coal is a renewable resource.  Either the man is uneducated as to what constitutes a renewable resource or he is just OK with making up his own truth.  Coal is a fossil fuel that is not renewable.  The mining of coal pollutes water, causes erosion, and pollutes air as the coal is transported.  The conversion of coal to energy releases CO2 gases along with numerous other toxins.

Coal is necessary right now to produce electricity, and some coal companies are trying to lessen the environmental damage they create. But, advertising coal as a clean, green, renewable energy is simply not truth.