Welcome to the Clean Coal Body Slam

I am thrilled to announce the launch of Coal-is-Dirty.com. This site was built by my company Catalyst Internet, Inc in conjunction with Junxion Strategy, Inc. for the DeSmogBlog team. It is a tool aimed at challenging the idea that coal is a viable fuel for our future energy needs.

Working with the DeSmogBlog team has been a great experience, and I have learned a lot from them about high-stakes PR, astroturfing, greenwashing and how the spin machine works. I have reposted Kevin Grandia’s launch message below. Please visit the site to see it in its entirety.

Welcome to the Clean Coal Body Slam

by Kevin Grandia

For too long the idea of clean coal has gone unchallenged.

A lot of people have received an email from yours truly over the last four months with the subject line: “Clean Coal Body Slam.” I thought it explained the intentions of this project very well.

Along with Greenpeace USA and Rainforest Action Network, we have pulled together some of the best and most outspoken leaders on the environmental, public health and economic effects of America’s addiction to coal, including:

Jeff Goodell, contributing editor at Rolling Stone and author of Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America’s Energy Future.

Jeff Biggers, author of In the Sierra Madre and The United States of Appalachia and a regular contributor on Huffington Post.

Page van der Linden, contributing editor on Daily Kos and longtime campaigner on nuclear and coal issues.

Kert Davies, Research Director for Greenpeace in the United States and the architect for the well-known ExxonSecrets.org campaign and the recently launched StopGreenWash.org

JW Randolph, staff Legislative Associate for the powerful Appalachian Voices organization and manager of the Appalachian Voices blog.

Ted Nace, the director of Coal Swarm, a group that works to support the grassroots movement opposing coal.

David Novack, producer and director of the great new documentary, Burning the Future: Coal in America, which chronicles the environmental devastation of the coal industry in West Virginia.

Kate Rooth, who works for Greenpeace in the United States promoting climate, forests and oceans issues. She works with the Research Unit to support campaign and action work and is also a non-violence trainer.

Mark Fiore, who the Wall Street Journal recently called “the undisputed guru of the form,” creates animated political cartoons from an undisclosed location somewhere in San Francisco.

Richard Littlemore, Senior Writer for the award-winning site, DeSmogBlog.com.

These are amazing people, doing amazing work and I am very confident they will deliver the clean coal body slam so many people are looking for.

For a while now, whenever I mentioned the term “clean coal” people would roll their eyes and groan, “clean coal,” usually followed by a rolling of the eyes or a mock gagging, eyes bulging expression. Most people know coal isn’t clean, but that hasn’t stopped the coal industry from trying to convince us otherwise.

In mid-January the Washington Post ran a story about a newly launched $35 million “clean coal” campaign to be run by an organization called “Americans for Balanced Energy Choices” (ABEC). An organization run by Americans, but paid for by the coal industry.

If “clean coal” was not already engrained in the public lexicon, $35 million is sure to finish the job. The goal for ABEC, who has since changed their name to “American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity” (ACCCE), is not to make coal clean, it is to sell the idea that coal is clean.
In essence, this site exists to sell the idea that coal is dirty. Pretty easy to do when you consider the facts and clear out the rhetoric. Like the fact that mercury emissions from coal fired-power plants continues to rise and that carbon capture and storage remains an elusive pipe dream that will take another 40 years to deploy on a commercial scale.

We don’t have $35 million (not even close), but I hope this site can serve as a nexus of information for people interested in knowing the dirty facts about clean coal.

So click around, enjoy the site, check out the videos, the fact sheets and the articles.

If you’re writer, let us know if you would like to contribute. If you’re not a writer, but have a good story idea please let us know.

Drop us a line and tell us what you think of our work, sign up for our weekly e-alert and please tell everyone you know about the site.

Regards,

Kevin Grandia

Managing Editor

www.coal-is-dirty.com

DeSmogBlog: Todd Carmichael’s Journey to the South Pole

The DeSmogBlog team is proud to introduce our newest blogger!

Please welcome Explorer Todd Carmichael, who on November 9th, 2008 will attempt to become the first American Explorer ever to complete a solo and unaided trek from the coast of Antarctica to the South Pole.

Todd is an amazing individual and one that cares deeply about the state of the planet, especially the issue of climate change. Over the coming months Todd will be writing on DeSmog and his special section we’re calling “Expedition Earth, Mission 2008: the South Pole,” about preparations for his expedition and also on climate change issues and solutions.

And for the grand finale, Todd will be blogging live via satellite from the Antarctica on DeSmogBlog with daily updates, video and audio as he attempts this American first.

How cool is that!

We’re all very excited to have Todd as part of our team, so go check out the Expedition Earth section on DeSmog, and sign up for Todd’s weekly e-lerts so you don’t miss a beat.

High Speed Photo and Video: Casio EX-F1

I’ve been having a lot of fun with my new Casio EX-F1. This hybrid still/video camera has a lot of interesting features. It is not a pro studio camera, but I think it is about the finest link-bait camera out there right now. It give bloggers the capability of producing some really great web-ready content with a minimum of production cost.

The F1 does 60fps hi-speed 6MP jpeg images. This function is great for producing pro-looking image series, or for getting the exact shot you want in an action scenario.

The F1 also has a range of features that automate some of the trickier aspects of photography. It has a motion sensor so the hi-speed shutter fires when the camera detects motion in the frame. The F1 has programs that simulate motion blur and HDR, as well as bracketing on shutter speed, aperture and focus, which allows for focus stacking macro images or allowing subject and background to be in focus even when the lighting isn’t right for small aperture.

The F1 also does some pretty amazing hi-speed video at 300, 600 and 1200 frames per second. Here’s a sample of the pontoon spray from our float plane as we took off from Coal Harbour on Friday. Here are Casio’s sample videos. I think the possibilities for this function are limitless, and the results are very interesting to watch. Perfect for linkbait on your blog. I have not had a chance to do a lot, but practically everything I try turns out well. I have insects hovering, water undulating, matches lighting, etc. The featured video on the home page of this blog is a seagull taking off in slow motion.

The F1 is a pretty big camera, but it feels solid and performs well for normal shooting as well, although, at 6MP, you won’t be making posters with it, or cropping too hard.

There are extensive reviews available on the web, and discussions about its strong points and weaknesses as well. I am finding the camera to be a great deal of fun. It defintely brings out the “oohs and ahhhs” when you demonstrate the features. As I say above, it is great tool for adding some interesting content to your blog.

Archaic Machines Number 1

Mackenzie, BC. No wonder the town is dying. Mackenzie is a town that has relied on pulp as a way of being. Pulp is now a singularly bad way to build a local economy. Case closed.

The Long Tail in the Real World

Chris Anderson’s original 2004 article on the Long Tail phenomenon in marketing provides us with three rules:

1. Make everything available.
2. Cut the Price in Half. Now lower it.
3. Help me find it.

Anderson and thousands who have followed him focus on the ability of emerging media and networks to facillitate delivery of product long after its traditional shelf-life has expired. They point to businesses like Amazon and Netflix as examples of extensive inventories with small sales of older, less popular items. With huge inventories these small sales add up to significant revenue for retailers and rights-holders. Thus the three rules.

The Long Tail concept is one that has captured people’s imaginations. I see this as an opening for some new thinking on old topics. The concept of the Long Tail invites us to expand our scope of awareness. That invitation can be extended to thinking around more than just digital media and giant inventories of obscure widgets. We need more economists who think like ecologists, and understand the three rules apply to other aspects of our economy. It may be that the Long Tail is not always a positive thing. I’d like to invert it and propose the concept be applied to issues economists like to refer to as “externalities“.

An externality occurs in economics therefore when a decision causes costs or benefits to stakeholders other than the person making the decision, often, though not necessarily, from the use of common goods (for example, a decision which results in pollution of the atmosphere would involve an externality).

Succeeding using the Long Tail phenomenon as a strategy depends on a particular kind of Externality called a Network Externality or the “Network Effect.” Companies like Amazon and Netflix built out capacity in a gamble that they would win the race to provide the infrastructure people would choose. People chose them, and competitors fell by the wayside.

An example of a Network Effect play with long-term Long Tail potential is Sirius Satellite Radio. Here’s a company that is bleeding badly right now, but is nonetheless winning a race that will position them to deliver Long Tail content to huge N subscribers. Howard Stern was brought on to drive the Network Effect forward with his name recognition.

So, we have a concept - the Long Tail - that depends on an Externality - the Network Effect - for major commercial success. Such phenomena depend on the growth and expansion of markets, the freeing up of exchange and transactions, the free flow of goods, and the growing commonality of base culture. This is Globalization.

Gobalization drives the increasing thickness of the nascent Long Tail. The expansion and finer granularity of globalization and its networks means Long Tail phenomena can occur in more and more diverse sectors of the economy. The Network Effect externality speeds the thickening of Long Tail phenomena.

There are other Long Tail-ish phenomena that have not been properly or at all monetized. Globalization drives these phenomena through various Network Effect externalities, and their thickness is also increasing.

An example: ocean acidification. The ph balance of the oceans is shifting due to the uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide - the collective exhalation of our civilization. There is a huge positive externality in the short term, but a highly negative one in the long term. The oceans are presently functioning like an Iron Lung for the planet:

Although this oceanic absorption will help ameliorate the climatic effects of anthropogenic emissions of CO2, it is believed that it will have negative consequences for oceanic calcifying organisms. These use the calcite or aragonite polymorphs of calcium carbonate to construct cell coverings or skeletons. Calcifiers span the food chain from autotrophs to heterotrophs and include organisms such as coccolithophores, corals, foraminifera and pteropods.

Currently our civilization is building out capacity for increased CO2 release. Huge middle classes are emerging in India and China, and they want the same amenities Europe and North America have enjoyed. This takes power and Network Infrastructure. The uncosted, unpaid for externalities will be significant.

The short-term money to be made equipping these new middle classes is enticing. But that is only because the cost of a wildly swinging environmental Long Tail has not been negatively monetized. Or, more simply, things do not cost what they really cost.

So here’s the inversion I spoke of before: while there is a marketing opportunity brought about by the growing Network Effect externalities of globalization, and that opportunity can be monetized using Long Tail techniques, we need a concomitant political and social acknowledgement of the strengthening and thickening Long Tail externalities that nobody wants to monetize lest they be put quickly out of business at minimum and behind bars at maximum.

I’m all for it. Let’s broaden our focus. Let’s collectively think past the “head of the tail” as Bill Gates put it in a recent interview. But let’s do it across the piece. Let’s acknowledge that externalities eventually have to paid for - that externalites are paid for, often with lives and livelihoods and neighborhoods.

So what are our three rules then?

1. Make everything available.
2. Cut the Price in Half. Now lower it.
3. Help me find it.

I propose this change:

1. Make everything accountable.
2. Double the price. Now raise it.
3. Help me bind it.

Make everything accountable: this simply means we have the right to ask what the full cost of things is, in the here and now and out on the Long Tail.

Double the Price. Now Raise it: this is a very conservative estimation of what we’ll find when we start to do true costing.

Help me bind it: this means globalized industry must not have anywhere to hide from their own Long Tails. Polluters and other externality generators like arms manufacturers should be made to bear the true costs of their profiteering.

Next Page »