How to make fossil fuel power safe in five easy steps

[Massacure]

1) Acknowledge immediate deaths that were undoubtedly caused by a fossil fuel accidents. Ignore long-term deaths from exposure to air pollution. For example, immediate deaths from the coal mining disaster in Siberia is at 5, but estimates of long-range deaths are in the millions

2) Consider immediate accidents and ignore the impacts of accidents across the entire fuel cycle, e.g. black lung disease, lung cancer, etc...

3) Ignore the greatest danger of fossil fuel power, a problem that is unique among energy sources - its direct and repeatedly-demonstrated connection to destabilization of entire regions around the world such as the Middle East.

4) Make wild claims about the benefits of 'clean coal' technologies. Impossible to prove or disprove these claims, since the new designs exist only as designs on paper.

5) And, among many other ways to 'prove' the safety of the fossil fuel industry, claim that a fossil fuel accident did not effect any member of the 'community'... without mentioning that a number of fossil fuel workers were harmed or killed. For example, Robert E. Murray claims that safety violations at the Crandall Canyon Mine were trivial and included not having enough toilet paper in the restroom.

Above all, never mention the environmental destruction from coal mining or the downwind asthma rates associated with the normal "safe" operation of all fossil fuel powered plants...

[Hydra]

1. As long as there is a profit to be made in it

Bad ideas will continue to be presented as the "only solution"- much like nuclear.