Coal Blooded: Putting Profits Before People

EPA's assessments are correct, then coal power plants alone are responsible for thousands, ifnot tens of thousands, of premature deaths each year. Further, a 2010 report on power plantpollution by the Clean Air Task Force found that coal power plant pollution in the U.S. isresponsible for 13,200 premature deaths and 9,700 hospitalizations each year, as well as over$100 billion in monetary damages. 39Coal-Fired Power Plants: Perpetrators of Climate InjusticeCarbon dioxide, or CO 2 , is a major cause of global warming. 40 Pertinent to this discussion, coal isthe world’s most carbon-intensive fuel, which means that coal power plants produce more CO 2per unit of energy than any other energy source. 41 In 2006, coal-fired power plants in the UnitedStates alone produced 1.94 billion tons of CO 2 — 32 percent of the U.S.’s totalCO 2 emissions,and almost 7 percent of the world’s total CO 2 emissions. To put this in perspective, coal powerplants in the U.S. emitted more CO 2 in 2006 than the total amount that was emitted by allsources in all countries in Latin America and the Caribbean that year. 4243Climate change is alreadydevastating the Global South —and that devastation will onlyaccelerate as the 21 st centurycontinues. The public narrativehas focused to a large extent onglobal warming causing rising sealevels, which will inundate lowlyingcountries such as Bangladeshand island-states in the PacificOcean.Another very threatening impactof global warming is thetransformation that it will cause inglobal weather patterns — generatingincreasingly severe weather and risingMaldivian President Mohammed Nasheed dons scuba gear ashe signs a document that calls on all countries to cut down theircarbon dioxide emissions ahead of a U.N. climate changeconference.drought levels — which will disproportionately affect people throughout the world who rely onsubsistence agriculture for their survival. 44 In November 2011, a report by theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change linked increases in extreme weather events tohuman-caused climate change:There is evidence that some [weather] extremes have [already] changed as a result ofanthropogenic influences, including increases in atmospheric concentrations of greenhousegases. It is likely that anthropogenic influences have led to warming of extreme daily minimumand maximum temperatures on the global scale. There is medium confidence thatanthropogenic influences have contributed to intensification of extreme precipitation on thePage | 17