Re: Send dirty fuel to history’s coal bin, (Comment, March 23)
In condemning coal as a dirty fuel, David Suzuki is stuck in previous times, because we have not had child labour in coal mines for over a century.
Today, when we consider using coal, we must consider the three factors that determine the benefit or hazard from the coal.
First, hundreds of experiments show that as carbon dioxide in the air increases, plants grow bigger and faster; and the earth gets greener.
Carbon dioxide is the great aerial fertilizer that also makes plants more drought resistant. With world populations expanding to seven billion people and 900 million of them suffering from chronic food shortage, we need more carbon dioxide to stimulate more crop growth and food production world-wide.
For subsistence farmers in Africa and south-east Asia, carbon dioxide is the only fertilizer they can get.
Because coal generates more carbon dioxide than any other fuel, it is the greenest of them all.
Second, while we have literally hundreds of experiments to show how more carbon dioxide makes green plants produce more, we have not a single experiment nor any evidence whatsoever that carbon dioxide causes significant global warming.
Third, we now know for sure, that carbon dioxide does not cause significant global warming. Measurements of global temperature by satellites, and confirmed by weather balloons, have shown there has been no global warming over the past 10 years.
Use electricity made by coal and help some poor farmer feed his family. Don’t forget, our farmers and gardeners benefit as well.
Fred Langford
Sidney
