I THINK MINING

On this election day, the campaigning is not yet over.  My e-mail box is full of references to an old statement by Obama that he would bankrupt new coal-fired power plants with a carbon tax.  I have watched the video clip and indeed he says that.  It is not out of context.  He also says we do not know how to safely store nuclear waste. 

What a shame that a young man should be so ignorant of the facts of the world.  But this is not an isolated instance of pre-beliefs getting in the way of accepting the truth.  Over the weekend I read Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast–the Evolutionary Origins of Belief.   Written by an atheist father who son joins the London Fundamentalist Church, the book seeks to explain why we believe things that are obviously false. 

I recommend the book to anybody trying to understand why Obama would believe in bankrupting coal-fired power plants and why he would believe we cannot safely dispose of nuclear power.  Or to anybody trying to understand why Sarah Palin believes dinosaurs walked around with humans.   Maybe they are just both prisoners of their genes and evolutionary instincts.  Those instincts have served them both well in getting to where they are, so why should a little noise in the system, a slight misfunction of reason be considered fatal? 

Because if could be fatal to us all.  The only thing that I can think of to countermand this silly belief in the obviously wrong, is more information.  Maybe the nuclear industry just has not done enough to pulicize the fact that we can safely dispose of nuclear waste.  Maybe the coal-fired power industry just has not done enough to put out the facts of clean coal technology.  Or maybe they have tried too hard and their efforts are marked by a failure of those who hear them to believe them.

I must admit I turn off when those ads appear that remind me of something from a Terminator side-show at Universal Studios.  And the clean coal lobby is particularly good at those bland, unbelievable ads turned out by second-rate ad agencies.  They are just going to have to get more savvy.  Certainly leaving the control of the advance band-wagon to ranting and raving bloggers and e-mailers is not going to advance their cause. 

The point is that regardless of who wins today’s election, the arguments over what constitutes mining-derived clean energy is going to get vigerous and vicious.  And that will be true even if oil goes back to $30 a barrel.  We trust only that the debate and the decision making is conducting in the light of facts, science, reason, and civility.  For there is too much to win and too much to loose to fight this one with innuendo and foul-mouthed attack.