Ellen Gray: 'Heat' breaks down the issue of global warming | Philadelphia Daily News | 10/21/2008

Not surprisingly, Ohio State glaciologist Lonnie Thompson says glaciers matter, even as he acknowledges that climates have changed, and glaciers melted, before.

So what makes this change different from those of the past?

"We've never had 6.5 billion people," Thompson says.
...
"Most Americans don't have any idea that . . . we still burn coal," says Jeff Goodell, author of "Big Coal." "They think of it as something that went out with, you know, top hats and corsets. And because they don't see it, because it's burned far away, we don't think about where that electricity comes from and what really goes on behind the light switch."

It takes a pound of coal to power a TV for four hours, adds Smith, who doesn't bother to suggest that we watch tonight's show - that's a half-pound right there - with the lights off.