Will Anti-Coal Policy Bury Obama?

Anger over coal helped an imprisoned felon defeat President Barack Obama this month in several West Virginia counties. Now Republicans hope Mitt Romney can squeeze an electoral diamond out of coal country in battleground states such as Ohio, Virginia and Pennsylvania. One of the fallen Democrats from 2010, former 14-term Virginia Rep. Rick Boucher, said the president’s campaign team has reason to worry about how coal-minded voters will react.

Shanghai Is Sinking: How Building Up Is Bringing It Down | Ecocentric | TIME.com

Shanghai is sinking, and has been for decades. Since 1921, China’s most populous city has descended more than 6 ft.

Could Romney’s scorn for wind power hurt him in the heartland? | Grist

the industry employs some 6,000-7,000 Iowans.

Twitter / BigJoeBastardi: One thing we can say.. The

One thing we can say.. There is more ice at the north pole today than there was at this time in 1987, because actual pictures say so

Twitter / omnologos: How many greenies agonize

How many greenies agonize over the poor getting poorer because of "green policies"? @nomismurnane (a:zero)

British energy policy is a dark underworld of fanatics | Simon Jenkins | Comment is free | The Guardian

Britain's contribution to cooling can only be so infinitesimal as to be little more than gesture politics, yet it is a gesture that is massively expensive. Meeting the current EU renewables directive, largely from wind, would cost some £15bn a year, or £670 a household, and involve the spoliation of swaths of upland, countryside and coast. It is calculated to save a mere 0.2% of global emissions, with negligible impact on the Earth's sea level.

Yet the government wants to commit a staggering £100bn to wind farm subsidies over the next decade, almost all to rich landowners. Northamptonshire, with England's most planned wind farms per acre (and least wind), will probably have turbines visible from horizon to horizon. Will this really so impress China and India as to persuade them to change their emissions policies? It is like a primitive tribe burning its wives and treasure to awe an enemy into submission.