Giving 'Em The Good 'Ol One-Finger Salute

I've been seeing a few television advertisements, such as those from some sort of Clean Coal organization and Conoco-Phillips, making some odd claims lately.  The Conoco-Phillips commercials show actors posing as young, supposedly intelligent college students discussing how natural gas is "cleaner."  Uh...cleaner than what, exactly?  Cleaner than most other fossil fuel industries like coal and petroleum?  Alright, I can go along with that.  But the big push right now is in the renewable energy sector; solar, wind, and to a lesser degree, biofuels.  If these ass-clowns are trying to tell me that natural gas is "cleaner" than solar energy, they need to go take a walk.

But the Clean Coal commercials are what really raise my ire.  These advertisements make dire predictions about EPA regulations killing jobs and destroying our economy.  I've lately found myself raising my middle finger to salute these advertisements when they appear.  To say the least, I find them unfathomably disgusting.  Paul Krugman has a delightful summation of a study that looks at the quantitative economic impacts of pollution, with regard to health and productivity effects, for various industries.  The researchers then compared these values to the economic value that the industry contributes.  The study indicates that there are some industries that actually have an overall negative impact on the economy.  To take a quote from the abstract:

Solid waste combustion, sewage treatment, stone quarrying, marinas, and oil and coal-fired power plants have air pollution damages larger than their value added. The largest industrial contributor to external costs is coal-fired electric generation, whose damages range from 0.8 to 5.6 times value added.

So there you go.  Want to stop killing jobs and boost the economy?  Regulate the shit out of the coal industry.

By the way, this issue really sticks in my craw, so expect more on this in the coming days and weeks.