Coal

There is no such thing as clean coal. Its a re-branding on the same dirty thing.

Gates understands full well the implications.  He knows neo-cons will spend money on coal.  And it seems windmills.

Chuck, seems like Gates doesn’t understand that the overall impact on the world of his actions (personal and professional) are just as important as the persona he tries to create with his  foundation. Or perhaps we can one day erect different statues to Microsoft Bill, Philanthropist Bill and Indifferent Globalization Evangelist Bill.

Talk about backwards progress. Gates needs to get his act together and start investing in the technology of the future. Isn’t the Midwest synonymous with wind these days? I can’t say that I’m surprised, though, given some of the gaffes his company has made regarding environmental issues in the Northwest.

It looks to me like the Minnesota lawmakers don’t really understand the difference between the Gates Foundation and Gates’ personal investment company.

 Sadly if you look at all of our presidential candidates you’ll find that they all support coal as well.  ’Clean’ coal, but does clean coal exist?  You still have to tear up mountains, destroy streams and decimate communities, even if you scrub the air clean.  The problem is that the US has more coal than anyone else in the world, and plenty of it to solve all of our fuel issues*.  If we change our reliance of fuel to coal, we no longer rely on foreign oil, and everything becomes peachy again*.

*not everything is really peachy and our problems aren’t really solved, they’re just different problems.

Making sure that philanthropists are investing their assets in alignment with their social missions is a hugely important (and oft-overlooked) aspect of pushing social change.  Bravo to Grist for shining the spotlight on this.