China sees through its coal-fired haze what Alabama cannot

Newsflash:

In China, where coal is indeed king, they're cracking down on coal-fired power plants.

And in Alabama, where just three of every 1,000 jobs come from any kind of mining, we'd mainline mercury if we thought it would save a single one of those jobs.

Beijing, which is so polluted they take pictures of the smog from space, will close the last of its big coal-fired power plants next year, according to a report by Bloomberg.

In Alabama, where public officials contend climate change is nothing but an Obama conspiracy, Alabama runs six coal-fired plants and complains about regulations to make them burn cleaner.

In Beijing, where TV stations and websites were recently ordered by the government to stop showing an environmental documentary, coal-fired plants are being replaced by gas-fired stations because, as an analyst there put it, "Most pollutants come from burning coal."

In Alabama, our elected leaders just shout "War on Coal," and roll the dice on the futures of our children.

"EPA regulations are killing jobs and lowering our competitive advantage," Alabama Public Service Commissioner Chip Beeker wrote on his Facebook page, highlighting  a quote that said ."Our entrepreneurs are to go up against Chinese nuclear power plants with . . . windmills."

"Thanks to Obama," Beeker went on, "we are abandoning reliable, effective, and affordable sources of energy in order to invest unproven, unreliable, and unsustainable sources."

Beijing. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File)

I guess coal, in Alabama, is seen as a sustainable resource.

In Beijing, where the government censors the press and keeps a tight grip on the internet, a commission pushed for change after estimating that air pollution alone was costing about 13 percent of the whole country's gross domestic product.

In Alabama, where leaders ignored the fact that its largest city for years could not recruit industry because of failing air quality standards, leaders scream about state mining jobs that employ 6,000 people, arguing that we have the right to pollute as we please.

"Obama's EPA is out of control," Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard wrote on his Facebook page. "Newly announced regulations could kill coal jobs in the state and result in higher electricity prices for our citizens. These regulations are nothing but an attempt by the federal government to limit our state's right to provide energy how we see fit."

It's not about jobs though. It is about money.

In China, where Buddhists, Muslims and Christians still face persecution and the state has been known to bulldoze churches, some leaders -- finally - seem to look to the future with a conscience and an understanding of consequences.

In Alabama, where officials hold church in Public Service Commission meetings, preachers of the conspiracy gospel claim coal and the pollution that burns with it is a God-given blessing and a right.

"Who has the right to take what God's given a state?" Beeker said last year.

In China, where the government defends its rights with tanks in the streets, coal-fired plants are starting to close.

In Alabama, where politicians claim a stubborn commitment to the status quo is a noble effort to defend our rights, leaders refuse to acknowledge that a right to breathe freely is a right worth defending.

"We will not stand for what they are doing to our way of life in Alabama," PSC President Twinkle Andress Cavanaugh said of clean air restrictions. "We will take our fight to the EPA."

In Beijing, where citizens must wear masks to breathe, a notoriously resistant government  is pushing for change.

In Alabama, where incidents and deaths from lung cancer are among the worst in America, a notoriously resistant government is not.

China, home to Chinese drywall and sweatshops and deadly dog treats and a government that used to declare political protesters insane, somehow looks like it is making progress.

Alabama, land of the free and the home of the brave, somehow is not.

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