Green Daily

The Sierra Club, along with a number of other environmental organizations, is fighting a number of proposed new coal plants across the country--from Georgia to Michigan. But not everyone is happy about the group's successes, particularly as we wait out the current economic slowdown.

The Sierra Club had won a rare victory in Georgia's Fulton County Superior Court, prohibiting the building of a new coal plant in Early County, an economically depressed area in Southwest Georgia. Apparently, at least one person was mad enough to call in a threat to the "communists" who had, according to him, "screwed us for the last time."

All joking aside, the jobs-over-environment tactic is working in coal campaigns all over. In Michigan, commercials paid for by supporters of the coal initiatives suggest that "clean coal" can provide energy and jobs for Michigan, with no negative consequences. There might be cleaner energy jobs out there, but I don't think they require building new coal plants. Plus, there's plenty of evidence that coal-burning power plants are not healthy for those nearby. Can't we fire the coal-burning, pollution-spewing plants and keep the people instead?