Greenpeace and  Kimberly-Clark have announced the successful resolution of the Kleercut campaign as the maker of Kleenex has established a new sustainability policy focused on protecting Endangered Forests. Go to www.greenpeace.org/kleercut to find out more!

Major newspaper outlets today are buzzing about how Americans' “preference” for soft toilet paper is an absolute environmental travesty. But is it really a preference, or something that has been sold to us by pulp and paper heavies like Kimberly-Clark?

Tissues, toilet paper, and other disposable products are responsible for unspeakable destruction of ancient forests around the world. And, in today’s New York Times, tissue maker Kimberly-Clark (K-C) has probably given us a bit more information than they meant to about the extent of the destruction they're causing despite their green claims.

Today, the NYT ran an article that said:

The national obsession with soft paper has driven the growth of brands like Cottonelle Ultra...

But fluffiness comes at a price: millions of trees harvested in North America and Latin American countries, including some percentages of trees from rare old-growth forests in Canada.

The article doesn’t mention Kleenex, the Kimberly-Clark brand that is so ubiquitous it has become synonymous with “tissue” itself. But one assertion, fittingly enough by a Kimberly-Clark spokesman, says all you need to know: “ Dave Dickson, a spokesman for Kimberly Clark, said that only 14 percent of the wood pulp used by the company came from the boreal forest.”

He does not dispute that they’re cutting down ancient boreal forest, just the percentage of their product made from a 10,000-year-old ecosystem.

That percentage is nothing to crow about, by the way. According to Kimberly-Clark’s 2005 Sustainability Report, the company used 3,113,000 metric tons of virgin fiber in 2005, an increase from the 3,067,000 metric tons of virgin fiber used in 2004 (this was the last time they publicly reported this tonnage in their sustainability report – I wonder why??). Even assuming K-C is only meeting 14% of worldwide pulp need with pulp from the Boreal, this amounts to over 435,820 metric tons of Boreal pulp used by Kimberly-Clark in a single year. This has a disastrous impact on an ecosystem, and all for products that the company could be making from recycled paper.

And hang on, I recently saw somewhere a very different figure from Kimberly-Clark. The company’s 2009 Sustainable Fiber Fact Sheet reads: "In fact, at the end of 2008, our use of fiber from the Canadian Boreal forest had been reduced by nearly 50 percent from 2004 levels."

What were those 2004 levels again? According to page 31 of the 2004 Kimberly-Clark Sustainability Report: "Less than 15 percent of the fiber we use globally is sourced from the Canadian Boreal Forest."

Hmmm... Is it 14%, like they said in the NYT today? Or half of 15%, like they claim on their website? Whatever the real number may be, if you really care about preserving forests, it comes in handy to actually have a stated policy to protect 100% of ancient forests.

Kimberly-Clark was also taken to task today by the UK newspaper The Guardian, which was not as polite to the paper product industry as the NYT, and chose to go with this lede:

The tenderness of the delicate American buttock is causing more environmental devastation than the country's love of gas-guzzling cars, fast food or McMansions, according to green campaigners. At fault, they say, is the US public's insistence on extra-soft, quilted and multi-ply products when they use the bathroom.

Americans already consume vastly more paper than any other country — about three times more per person than the average European, and 100 times more than the average person in China.

The article also states that, “Barely a third of the paper products sold in America are from recycled sources — most of it comes from virgin forests.”

So is using recycled really a difficult choice for Americans or is it just something we’ve been told by big tissue companies? The Guardian article also points out that,

Paper manufacturers such as Kimberly-Clark have identified luxury brands such as three-ply tissues or tissues infused with hand lotion as the fastest-growing market share in a highly competitive industry. Its latest television advertisements show a woman caressing tissue infused with hand lotion.

The New York Times reported a 40% in sales of luxury brands of toilet paper in 2008. Paper companies are anxious to keep those percentages up, even as the recession bites. And Reuters reported that Kimberly-Clark spent $25m in its third quarter on advertising to persuade Americans against trusting their bottoms to cheaper brands.

So maybe softness is not a preference of Americans, maybe someone’s been spending $25 million a year to whisper in our ear that recycled isn’t good enough. Although, on the other hand, I seem to remember something Kimberly-Clark said in this article about the quality of recycled content: “Using a K-C proprietary technology, Kleenex Naturals brand facial tissues contain 20 percent high-quality recycled fiber and provide the product softness and quality consumers have come to expect from the Kleenex brand.”

So when K-C spends $25,000,000 in a single year to sell us the expensive virgin stuff, then recycled products don’t make the grade. And yet Kimberly-Clark admits that recycled fiber can be used to provide the softness we expect.

Kimberly-Clark claims that the problem is American consumers (again in The Guardian piece):

Dave Dixon, a company spokesman, said toilet paper and tissue from recycled fibre had been on the market for years. If Americans wanted to buy them, they could.

"For bath tissue Americans in particular like the softness and strength that virgin fibres provides," Dixon said. "It's the quality and softness the consumers in America have come to expect."

If you’d like to tell Dave Dickson that Americans expect products that don't destroy ancient forests, send a message to the company here. And if you're looking for those products that don't destroy ancient forests, please download our pocket guide at www.greenpeace.org/tissueguide.

If you need any more convincing you can also take a look at this Fast Company article that explains how, together, we can improve the practices of Kimberly-Clark.

Hopefully some day carrying a box of Kleenex or Cottonelle to the check-out counter will be considered as ridiculous as driving around town in a Hummer.

My friend Kate and I think the Greenpeace Organizing Term is pretty rad; so much so, that we're currently working for it!  We're talking to students all across the country about the student activist training program that Greenpeace runs, and here's what Kate has to say about her awesome experience in the GOT:

Hello from San Francisco!

My name is Kaitlin Finneran, and I’m a student at the University of North Carolina—Greensboro.  In the fall of my sophomore year, I joined a brand-new environmental club on campus.  One day, a girl came in to talk about Greenpeace, so I checked out the website and found the page for the Greenpeace Organizing Term. I was in awe over the program description and applied right then!
 
When I was accepted into the program, I thought I would learn about environmental issues and work with Greenpeace for a bit. What I ended up getting out of it was so much more valuable: I now have the skills and the confidence to organize people around a cause, and I’ve learned how to pass those skills on to others. I also discovered the importance of collective effort, and that we must learn how to unite people in order to tackle the major problems that face the earth today.

My action-packed semester with the GOT included some awesome trips around the world, from getting community support in Tucson, Arizona, that successfully pressured Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords to sign onto the Safe Climate Act, to joining a direct action in Hamburg, Germany, against the construction of new coal-fired power plants. And one of my favorite success stories was getting the University of California—Berkeley to kick Kleenex off of its campus… I even helped write the resolution that was passed by the university’s Student Senate!

The Greenpeace Organizing Term is literally an action-packed semester, and is basically the best hands-on training for student activists like you to become environmental leaders.  Kate and I are confident telling you this because the GOT is going to give you a lot more skills and experience than you would ever learn in a typical internship.  Think about it: When was the last time an environmental victory was won by fetching coffee for a guy in a suit?

The grassroots organizing and campaign skills that you'll learn from trained professionals will lay the foundation for you to succeed in future semesters as part of the Greenpeace Student Network, as well as the rest of your life and career.

Take a look at what some of the GOT alumni are doing now:

• Emily Russell-Roy (Fall '04 alum): Working for the Pacific Forest Trust on climate policy
• Zo Tobi (Fall '04 alum): Northeast Regional Organizer for the Sierra Student Coalition
• Andi Plocek (Spring '05 alum): Director of Marketing, Sky Fuel
• Rohini Banskota (Summer '05 alum): Working on making Colorado College climate neutral
• Kyle Saari (Spring '06 alum): Greenpeace field organizer
• Gabe Gerow (Spring '06 alum): Greenpeace Organizing Term coordinator
• Suzanne Graham (Summer '06 alum): Greenpeace field organizer
• Christine Irvine (Summer '06 alum): Youth Organizer, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy
• Christy Hartman (Fall '06 alum): Sierra Student Coalition Organizer in WV, OH and PA
• Whitney Kraner (Fall '06 alum): Arizona PIRG
• Georgia Hill (Fall '06): City Coordinator, Greenpeace Los Angeles Frontline program
• Christina Alexa-Liakos (Fall '06 alum): Board member, Greenpeace Student Network
• Audry Mills (Fall '07 alum): Board member, Greenpeace Student Network

Ready to make a change for yourself and the environment?

Apply now to be a part of the Greenpeace Organizing Term!

Your fellow activists,

Josef Palermo and Kate Finneran

All I can say is that you have to see it to believe it. Check out this video of a fish with a see-through head. WOW! I am in total awe at this amazing sea creature. Seeing things like this give me even more reasons to advocate for ocean protection. Who knows what will be discovered next? One thing's for sure -- if we keep polluting the ocean and damaging essential habitiat -- we'll never find out.

In his speech last night to Congress, President Obama showed once again that he gets it: solving global warming is not only essential for our environment, it is also critical for our long-term economic security.

Global warming is the greatest potential destroyer of wealth that we face--greater than the sub-prime mortgage crisis, the credit squeeze, and the struggles of auto industry combined. Continuing down our current path of unlimited pollution and dependence on coal and oil will certainly lead to economic disaster.

In addition, clean energy is already a huge driver of new job growth. More people are employed in the U.S. wind industry today than in coal mining, and investments in renewable energy create three times more jobs than investments in fossil fuels. President Obama knows that if you're looking for economic stimulus and job growth, the smart money is on clean energy.

President Obama called for doubling the supply of renewable energy over the next three years--an aggressive goal that would be a great start towards building our clean energy future.

He also called on Congress to pass legislation to cap emissions of global warming pollution. Given the latest science and the assessments of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, it is clear that to minimize the risk of global warming the U.S. must cut domestic emissions from fossil fuel combustion by at least 20-25% by 2020.

We applaud his leadership and urge him to continue to push for the the complete clean energy revolution that is needed to save America's environment, and our economy.

Update: Greenpeace and  Kimberly-Clark have announced the successful resolution of the Kleercut campaign as the maker of Kleenex has established a new sustainability policy focused on protecting Endangered Forests. Go to www.greenpeace.org/kleercut to find out more!

We're well into cold and flu season by now, meaning lots of tissues are no doubt getting used and thrown away every day. We've been working for years to let folks know that they should not use Kimberly-Clark products—like Kleenex, Scott, Cottonelle, and Viva, among other brands—because the company is literally wiping away ancient forests to make their disposable products.

We've asked you to avoid K-C's brands, and now we'd like to tell you which products you can use with a guilt-free conscience. Brands like Green Forest, Seventh Generation, and 365 are made from recycled material, aren't wiping away ancient forests, and don't use toxic chlorine compounds. Find more brands that are recommended, which can do better, and which should be avoided at all costs in our Recycled Tissue and Toilet Paper Guide. Flip through it online or print it out and keep it in your wallet, purse, or fanny pack. It'll come in handy when you're at the store.

And if you want to help us get the word out, post this neat little widget anywhere you can—your Facebook or MySpace profile, your blog or website. Click the "Share" button in the lower right-hand corner to grab the embed code or to add it to your preferred social network with the click of a button. So easy!

Ignorance is bliss! Sometimes I wish I didn’t know that cookies were bad for me or that fruits were doused in pesticides. Then, I could indulge in my sweet tooth without having the associated guilt. But, the reality is—by knowing and being smart about your food choices—you will be better off in the long run. You may just save yourself a trip to the doctor, avoid that stomach ache, stay healthier and live longer.

A recent story on Sprig.com listed the ten most dangerous foods to eat. It was definitely an eye-opener. Out of the ten foods, three of them were seafood—farmed salmon, Chilean sea bass and bluefin tuna.  Sprig.com flags the seafood for their high levels of mercury and PCB contamination as well as environmental factors. All three seafood made the Greenpeace red list as well. We are glad the word is getting out that consumers should avoid these foods for health and environmental reasons. Avoid eating these three fish to help the ocean—it’s a small sacrifice to make!

The salmon you purchase in the store is most likely farm-raised since the wild fish is nearly extinct. Salmon is such a popular fish, that the majority of it found on seafood shelves has been farm-raised. This creates a whole host of problems for the ocean. Salmon farms may use pesticides and antibiotics to control outbreaks of disease among the fish. Chemicals and waste from most salmon farms are released directly into waters surrounding the farms—polluting the oceans, damaging habitat and putting other sea life in jeopardy. And, when YOU eat farmed salmon, you may also be eating residues from chemicals used in the farms. Ick. I wouldn’t want to be ingesting that.

Chilean sea bass has become so popular that the fish populations cannot keep up with the demand. And, unless people stop eating Chilean sea bass, it may be commercially extinct within five years. Pirate fishing is a huge problem with this fish. Not only do the pirates pillage the fish, they also destroy the habitat and other sea life with their reckless behavior and unregulated fishing.

Bluefin tuna is such a delicacy that an individual fish can be worth over $30,000.00 at the Tokyo fish auction. That being said, I’m sure you or I will not see a bluefin tuna at our grocery store or restaurant. Tuna has such a high price tag that fishermen will catch them by any means necessary. There are so few left that they are catching younger and younger tuna. This doesn’t allow the fish to reproduce and bounce back from being overfished. They are also the target of pirate fishing. The methods in which tuna are caught also threaten to injure or kill sea turtles and marine mammals.

If people aren’t buying the red list fish like the ones mentioned here, then supermarkets will not buy them and put them in their seafood counters. It’s up to us to shop responsibly and make our wallets work for us—how we spend our money CAN help the environment. We just have to keep ourselves educated and embrace the truth instead of running from it.  

--Michelle

 

President Obama’s selection of Steven Chu to be his Secretary of Energy was greeted with much enthusiasm by many environmentalists, including us. This interview pretty plainly spells out why:

In his first interview since taking office last month, the Nobel-prize-winning physicist offered some of the starkest comments yet on how seriously President Obama's cabinet views the threat of climate change, along with a detailed assessment of the administration's plans to combat it.

Chu warned of water shortages plaguing the West and Upper Midwest and particularly dire consequences for California, his home state, the nation's leading agricultural producer.

In a worst case, Chu said, up to 90% of the Sierra snowpack could disappear, all but eliminating a natural storage system for water vital to agriculture.

"I don't think the American public has gripped in its gut what could happen," he said. "We're looking at a scenario where there's no more agriculture in California." And, he added, "I don't actually see how they can keep their cities going" either.

Sounds dire indeed, but we have time to fix it. Precious little time, as it turns out, which is really why the Obama team is so welcome to anyone interested in the health and well-being of our planet.

As Mr. Chu pointed out in this interview, global warming is a threat to pretty much everything we know and love, yet many people choose to remain blissfully unaware of this threat. But, at long last, we have a White House that gets it. Our task now is to build the movement that will support President Obama’s attempts to stop global warming. The dirty fossil fuel industry has deep pockets, you can bet they’ll be fighing each and every measure designed to stop global warming so they can protect the cash flow they stuff those deep pockets with. Only overwhelming and undeniable popular demand for solutions will give the Obama Administration and our allies in Congress the mandate they need to override the special interests and do what’s right for the world.

To whit: if you’re anywhere near DC, or you can get there by March 2nd, you should take part in the Capitol Climate Action (if you like, RSVP here).

If you can’t make it to DC, there’s still plenty you can do to take action and show Congress that we the people support global warming solutions. The important thing is just that we all get involved and do whatever we can. Tell your friends, tell your family. Let’s make sure that the energy revolution starts right here and right now.

Indian company TATA is building a new port at Dhamra, which is dangerously close to a sea turtle nesting site at Gahirmatha, on the Orissa coast. Greenpeace India has a petition set up so you can let TATA know how you feel about their decision to imperil this guy:



Here's more about the situation from Greenpeace India:

Consider this… Olive Ridley turtles rely on an inexplicable, in-built navigation system that guides them, when it’s time for them to reproduce, back to the precise coast on which they were born.

Now consider something else… The proposed Tata port at Dhamra threatens a nesting site that is amongst the last honeymoon suites for the remaining Olive Ridleys, a highly-endangered species that swims all the way here from places as far away as Australia and the Philippines.

When you consider these two facts together, it seems only logical that Tata would reconsider its decision to build the port at Dhamra, and build it in an area that’s less ecologically sensitive. It seems especially logical when it’s Tata we’re talking about.

After all, Tata has grown from a national giant into an international player, while constantly highlighting it’s stated commitment to the principles of social upliftment, environmental justice and sustainable development. The Tata brand is ubiquitous, present in hundreds of products used by millions of Indians every day.

Help Greenpeace India tell TATA to live up to its stated principles and save the turtles!

Greenpeace and  Kimberly-Clark have announced the successful resolution of the Kleercut campaign as the maker of Kleenex has established a new sustainability policy focused on protecting Endangered Forests. Go to www.greenpeace.org/kleercut to find out more!


I know it’s a funny concept to consider, the sustainability of the tissue you use to wipe your nose. But the humor wears off pretty quick once you realize that the company that makes Kleenex brand tissues is wiping out vast expanses of ancient forests for tissues we will use once and then throw away.

We have worked on the Kleercut campaign for ages now, so I imagine the humor is long gone for most of us. To everyone that has helped us pressure the makers of Kleenex to protect ancient forests like the North American Boreal, let me just say that we here at Greenpeace are very grateful for your support. With this post, I’m going to answer the question I’m asked by concerned individuals and activists more than any other: If Kleenex should be avoided until they protect forests and use recycled content, then what should I buy?



The answer: there are a lot of good choices to choose from! So we have made it easy for you to find the products most available at your grocery store by creating the Greenpeace Recycled Tissue and Toilet Paper Guide. Now you can scan the guide online or print the pocket version and carry it with you to the store. Not only will the guide compare most major brands of tissue, toilet paper, paper towels, and paper napkins, but the guide can also be shown to the manager at your local store if they are interested in carrying environmentally friendly paper products.

I hope this gives you all a nice and easy way to blow your nose without wiping out forests. If you find a brand you are curious about or if you have another pressing question about our work to protect the Boreal and reform Kimberly-Clark, you can email us at usa@kleercut.net.

Here’s another one for the trees!
Lindsey

 

Dr. James Hansen is an internationally-recognized climate scientist, one of the world's preeminent experts on global warming. In the video below, Dr. Hansen calls for Americans to take part in the Capitol Climate Action on March 2nd at the Capitol Power Plant in Washington DC. This plant is providing dirty energy to Congress, which is why it's the target of what's expected to be the largest display of civil disobedience against global warming in US history.

Dr. Hansen warns that unless we stop burning coal, the country's largest source of global warming pollution, young people will inherit a dramatically different world than the one we know and love today. For more info on the action, visit www.CapitolClimateAction.org. For more info on dirty coal, go here.

Explore the oceans with the new version of Google Earth. Thanks to Google’s collaboration with over 100 organizations you can now dive into the deep blue sea without getting wet.

There is a really cool “touring” feature where you can swim along the path of a whale shark. If you love to learn, you can splash around to find out new findings about ocean observations, climate change, and endangered species.

Here at Greenpeace, we are excited that Google Earth contains information about marine protected areas. It’s sad to see that only 1% of the oceans are actually protected. We are pushing to get that 1% pushed up to 40%. More protected areas means the oceans will be healthier.

Click here to help speed up the process of declaring more marine reserves!

Greenpeace ventured to the Bering Sea in a push to get that area protected. With the new Google Earth you can check out the research we did and navigate through the canyons we explored. All you have to do is download the new Google Earth (link below) and the search for “Greenpeace.”

http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html

Happy Diving!

--Michelle

Susan Sarandon lent her voice to this PSA asking everyone to join us at the Capitol Climate Action in Washington, DC on March 2nd, 2009. Thousands of people will come together that day in a multi-generational act of civil disobedience at the Capitol Power Plant — a plant that powers Congress with dirty energy and symbolizes a past that cannot be our future.

Along with various other entities, we filed a federal lawsuit in 2002 to force two U.S. agencies to address the global warming implications of their financing activities abroad. We’re glad to report that the suit was settled on February 6th — more than six years after the suit was originally filed — and that the resolution of the suit establishes important legal precedents related to global warming.

We joined with Friends of the Earth and the city of Boulder, Colorado to file the suit in August 2002, and were later joined by the California cities of Arcata, Santa Monica and Oakland. Our complaint alleged that the Export-Import Bank of the United States (ExIm)and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) illegally provided more than $32 billion in financing and insurance to fossil fuel projects over 10 years without assessing whether the projects contributed to global warming or impacted the U.S. environment, as they were required to do under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The fossil fuel projects financed by the two agencies from 1990 to 2003 accounted for nearly eight percent of the world's carbon dioxide emissions, or nearly one third of total U.S. emissions.

In August 2005, a federal judge found that we — “the Plaintiffs” as they say in legalese — suffered economic and other damages from climate change and therefore had standing to sue under NEPA, opening up the courthouse doors for the first time to those injured by climate change. Testimony from the case, which successfully asserted that climate change is real and caused by human activities, later informed the Mass. v EPA decision, in which the Supreme Court held that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are pollutants that can be regulated under the Clean Air Act.

Under the settlement agreed to on Feb. 6th, the Export-Import Bank will begin taking carbon dioxide emissions into account in evaluating fossil fuel projects and create an organization-wide carbon policy. The Overseas Private Investment Corporation will establish a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions associated with projects it finances by 20 percent over the next ten years. Additionally, both agencies will commit to increasing financing for renewable energy.

The settlement represents an important victory in the continuing campaign to hold both agencies accountable for their contributions to climate change, and sets a valuable precedent for demanding accountability of major financial institutions on the issue of global warming in the future.

If you're into this sort of thing, you can read several legal documents related to the suit here. Reactions from all of our fellow plaintiffs can be found in this press release.

Most everyone who visits this site or reads this blog with any regularity has probably already heard about the Capitol Climate Action – a massive direct action targeting the Capitol Power Plant in Washington, D.C. This plant no longer generates electricity, but it does supply other forms of energy to the Capitol building, such as the heat that makes the Capitol building inhabitable during the winter. And it uses coal, the dirtiest fuel available, for producing that energy. It’s perfectly symbolic of the inordinate amount of influence the coal industry has on our decisionmakers.

If you want to help us send our message – “Coal out of Congress!” – but you can’t make it to D.C. on March 2nd, you can still get involved by hosting or attending a house party on February 12th. You'll be able to join a conference call with Mike Clark, interim executive director of Greenpeace USA, and Matt Leonard, Capitol Climate Action coordinator, to get the latest details on the action itself as well as find out how you can get more people from your community involved.

And you can even make sure your voice is represented in our nation’s capitol on March 2nd by creating a pinwheel with your name and a personal message on it. Activists in D.C. will use these pinwheels to set up a temporary “wind farm” on Capitol Hill on the day of the action. You’ll be helping show Congress what America’s clean energy future looks like! So get on it: Sign up to host or attend a house party on Feb. 12th.

According to the American Wind Energy Association, the wind energy industry installed “8,358 megawatts (MW) of new generating capacity (enough to serve over 2 million homes)” in 2008. To achieve this growth, the wind industry now employs 85,000 people. This is not only a 70% increase over the number of wind jobs that existed in 2007, but it also means, as this CNN article points out, that the wind industry now employs more people in the United States than coal mining. I’m not sure how big a milestone this latter point actually is — it will be a much bigger deal when the wind industry employs more people than the entire coal industry, not just coal miners — but it’s a hopeful sign nonetheless. We’re getting there.

The global economic crisis has hit renewable energy developers and financiers as hard as any other industry, however. Towards the end of 2008 development of renewable energy really took a nosedive because the money simply wasn’t there any more. Now more than ever, we need an extension of the renewable energy tax credits, which were allowed to expire last year.

Thankfully, the Obama administration and Congressional leaders are “looking at including as much as $25 billion of energy tax credits in the economic stimulus package in an effort to bolster renewable energy projects, fuel-efficient cars and biodiesel production,” according to the Washington Post. The article goes on to say that:

The main elements under consideration include a two-year, $8.6 billion extension of the production tax credit for renewable energy, an item that favors wind power projects. Obama advisers are considering a proposal from the wind and solar industry that would make those credits refundable or count them against past taxes because many financial firms that provided capital for those projects no longer have taxable income and can't use the credits.

If these provisions make it into the stimulus plan, and the plan then gets passed with these provisions more or less in tact, it would go a long way towards getting the energy revolution off the ground. There’s lots more to do, but this would be a good start.

If you want to know more about the environmental impact of the economic stimulus package, you’re in luck! We just published a report all about it (executive summary here).

Since the economy first started going sour, we’ve repeatedly made the point that we could alleviate our economic woes by implementing effective policies to kickstart an energy revolution and combat global warming. We’ve highlighted reports showing that renewable energy creates more jobs than fossil fuel energy. We’ve pointed to anecdotal evidence showing that renewable energy reinvigorates dying communities and gives the people who live in them a renewed sense of purpose and patriotism. We even put out a blueprint for how to get all this done. If done right, the economic stimulus could be the energy revolution's shot heard 'round the world.

Via the Wonk Room:

The coal industry has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to get out the message of "clean coal," through front groups like the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, campaign contributions, and an army of lobbyists. But the devastating December 22, 2008 coal ash slurry spill of the Kingston Fossil Plant in rural Tennessee broke through the cacophony of clean coal carolers. This ThinkProgress Wonk Room video is a stark reminder that in reality, coal isn't clean.