Thanks for posting this! Its good to get the terms and facts straight on this topic!
I feel that many people (especially Climate Change Deniers) focus too much on carbon dioxide and the term 'Global Warming' when considering use of Coal and other fuels. The bigger issue to me are things like air pollution and 1000's of premature deaths in many of the most developed cities in the world.
Global Warming should really be referred to as Climate Change much more often since that ecnompases much more of the story.
So here's the real story that everyone just seems to ignore! Whilst people are debating and denying whether or not Climate Change is linked to Human activities, they are missing the real issue! The real issue is that more people die of respiratory disease in the world than from terrorist attacks. Smog and pollution is a serious problem and there is a pretty long list of other effects too! if I asked you to guess how many people worldwide die from air pollution I wonder what you would say. WHilst this is a very hard number to accurately estimate, it is accepted now that upto .. wait for it .... 5.5 MILLION deaths* worldwide occur per year due to air pollution!!! And people are still debating over CO2??? Something very strange going on here!
- http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35568249 (data source)
We have to realize that is is inevitable that sooner or later fossil fuels will run out.. If we look at the state of the Climate today and take heed of the many and varied warnings we are receiving there is not much to deny! We cant keep growing and consuming exponentially whilst were on the same planet! Ask any bacteria and it will confirm this!.. At some point you just run out everything and its all gets very messy and nasty! We have to change the way we do things. The good news is that the alternatives are already out there, and there are even MANY options!
What alternatives?
I have mentioned the best options in this post, but some other options include:
Biomass. Biomass or bio-energy, the energy from organic matter for thousands of years, ever since people started burning wood to cook food. ...
Biogas. ...
Tidal Energy. ...
Wind Energy. ...
Geothermal Energy. ...
Radiant Energy. ...
Hydro Electricity. ...
Compressed Natural Gas.