The Future of Energy Seems Stuck in the Past

I received another newsletter from Senator Rand Paul, who believes the Obama administration and the EPA are in an “ongoing war on American energy manufacturers and the American consumer.” Paul is fighting to build more coal power plants (with no additional restrictions) and to continue mountaintop removal in the name of coal mining.

Thomas A. Edison is probably shaking his ghostly head in amazement and disappointment. For when he made the remarks below, he no doubt assumed our society would be progressive and innovative enough to have handled our energy resource problems by now:

“We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Nature’s inexhaustible sources of energy—sun, wind and tide. ... I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.”

[Photo of coal’s impact on the forested hills of Kentucky by Jake McClendon. Read about Appalachian mountaintop removal at Earthjustice.]