It’s Time To Go To The Mattresses

So let me get this straight – while those of us who are trying to lead greener lives, have been cutting our carbon footprints and working with our cities, states and the rest of the USA to help them do likewise, Killer Coal has been playing us for chumps and wiping out all our efforts every single second of every day.  Can you believe the nerve of those dirty backstabbers?  How long did they think we were gonna put up with that?

The Killer Coal Family is waging war against the rest of our families – and those gangsters will not stop until we take them down.  So as the head of the Galliani family I called a emergency meeting of the five families – who will all go nameless due to their fifth amendment privileges and a patriotic penchant for privacy. Therefore I’ll be speaking for the group.  Everyone thought that was a great idea, and I went along.  I know how to smell consensus when it occurs.

At our meeting we all agreed that it’s time to go to the mattresses and declare war against coal until we kill them and put them out of business.  We had a vote and then we had a toast.  In fact we had several toasts.  Everybody felt very good about our decision.  We like it when we get to take on bullies.

We’re claiming self-defense since rubbing them out is the only way we can stop them from doing away with all of us. We already gave the Killer Coal Family a chance to stop disrespecting us and make things right – but what did those climate-changing con artists do instead?  They aimed more smokestacks at us and dumped toxic waste in our neighborhoods while they paid off the cops and the justice system to get away with it.  That just ain’t right.  And it ain’t a wise way to go when dealing with wise guys like us.

So now we have no choice but war, and I say let’s do what we gotta do.  Hey, it’s not personal.  It’s strictly business.  And during economic downturns like this we take our business much more seriously.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t have lots  of fun and plenty of laughs the whole time we’re destroying their way of life, their business and their futures.  So leave the guns, and bring the canolli. 

And least you was starting to feel any sympathy, I’m the guy telling you that nobody should feel sorry for Killer Coal except the other crooks, lowlifes and paid-off dirtbags in league with them, all of whom we’re  better off without.  But don’t just take my word for it:

Just last week our Climate Consigliere, Doc Jimmy Hansen laid it all out for us.   Dr. Hansen wrote both a personal letter to President elect Barack Obama as well as a pdf white paper that you can download and read for yourself and don’t let anyone tell you you can’t.  Here’s a few choice things he said in his letter:

There is a profound disconnect between actions that policy circles are considering and what the science demands for preservation of the planet. A stark scientific conclusion, that we must reduce greenhouse gases below present amounts to preserve nature and humanity, has become clear to the relevant experts.

Science and policy cannot be divorced. It is still feasible to avert climate disasters, but only if policies are consistent with what science indicates to be required.

1. Moratorium and phase-out of coal plants that do not capture and store CO2.

This is the sine qua non for solving the climate problem. Coal emissions must be phased out rapidly. Yes, it is a great challenge, but one with enormous side benefits. Coal is responsible for as much atmospheric carbon dioxide as the other fossil fuels combined, and its reserves make coal even more important for the long run.

Oil, the second greatest contributor to atmospheric carbon dioxide, is already substantially depleted, and it is impractical to capture carbon dioxide emitted by vehicles. But if coal emissions are phased out promptly, a range of actions including improved agricultural and forestry practices could bring the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide back down, out of the dangerous range.

As an example of coal’s impact consider this: continued construction of coal-fired power plants will raise atmospheric carbon dioxide to a level at least approaching 500 ppm (parts per million). At that level, a conservative estimate for the number of species that would be exterminated (committed to extinction) is one million. The proportionate contribution of a single power plant operating 50 years and burning ~100 rail cars of coal per day (100 tons of coal per rail car) would be about 400 species!

Coal plants are factories of death. It is no wonder that young people (and some not so young) are beginning to block new construction.”

So as you can see by what Dr Jimmy tells us, we gotta fit the Killer Coal Family with a nice set of cement shoes and make sure they soon sleep with the fishes… Except that Killer Coal is too toxic to toss in the ocean, so we’re gonna have to make sure that it stays right where it belongs, buried in the ground.  It won’t be the first time we bury something six feet under to solve a serious problem – if you catch my meaning.

One way we’re going to do them in is by taxing and regulating them to death.  Didn’t I tell you it was going to be fun? But wait, there’s more new laws of the land…

No new coal power plants unless they suck up all the CO2 they’ve already pumped into the air.  We have numbers on what they owe.  Then there’s the vig.

Also a new carbon tax on coal mining, a carbon tax on coal transporting, a carbon tax on burning coal, a carbon tax on any greenhouse gas emissions and a carbon tax on any waste from burning coal – all equal to an amount double the damage done.  Plus the vig of course.

But it’s with the fines for those who don’t pay that we’re gong to have our real fun.

Miss a carbon tax payment on mining?  We trap all your Coal Company’s Executives in one of your own underground coal mines, seal the entrance shut and turn it into a cable news special.  CNN, MSNBC, FOX, will all be there for sure.  And we get all the advertising and licensing income.

As an added comedy bonus while they’re down there we’d make them watch all those propaganda commercials they’ve been running about how sanitary and fresh smelling coal is.  Maybe we force them to all wear Santa Hats and sing the coal Christmas song they subjected the rest of us to over the holidays.

Miss a carbon tax payment on emissions?  We demolish one of your power plants in spectacular style the same way we implode those big Vegas casinos with demolition when they no longer seem cool enough.  Coal-POW!

We could turn it into a big “Blow out/Blow up” party and auction off the right to push the TNT plunger to a lucky winner.  I’m feeling a pay-for-view spectacular hosted by Paris Hilton and Ryan Seacrest… live music by Lil Wayne with an open bar and a sea of VIPs.

We’d add real drama and excitement to the experience by locking the power plant’s owners in different parts of the facility with live video cameras covering their “Final hour” as they try to get free and escape in time.  We’ll use that “24” clock countdown graphic with the same music.

Of course that’s just here in the USA which is only going to be our warm up act, because then we’re taking our mattresses overseas to take out the Chinese Coal Monster.  I’m already busy meeting with our counterparts in China.  Over there they call it “going to the matts.”  They also call a Big Mac a “Big Yao Ming.”  Interesting, ain’t it?  But I digress.

Why are we  going to the matts in China too?

China announces plan to single-handedly finish off the climate

As Joey “Hell or High Water” Romm reports on Climate Progress:

In short, from 2007 to 2015, China will increase its coal production by an amount equal to two-thirds of the entire coal consumption of the United States — an amount that surpasses all of the coal consumed today in Europe, Eurasia, the Middle East, Africa, and Central and South America.

Romm pulls no punches with his closing:

“Yes, the industrialized countries must sharply reduce their emissions — but absent a reversal of this Chinese coal policy, catastrophic climate impacts are inevitable.“

So bada-bing, bada-boom now we gotta take on the Killer Coal Family in China too – and lest I forget, the Killer Coal Family in India as well.  So be it.  Luckily we got plenty of extended family members in both of those places.  People who like to breathe.  People with kids and grandkids who don’t appreciate Killer Coal trying to snuff out their futures.  People with their own monkeywrenches.

And so we go to the mattresses and we go to the matts.  And we cook spaghetti.  And when you eat spaghetti you gotta have sauce.  You wanna know how to make it? (courtesy of the Urban Possum)

CLEMENZA:  “Heh, come over here, kid, learn something. You never know, you might have to cook for 20 guys someday. You see, you start out with a little bit of oil. Then you fry some garlic. Then you throw in some tomatoes, tomato paste, you fry it; ya make sure it doesn’t stick. You get it to a boil; you shove in all your sausage and your meatballs; heh…? And a little bit o’ wine. An’ a little bit o’ sugar, and that’s my trick.”