The Environmental Injustice of "Clean Coal'': Expanding the National Conversation on Carbon Capture and Storage Technology to Include an Analysis of Potential Environmental Justice Impacts

Over the past decade, the coal industry has created a multi-million dollar public relations campaign to insulate coal from the green energy revolution and the anticipated public backlash against dirty and unsustainable fuels. This campaign, promoting "clean coal,'' has effectively shifted the national conversation on energy and climate change to situate coal as a viable clean energy source and the best option available to mitigate climate change. As the U.S. gets closer to passing national climate legislation and the deadline for achieving significant global reductions in carbon emissions draws near, opposition to the coal industry and its Clean Coal Campaign is organizing on a number of fronts. The environmental justice movement, through its leadership on climate justice, can serve as a centralizing force for these disparate advocacy efforts, bringing together students, scientists, policy advocates, community residents, and others engaged to fight clean coal and advance real green energy solutions. This article will look at the history of the Clean Coal Campaign and weigh the arguments for and against clean coal, focusing particularly on carbon capture and sequestration. It will then overview the advocacy efforts occurring across the U.S. to oppose coal and expose the fallacy of clean coal. Finally, it will defend the centralization of these efforts in an environmental justice-based climate justice movement that utilizes the varied resources, expertise and energy of the current advocacy efforts to stop coal and achieve a clean, green renewable energy economy.