good on them lots stop this thing

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They also want Telford to shed its image as an area “scarred by mining”.

Ummmmm, so much for preserving our proud industrial heritage (whoops, I forgot, that only applies to Ironbridge…).

It may come as a surprise to councillors and their officer “minders”, but even the most cursory search in Google would show them that the common perception of Telford is of a town scarred by incompetent planning and idiotic administration – remember how the story of the Town Park penguins was reported around the world?

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Sorry but I’d have to disagree with you there John. There is in no way any ‘need’ for this development. Coal fired power generation is historically responsible for most of the co2 in the atmosphere today. Instead of coal we should be investing in energy efficiency, renewable energy and decentralised energy. If we do that we can tackle both climate change and energy security at the same time. Coal-fired power generation really is an outdated technology. Even today, Britain’s centralised, inefficient coal-fired power stations waste over two-thirds of the energy they generate! Compare that with the state-of-the-art decentralised combined heat and power plants they use in Scandinavia which run at up to 94% efficiency! We simply don’t need this new coal-hole, here or anywhere else.

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Well said, tanc.

You are absolutely right to say that energy efficiency, renewable energy and decentralised energy are the way forward.

Today in London, people are marching under the banner PUT PEOPLE FIRST ( http://www.shropshirestar.com/2009/03/28/london-braced-for-economic-march/ ).

We all know that recycling, re-using and public education put people first and create more jobs than incineration.

In the same way, the sustainable solutions tanc mentions also create MORE JOBS.

Surely this is what Shropshire is crying out for now.

Burning coal will only bring misery to people living nearby as well as the poorest people on the planet, who are in the front line of climate change.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that 150,000 people die every year as a result of climate change.

The council chiefs should be throwing out this bid because of the effects that burning coal, the dirtiest of fossil fuels, will have on the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world.

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Get the coal out of the ground, create jobs, build social housing, creating more jobs and put a dent in the housing waiting list. Local needs must take a priority, not a bunch of moaning nimby’s trying to stop everything that is going. I hope it goes ahead, the benefits outway the moans. Simple.

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John, not everyone opposed to coal-mining is a ‘nimby’, as you put it.

On 19th March in Coventry Cathedral I and hundreds of others heard NASA chief scientist, James Hansen, who lives nowhere near Huntington Lane, say that we have got to keep coal in the ground if we want to avoid climate chaos.

Hansen told us that climate systems around the world are reaching tipping points and that coal, as the largest fossil fuel reservoir of carbon dioxide, is the single greatest threat to civilisation and to life on this planet.

He said that the trains carrying coal to power plants are ‘death trains’ and that coal-fired power plants are ‘factories of death’, because of the deaths that climate change is already causing in poorer countries (150,000 a year according to the WHO).

Before Hansen spoke, we heard from a Christian Aid development worker from Kenya, James Galgallo, who told us how the way of life of rural Kenyans was being devastated by unprecedented changes in rainfall patterns there.

The Bishop of Liverpool, James Jones, followed Hansen’s grim warning about coal by highlighting how unfair the situation is: that the poorest people in the world are the first to be affected by a problem they have done little to cause. He called on all of us present to fight this appalling ‘climate injustice’.

John, are you not ignoring the appalling consequences of coal mining?

After all, blindly carrying on burning coal would not only affect the local people, who have to deal with dust and the damage to their local environment but also the global climate.

I agree with you, John, that we must create jobs locally.

This is an absolute imperative during this economic downturn.

But would you not agree that MORE JOBS would be created by a radical shift towards green energy, and a massive government-led drive in insulating our leaky, inefficient housing stock, and making it fit for the 21st century.

Sustainable energy, public education and efficiency and conservation campaigns will create many more jobs than nuclear or coal.

And these sustainable jobs, which will help future-proof our economy, will be in Shropshire, not miles away.

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Thousands and thousands of people from more than 150 anti-poverty, development, union, faith and environmental groups took part in the ‘Put People First’ march in London on Saturday 28th March. ( http://www.shropshirestar.com/2009/03/28/london-braced-for-economic-march/ )

They called for G20 leaders to avoid business as usual solutions like coal, and instead prioritise JOBS, JUSTICE and CLIMATE.

I am sure that there are thousands of others here in Shropshire, who share the views of the demonstrators.

I hope they start feeling inspired to call for an end to the failed solutions of the past, which are pushing us in an unsustainable direction, and to call instead for a Green New Deal for Shropshire.

Energy conservation drives and green energy will help create jobs in Shropshire and avert climate chaos globally.

Burning coal ignores the advice of the scientists and takes us closer to the tipping points most sane people want to avoid.

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If the buffoons in parliament accepted, as the rest of europe has done, that nuclear power was the only real way forward then this would not be a problem.

Still, it justifies the continued existance of some non jobs in telford & Wrekin so it must be okay!

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I wonder if “Tory Boy” lives anywhere near the proposed mine?
If not – why not button it?

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