CO2 Emissions from cooling towers?

When people ignore or don't understand science, economics, history, mathematics, or human nature, politicians and other grifters (eg, environmentalists) can sell 'em anything -- including global warming. When a few people start to catch on to the scam, the politicians and other grifters fool 'em again by simply changing the name to something like global cooling or climate change. Fortunately for the politicians and grifters, at least half the people never catch on to the game.

Because they apparently assume everyone can be conned, I was insulted by an article posted last month by The Mother Earth News (TMEN) use of a photo of the steam coming from power plant cooling towers (the story implies that the photo is of a coal-fired plant but it could also be a nuke but that is immaterial) to illustrate CO2 emissions. As any science-aware 4th-grader knows knows, the steam (H2O) shown in the photo does not contain CO2. TMEN had to use a photo of steam because a photo of modern smoke stacks would dramatically show nothing that would be editorially useful! Since TMEN apparently assumes its readers are scientifically illiterate, a misleading photo is apparently justified.

TMEN's egregious misuse of such a photo illustrates either profound editorial laziness or profound ignorance or an assumption that TMEN readers are idiots or a deliberate intent to mislead its readers into the false belief that one of the cleanest sources of energy (nuclear) is evil or all the above.

I wrote TMEN to address the inappropriateness of the photo as an example of CO2 emissions. The response: "Maybe the towers on the left are smokestacks." They aren't. The term, "blissful ignorance" seems to be a part of the job description at TMEN.

The web page also proudly mentions a Sierra Club announcement of the 100th cancellation of a proposed coal-fired power plant since 2001. There is no mention of a cost-effective and reliable replacement for the loss of 100 coal-fired power plants.

The real direction this anti-energy campaign is taking is back to the stone age when our ancestors did not have the technology we enjoy today which relies totally on reliable, abundant, and cheap fossil-fuel and nuclear energy.

How will the United States will look once nature's cyclical global cooling kicks in and no one will be able to afford to heat their homes because of carbon taxes introduced to prevent global warming?

TMEN and the Sierra Club should consider the simple fact that, without cheap and reliable energy from energy sources such as coal and nuclear to build them, there will be no electric or hybrid cars or solar panels or wind-powered generators. No solar panel or wind turbine is capable of generating the energy necessary to build its own replacement at a reasonable cost. It takes coal, gas or nukes to do that kind of real work. It takes thousands of acres of wind turbines and/or solar panels to produce sporadic energy equal to the capacity of the steady and reliable output of one coal-fired power plant. What is a bigger eyesore -- a thousand windmills or steam coming out of 5 cooling stacks? Which process is honestly more environmentally friendly -- gas and coal or solar and wind?

If TMEN and their allies are really worried about CO2 emissions (which, according to geological history, legitimate science, and common sense, does not cause earth's natural climate changes), TMEN should be pushing for nukes -- their CO2 is zero! The real direction this anti-energy campaign is taking is back to the stone age when our ancestors did not have the technology we enjoy today which relies totally on reliable, abundant, and cheap fossil-fuel and nuclear energy. Self-proclaimed environmentalists generally seem to be people who don't know about science, don't understand economics, and won't do the math. TMEN editors and writers, please stop listening to that buffoon and science midget Al Gore and do your homework!