THE COAL TRUTH.

Wednesday night's GOP debate on CNN was sponsored in part by the "clean coal" industry, just like the last Democratic debate, also on CNN. It was fairly hard to tell they were sponsoring, what with their multiple advertisements during every commercial break. Among the ads were some from the innocuous-sounding "Americans for Balanced Energy Choices," an astroturf organization that promotes the interests of mining and other coal-related companies. By "balanced," they mean "the people who profit off coal want to make sure it's not left behind in the future of energy." Their website is registered to the coal industry trade organization Center for Energy and Economic Development, and though you might not be able to tell it from the smiling, happy people frolicking under blue skies in the images on their homepage, they and the rest of the "clean coal" proselytizers are working to make sure America stays wedded to the dirtiest fuel available.

Sure, the preface it with "clean," but even if we do perfect the carbon capture and storage technology and bring it up to scale somewhere down the line (which we're still pretty far from achieving) or make IGCC coal plants environmentally sound, coal will still be a dirty, nasty, tragic energy source that we should do our best to avoid. Think trapped miners. Think leveled mountain tops in West Virginia. Think black lung and cancer.

Big surprise the GOP debate, though it featured multiple questions about guns, Mexicans, and gays, didn't include a single question about either how we're going to power our country in the future, or how we're going to address climate change. The Democratic debate barely touched those subjects either, and there was definitely nothing explicitly related to coal. But these are fair, impartial debates about the issues that matter in this country today, right?

--Kate Sheppard