The Dorothy art collective designed this snow globe that features a coal-fired power plant. When shaken, black pollution floats around instead of pristine white snowflakes.
The single greatest threat to the climate comes from burning coal but despite this a whole new fleet of dirty coal-fired power stations are on the verge of being built in the UK (the first for 30 years). The snow globe was designed for Ctrl.Alt.Shift in anticipation of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen 2009.
They made two, and have sold one. You can have the other for £2,000 plus shipping. Link -via Nag on the Lake
@kirsten There is no smear campaign against fossil fuels. There is only a simple fact: burning things that are made of carbon releases carbon dioxide. There isn't much anyone can do about that, it's simple chemistry.
Most people who want to be "green" also want to keep living in the 21st century, which means that they want their electricity to come from environmentally friendly sources.
The fact that a huge majority of the power is still coming from burning fossil fuels is precisely what they want to change, so I'm not sure that saying "almost none of your electricity is green" is going to change their mind about coal.
http://www.exeeco.co.uk/news/65/photo.jpg
I accept that providers who only buy from renewable sources are a step in the right direction, but many of the smugs who buy from them don't see the real picture.
The trouble is that while these suppliers do buy their energy from renewable sources this does not mean that at any given time there as much enough renewable sourced energy being supplied to the grid for all their customers. It's a calm, cold evening in winter. There's no solar energy hitting the grid. There's no supply of wind energy. However demand is high, because it's cold and dark and there's a popular TV show on too. Yes there's still hydroelectric dams* supplying the grid, but as far as renewable engergy in the UK goes that's about it on any reasonable scale. So where are all the smug customers of these renewable suppliers getting the energy to heat and light their homes, power their TV and boil the kettle in the advert break. Why, fossil and nuclear power of course.
The way the market between generators and suppliers works means that the customers still get power. It's balanced out by the fact that at times there is more renewable energy hitting the grid than is used by the people buying into the renewable budget plans.
* I'm not even sure that, with the damage to their immediate environment hydroelectric dams can be considered truly green.
This is just one source: http://mapawatt.com/2010/11/29/where-does-u-s-electricity-come-from/ I now its from 2010 but thee are other sites, if you are green you know.
I'm SICK of the coal smear campaign, also most other fossil fuels
Stop using ANYTHING from the grid if you want to be "green".
How is non-fossil energy production pre-industrial, how is it going to halve your life expectancy, and why is "Climate Change" between quotes?
It's a shame they made it look like a nuclear power plant though. People will be shaking their fists at the wrong buildings.