60 Minutes and the “Coal” Story

Yesterday's blogs teemed with reactions to Sunday’s 60 Minutes segment, “Powered by Coal.” The segment profiled Duke Energy, the third-largest energy utility in the Unites States (and emitter of more than 100 million tons of CO2 every year). CEO Jim Rogers discusses his company’s transition to “decarbonize” his business by 2050. The piece only briefly featured points made by pre-eminent climate scientist and 1Sky ally Jim Hansen about Duke’s carbon targets before exploring a carbon sequestration plant in North Dakota. But the blogs didn’t aim at Rogers and Duke Energy. They focused on how 60 Minutes “blew it” on they covered the coal story.

Grist's Dave Roberts on The Huffington Post noted the piece missed an important step by not exploring Hansen's statements and a moratorium on new coal plants. To Rogers, 60 Minutes didn’t even cover the tough question of whether we can phase out coal for renewable resources altogether.

Joe Romm at Climate Progress--actually interviewed in the piece-- ran an open comment forum on his blog and said 60 Minutes cut his comments on other strategies for clean energy.

Tara Lohan at Alternet says the piece blew it “big time” because of the flawed premise that cleaning up coal is the answer to the climate crisis.

The 60 Minutes piece comes right on the heels of the Markey-Waxman bill and Big Coal’s efforts to weaken it. The EPA’s recent statement declaring its authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions was briefly mentioned and could have provided more substance for the report. Watch the full segment below or read the transcript; did they miss the point? Or did they miss several?