Thanks, Terri, for the info.  I looked through the thread, and Senator Kerry is clearly on the right side of every environmental issue of importance today.  This liquefied coal idea is really stupid and needs to go.

Also, interesting to learn from the thread, that one senator has reversed himself on coal liquefication, for the better:  Barack Obama.  A kudos to environmental groups for making that reversal happen.  It goes to show that grassroots efforts really do work.

Thank you, thank you, Senator Kerry.

Sen. Kerry’s comments about putting “clean coal” on his list of 3 top priorities scared me.  I was glad to come here and see that it *didn’t* include CTL, which would be a joke if it weren’t a disaster, but the whole idea of clean coal seems like the wrong way to go.

Not to mention that we have lots of industrial needs for hydrocarbons--we should be doing everything we can to eliminate burning them so that they’ll be around for things that have no alternatives.

Senator, I must thank you and congratulate you for going onto BlueMassGroup and engaging in a sort of a citizens’ press conference with those bloggers, in which regular people like me can ask their public servant questions and get in-depth answers. BlueMassGroup is not the most friendly group of progressives to take questions from, and I appreciate that you were willing to be challenged by those who do not have absolute affection for you (like me). It proves just how you are a true public servant--a humble servant for the people of Massachusetts--and I applaud you for having the courage to go on there.

It was also interesting to see your primary opponent, Ed O’Reilly, posting there as well. He has no chance against an anti-war and genuine liberal--even Ned Lamont lost to pro-war and Bush ally Joe Lieberman in an anti-war blue state--but he has every right to challenge you and I look forward to the political battle, even though there’s no way he can win criticizing your 2002 Iraq War vote that you have apologized for since profusely.

You shouldn’t worry about him. I’m a bitter anti-war voter, and I’ll still support you--a dedicated public servant for over thirty years--over a man who self-servingly and maliciously attacks you for not supporting the troops enough while you have devoted your entire adult life to that very issue.

Ed O’Reilly is an opportunist to me; you are the real deal, Senator, and will continue to be until the end. You are a good man; keep on fighting.

This global warming myth is getting out of hand. I am an African and lived in Africa all my life with occasional visits to the USA and most of the world capitals. I know you may say this sight has nothing to do with Africans but the American Senator ship is a very important position in charting world policy. I have a Chemical engineering background being my first degree, not that it means anything, since I have for the past 30 years been doing things completely different. The problem I see is how to convince an African in some village that the world is getting warm because some American Senator thinks so and that he should not use his coal brazier for cooking his meal or keep warm at night even in the absence of alternatives such as Hydro electricity which to this villager is only seen through the power lines passing over head his village. Already we have a UN report that says we should not even grow alternative energy plants such as Jatropha because they cause deforestation and eventually global warming and all these myths. I have not seen the scientific proof of this UN report linking Agriculture production of alternative energy sources to global warming. Neither do I have any right at all to challenge the authors of this UN report, save to say they were doing it for the UN and not academic world. In similar circumstances Africans are being told erroneously that increasing crop production through use of GMO seeds is bad for their health even if they are going to die of hunger any way with or without GMO seeds and foods. They are leaving the Africans with very little choices indeed.

Africa is some hot place already and people die of heat stroke every year since time immemorial although it’s explained other wise. Currently its winter time in Zambia and its as cold as Antarctica or is it DC the last time I was passing through when it was freezing and white all over. How do you explain global warming in a simple way other than saying the Ice capes in the North Pole are melting so the world is getting hot? What’s hot any way? Its sometimes 35 degrees Celsius in the shade in Zambia and I suppose its worse with our brothers in the deserts.

Finally CTL Technology is somewhat been used in Zambias Nitrogen Chemicals plant for Nitrogenous Fertilizer production from Coal. It is indeed some old plant a combination of German and Japanese technology. Coal is very cheap in Zambia. The process consumes lots of electrical energy but our electricity is fairly cheap compared to the US as its Hydro, but we don’t have fertilizer to grow our crops to feed our people. We don’t have cash to buy oil from the Middle East either. So if we say we use coal to produce methanol to produce our fertilizer and power our industrial traction motors and transport our goods to the sea should we be stopped too because some animals in the North Pole are going to die of global warming? How about our children who are dying on a minute by second basis because they can’t have food or because the only ambulance around cant take them to the nearest Hospital 30 miles away because it has no gas because the country has no money to buy the oil from the Middle East?

Infect only last week, I met some young American tourists in Lusaka in shorts and sandals when it was extremely cold and they too openly said they wished it was a little warmer. Actually to convince the Africans in the villages to make a choice for global warming is going to be some battle. Their present survival basic needs far exceed the Global warming myth.

For Bob and others:

The coal gasification process does not emit anything into the air.  There is a sludge left over, but that can be reclaimed and used as fuel in coal fired electrical plants.

The process is basically this, coal is powdered and mixed with oil to form a slurry.  That slurry is reacted with certain catalysts to cause the coal to transform into liquid.  This is done under pressure so that nothing escapes into the environment.  After that, the slurry is refined pretty much they same way as regular crude.  You get gasoline and other petro products from this process such as propane and natural gas.

This was what the state of the art was in the 1940’s.  I suspect that today the process is even cleaner.

GV
In case you didn’t know, though I am an African, I have been following American Politics, like I am sure, every one in the world these days does. And I actually admire Senator John Kerry as a man of sound judgment and exemplary courage - perhaps the reason why I was tempted to contribute in the first place. I am therefore really sorry I caused unnecessary anxiety and perhaps annoyed some contributors in the process, please forgive my dumbness. I also didn’t realize I had to include some scientific proof in my contribution as I don’t have any and I don’t think any one out there in this whole world has any scientific proof about Global Warming apart from physical observations like you said of Lake Chad and melting Ice cape of the Kilimanjaro in Africa and of course the North Pole ice melts. I don’t expect you to believe any thing I say either but my questions though dumb need answers for me to believe the Global warming hypothesis; I see you don’t like the use of the term ‘Myth’. Indeed, Lake Chad is disappearing but can you at the same time see what is happening to Lake Victoria, Tanganyika, Malawi, and Kariba? And how far is Lake Chad from the influences of the Sahara Desert? But why are these other Lakes not disappearing at the same pace if this Global warming is really evenly spread all over the planet or is it only targeted to the North Pole, Lake Chad and the Mt Kilimanjaro ice cape? I know it sounds dumb and someone may come up with another Hypothesis.

You see, the trouble I have is that this Global warming science has been based on observations of ice melting in the North Pole and like you rightly point out Mt Kilimanjaro and Lake Chad and so forth. But I don’t think its right to say for certain that, rising temperatures in certain places are due to Global warming alone and we even have discussants connecting this green house hypothesis extrapolation to how the climate works and proof of sorts based on further observations. I also see some put it as if the whole earth is some sort of a test tube to which they are adding some chemical reagent and observing how it works out. Can you imagine someone telling you that CO2 levels have risen over the last century, thus temperatures too, and that this has been caused by us humans? But when you look at the same documentation you said I should go to, I see in one it says the CO2 levels have indeed risen about 21%, but another says something different that sometime in the ‘30s during the depression, when human CO2 emission had dropped to around 30%, yet even then, CO2 in the atmosphere continued to rise. I really don’t know how these authors arrived at their analyses but it seems to me that neither seems to imply human cause.

You ask Poverty and climate change connection, for Africa and I am sure the rest of the third world - it boils down to cheap energy sources and coal is one of those and unfortunately deforestation is bound to be a victim when villagers are bound to use more wood to meet their daily energy needs. I know this sounds really backward but all I am trying to point out are actual facts as they are in most of the developing world who, as you may know, are also custodians to the world’s largest forest reserves, on which some Global warming observers have put their salvation hopes - yet the developed world seems not to take these rain forest dwellers into consideration when discussing these issues. Indeed I’m concern about the future of Africa just as I am concern about any topic that suggests the world is burning up, but I am also concern that those who wish to discuss these issues are merely basing them on observations and say this is scientific proof. And when I say I dont agree with that observation, you turn round and say I dont care? Let’s, as you said, put a couple of proven data and facts around these observations. Remember we had the Ice age myth not a long time ago in 1974 - again it was based on similar unsubstantiated observations. Now the same climatologists are saying we are hotting up? And you say that’s okay, we shouldnt question it? Can you imagine someone telling you that if we do all these things about controlling our climate change, we can actually reduce the planets temperatures by about 2 degrees? Can you believe that assumption really? If you can that’s fine with me - but now, try telling that to my brothers in the Congo rain forest or indeed their cousins in the Amazon - I am sure they will think you have been on too much local rain forest whisky made by distilling Bananas over a charcoal brazier and in need of urgent psychiatric treatment. I am sure there is a much simpler way to explain the current observations on climate change rather than this Armageddon myth. And with all the contributions that I have read on this site so far, there seem to be a huge amount knowledge from a very well informed readership on the various subjects who can help in arriving a some simpler form to understand this topic. MY “observation” (don’t say it) is that yes, there is some sort of Global warming going on in “some” places but it’s not an irreversible phenomenon. Therefore we should not send the world into panic at all, let the guys who can afford fossil oil prices at $10 per gallon when oil eventually hits $150 or more per barrel drive their SUV’s and let the African, who has lived his whole life as a gatherer of fruits and food, who can afford going about gathering free wood and coal energy go about their lives freely, and if you too think about it, everything will be okay Trust me.

I am afraid, at the rate these observation theories are going, soon, one will come up with a theory on world over population being problem and you know what? Yes, you guessed right!