Life-cycle study: Accounting for total harm from coal would add “close to 17.8¢/kWh of electricity generated”

In a groundbreaking article to be released this month in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Dr. Paul Epstein, associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, details the economic, health and environmental costs associated with each stage in the life cycle of coal – extraction, transportation, processing, and combustion.  These costs, between a third to over half a trillion dollars annually, are directly passed on to the public.

In terms of human health, the report estimates $74.6 billion a year in public health burdens in Appalachian communities, with a majority of the impact resulting from increased healthcare costs, injury and death. Emissions of air pollutants account for $187.5 billion, mercury impacts as high as $29.3 billion, and climate contributions from combustion between $61.7 and $205.8 billion. Heavy metal toxins and carcinogens released during processing pollute water and food sources and are linked to long-term health problems. Mining, transportation, and combustion of coal contribute to poor air quality and respiratory disease, while the risky nature of mining coal results in death and injury for workers.

Read the full climateprogress.org article HERE.

Newsletter, Edition 2

How you can help Carbon Nation...
We are thankful for all the support you have shown over the past few years and thrilled that our movie opens in theaters this February.

Many of you have asked how you can help promote Carbon Nation.

We have the perfect solution - organize a group to go see the film opening weekend in your city!  You can buy tickets for your employees, sponsor a local youth group or religious group, or buy tickets for your child's class or school!  If you can organize a group to go see the film on opening weekend in your city it will help get the word out about our optimistic and solutions based film.  All you have to do is email and she will facilitate your group purchase with the theatre from start to finish.

Here is our schedule – the film will run for a week in each city:

If you don’t see your city listed, and would like to host or arrange a screening in your neighborhood or city, please contact our CrowdStarter team at for details.

Newsletter, Edition 1

Welcome to the CARBON NATION community!

Thank you for your interest in the film and for taking part in our dialogue about climate change solutions.

We made this film for my Uncle Phil – a conservative who finds my liberal ways amusing. We made this film for the folks who see solutions to climate change as a national security issue – we have a chapter solely on the green hawks in the Dept. of Defense. We made this film for people who simply see huge profits to be made in energy efficiency. We made it for the great many Americans who don’t want to be told they’ve done something wrong, but do appreciate clean air and clean water.

We believe that CARBON NATION is an entertaining, non-preachy, non-partisan, positive primer about why it’s incredibly smart to be part of the new, low-carbon economy: it’s just good business.

Above all, we believe CARBON NATION is more than a film - it is a call to action for every student, entrepreneur, home owner, church group, military base and law maker, to understand that the solutions to climate change solve many issues - issues that will matter to everyone, whether they believe in climate change or not.