Bituminous Coke Dirty-Coal Game Day | Sojourners

Bituminous Coke Dirty-Coal Game Day

Polar bear on shrinking ice from the December 2009 issue of Sojourners
Polar bear on shrinking ice from the December 2009 issue of Sojourners

I know why those polar bears you're seeing everywhere look so pensive. They're thinking not just about coke (a byproduct of coal used in industry), but more generally about the massive use of dirty coal — used to make nearly half of all U.S. electricity (while renewable sources account for only about a tenth).

They're thinking about how the U.S. and the rest of the world's decades of reckless fossil fuel use keep ratcheting up greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, causing Arctic ice to melt even faster than expected, and threatening them and all their polar bear friends. They'd like a cold one, all right — a cold Arctic, the way their home should be.

All those billboards have one thing wrong, though: It's not just one day, and it's not a game. It's their world — and ours.

'Nuff said.

Elizabeth Palmberg is an associate editor of Sojourners and tweets @Zabpalmberg.

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