CEI Coal Booster Says Greenhouse Gas is Good For You

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There was a small pro-coal rally held in Washington, DC on Monday and the National Wildlife Federation was able to catch snippets of one of the pro-coal keeners talking to the media. The rally was organized by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) as a counter to the 2,000 youth who held a massive rally demanding action on climate change on the same day.

Word on the street is that the 20 or so who rallied in support of coal were mainly CEI staffers, in fact when one of the coal supporters was asked why they were there, his response was, โ€œI donโ€™t know Iโ€™m just an intern.โ€

The woman in the video below is Ann McElhinney, a British filmaker touting her most recent work โ€œNot Evil Just Wrong.โ€

To give you an idea where McElhiney is coming from, her last film project was called โ€œMine Your Own Businessโ€ which according to the Wikipedia entry โ€œinvestigate[d] controversial proposed mining projects in impoverished villages.โ€ The film, โ€œportrays western environmentalists as wealthy elites who are working counter to the interests of the local people.โ€

The pro-mining film was financed by a Canadian mining company Gabriel Resources Ltd., which is the same foreign corporation that at the time was looking to develop RoลŸia Montanฤƒ as an open pit gold mine.

So a leap from pro-mining to pro-coal to arguing that CO2 is good for us wasnโ€™t a hard one for Ms. McElhinney.

Hereโ€™s a partial transcript:

โ€œIโ€™ve been around this country making our film and people are driving their white carsโ€ฆ snow white, so if you look at this idea of black stuff coming out, itโ€™s not. C02 is not dangerous. C02 is what you push into greenhouses to make things grow this is a good thing, you know.โ€

And hereโ€™s the video:

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Kevin is a contributor and strategic adviser to DeSmog. He runs the digital marketing agency Spake Media House. Named a โ€œGreen Heroโ€ by Rolling Stone Magazine and one of the โ€œTop 50 Tweetersโ€ on climate change and environment issues, Kevin has appeared in major news media outlets around the world for his work on digital campaigning. Kevin has been involved in the public policy arena in both the United States and Canada for more than a decade. For five years he was the managing editor of DeSmogBlog.com. In this role, Kevinโ€™s research into the โ€œclimate denial industryโ€ and the right-wing think tank networks was featured in news media articles around the world. He is most well known for his ground-breaking research into David and Charles Kochโ€™s massive financial investments in the Republican and tea party networks. Kevin is the first person to be designated a โ€œCertified Expertโ€ on the political and community organizing platform NationBuilder. Prior to DeSmog, Kevin worked in various political and government roles. He was Senior Advisor to the Minister of State for Multiculturalism and a Special Assistant to the Minister of State for Asia Pacific, Foreign Affairs for the Government of Canada. Kevin also worked in various roles in the British Columbia provincial government in the Office of the Premier and the Ministry of Health. In 2008 Kevin co-founded a groundbreaking new online election tool called Vote for Environment which was later nominated for a World Summit Award in recognition of the worldโ€™s best e-Content and innovative ICT applications. Kevin moved to Washington, DC in 2010 where he worked for two years as the Director of Online Strategy for Greenpeace USA and has since returned to his hometown of Vancouver, Canada.

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