Kansas Interfaith Power & Light

Film Screening: Dirty Business: ‘Clean Coal’ and the Battle for Our Energy Future

Sponsored by the Environmental Action Team at Village Presbyterian Church and Kansas IPL

DIRTY BUSINESS: “Clean Coal” and the Battle for Our Energy Future is a 90-minute documentary produced by the Center for Investigative Reporting that investigates the true cost of our dependence on coal for electricity in the age of climate change. Politicians and corporate interests have mounted a formidable public relations campaign promoting “clean coal” as a solution to our energy/climate problem. Despite major concerns on the part of scientists and environmental groups, there has been little public education about this issue, which was a high-profile topic of the 2008 presidential campaigns and is a central element of President Obama’s energy policy.

Can coal ever really be made “clean”? If we were to try to wean ourselves off coal, how would we keep the lights on? Is renewable energy ready for prime time? Guided by Rolling Stone reporter Jeff Goodell, DIRTY BUSINESS seeks answers in a series of stories: citizens fighting to build a solar power plant instead of a new coal plant in Nevada; a Kansas cowboy saving his cattle ranch with wind power; doctors tabulating the true cost of coal pollution in the damaged health of newborns in China, where a new coal plant goes up every week; innovators making a southern Rust Belt factory so energy efficient that it will steal jobs back from China.