He may be a former vice president, and a former presidential nominee, and last year's Nobel Peace Prize co-winner, but this year Al Gore is recommending citizens engage in civil disobedience to stop the construction of most modern coal-powered plants.

Gore told the Clinton Global Initiative this week that drastic measures must be taken to ensure the health of the environment.

"If you're a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration," Gore told the crowd.

The remarks also came only days after his Nobel Prize co-winner, the head of the United Nations intergovernmental panel on climate change, Rajendra Pachauri, urged that people give up red meat at least one day a week to reduce methane emissions from livestock.

Another report, released Tuesday by the UK-based Food Climate Research Network, urged governments to institute caps in order to permit "rationing" that would prevent people from eating more than four portions of red meat each week and to cut milk consumption by 75 percent.

Gore's call to peacefully violate laws for the cause of fighting "global warming" met with mixed reactions in Kansas, where the carbon-emissions controversy rages fiercely.

Cinthia Hertel, spokesperson for the Sunflower Electric Power Corporation, a group that utilizes coal energy, said it was dismaying to read Gore’s recommendations as they contradict the basic rule of law.

“To suggest that Sunflower, or any company lawfully conducting its business, should be a target of civil disobedience is among the least responsible thoughts we’ve ever heard expressed by a public official,” Hertel told Kansas Liberty.

Hertel said she thought Gore’s prompting to ensure that no coal plants are built without a carbon capture and sequestration feature was impractical, since that technology will not likely be commercially available for another 10 to 15 years, while energy resources such as coal and nuclear are needed now.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, carbon sequestering and capturing technologies capture and store carbons that are later injected into underground reservoirs, rather than releasing them into the atmosphere. The technology is not available on a commercial scale because of costs.

“It makes no more sense than publicly decrying the purchase of any personal automobile until such time as electric cars are available,” she said.

Gore's comments echo a trend toward what many critics, and some allies, see as growing extremism in the environmental movement and its emphasis on opposing coal-fired power plants. The Sierra Club was instrumental in helping Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius sustain repeated vetoes of a proposed expansion of Sunflower Electric’s proposed expansion of a coal-powered plant in Holcomb, Kan.

The vetoes made Kansas  the center of national attention last year as Sebelius, the Kansas Legislature and the Kansas Department of Health became entangled in an argument of whether or not to permit the plant expansion.

Kansas Department of Health and Environment Secretary Roderick Bremby had denied the final construction permit for Sunflower’s Holcomb Expansion in October, 2007, citing concerns for public health over the emissions of carbon dioxide.

“I believe it would be irresponsible to ignore emerging information about the contribution of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to climate change and the potential harm to our environment and health if we do nothing,” said Bremby in a statement released at the time.

Maggie Thompson, KDHE spokesperson, said the department did not have a position on Gore’s recommendation that those opposed to the plants should participate in acts of civil disobedience.

“We are not aware of everything going on nationally but we do cover a lot of options being discussed,” Thompson told Kansas Liberty.

Thompson said the KDHE is involved with the Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group, a group established by Sebelius in March 2008 that works toward ensuring energy efficiency and responding to climate change.

The governor’s office would not comment on Gore’s recommendations.

However, Rep. Dennis McKinney, D-Greensburg, the House minority leader and a supporter of the proposed Holcomb expansion, said he thought it would be more effective to focus attention on phasing out older coal-powered plants and replacing them with cleaner plants rather than boycotting new ones.

“This just brings back memories of people running across the tracks to block the construction of nuclear plants,” McKinney told Kansas Liberty. “With the extensive amounts of coal we have domestically, it just makes so much more sense to continue to utilize those resources.”

Craig Wolfe, the communications chair of the Kansas Sierra Club Chapter, said he thought it was logical to shift the focus from coal to expanding renewable energy.

Although critics say that renewable energy sources, such as wind, are unreliable, impractical and not economically feasible, Wolfe said renewable energy already has more economic benefits and that when you add the cost of carbon sequestration then coal becomes even less cost effective.

“I know that no one is charging us for the wind that is blowing in Kansas, the wind is free and so is the sun,” Wolfe told Kansas Liberty.

“We have to get very serious about opposing what big oil and big coal want to do as what they represent are special interests and business-as-usual and they are not focusing on what is best for the county," said Wolfe.

"Instead," he said, "they are focusing on what is best for profits and they are not caring about global warming.”

Wolfe wasn't willing to go as far as Gore, however. He said the Sierra Club only supports legal demonstrations.

Rep. Paul Davis, D-Lawrence, voted against the Holcomb expansion for environmental reasons but said he did not think Gore’s encouragement to stop the building of new coal-plants was reasonable.

“I definitely think we need to turn our emphasis to renewable energy but I just don’t think we can completely leave coal off the table,” Davis told Kansas Liberty. “I think coal is going to remain in the picture whether we like it or not.”

-Holly Smith

• Previously on Kansas Liberty: Wind-energy plan in trouble in Congress.

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