Sierra Club: Trust Us, A Coal Plant Kills Someone Every 36 Hours

August 27, 2024

While most of the world was focused on the Democratic National Convention, the Sierra Club made a murderous claim, Accusing a single coal plant in Ohio of killing 244 people every year, or one roughly every 36 hours.

From an opinion piece in the Columbus Dispatch: “The Gavin Coal Plant is America’s deadliest coal plant.”

Put another way, the Sierra Club, which bills itself as the “most enduring and influential grassroots environmental organization,” is accusing one of our nation’s most enduring sources of energy of murder. The mainstream media is happy to print these allegations using third-party evidence gleaned from…the Sierra Club.

Before going any further it is important to debunk the dubious claim outright. No, coal plants are not murdering citizens.

As Power The Future’s Executive Director Daniel Turner wrote in The Federalist last month, Ohio used to be home to much more coal activity. From the article:

“At the beginning of the 20th century, Ohio had 1,155 coal mines with more than 50,000 coal miners. By 2003, there were seven mines and only 2,000 mining jobs — respective decreases of 99 percent and 96 percent.”

Those coal mines helped feed 119 coal plants as recently as 2005, according to one eco-left group. By using Sierra Club math, assuming each of those coal plants murdered 244 residents a year, that means 29,036 Ohioans were dying a year from coal within the last two decades. Therefore the Sierra Club would have us believe that at their height, coal -fired power plants killed more people in two years in Ohio than during the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s a dubious claim simply because if that many people were dying that quickly, it would get attention.

And it’s clear the Sierra Club wants attention.

Set aside for a moment the fact that coal, despite all the government hurdles stacked against them, is still the fourth largest producer of American electricity today. EV drivers may not want to hear it, but most of their vehicles are powered by the fossil fuels they claim to deplore.

The Sierra Club tweet with the infamous claim links to an opinion piece authored by the Ohio state director for the organization. The opinion piece relies on “models” developed by the Sierra Club to establish their deadly claim. One quick look at the model uncovers the truth, specifically in the acknowledgements:

“We want to thank the donors who generously support Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign, including Bloomberg Philanthropies.

We also want to thank John Graham and Conrad Schneider for sharing data from their Toll From Coal study, which forms the basis of this report” (Emphasis added.)

A quick look at their model reveals that 1) it’s based on someone else’s work and 2) Michael Bloomberg paid for it. Left unsaid was the long partnership between the Sierra Club and Bloomberg with the explicit purpose of putting all coal plants out of business, a collaboration, “which began in 2011 with Mike’s initial $50 million commitment to the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign at a time when U.S. coal production was at its all-time peak,” according to Bloomberg’s own web site. Last fall, Mayor Mike donated another cool half a billion dollars toward the cause.

However, what about the second study that “forms the basis” of the first. From their methodology report:

“The mortality and morbidity data reported in this interactive map is derived from the US EPA’s CO–Benefits Risk Assessment (COBRA) screening model, a software tool developed to estimate the health and benefits of clean energy policies.” (Emphasis added.)

Therefore, the tweet that claims a coal plant murders residents was…

…based off an opinion piece written by the same organization that…

…was funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies and cited a “model” from the organization that…

…based their model off another study that…

…relied a software tool developed to estimate results.

To print a false accusation is concerning, even by the same mainstream media who is perfectly fine with letting the Democratic standard bearer thumb their nose at their request for interviews.  And after all is said and done, the only thing that really died is their story. How in the world did the media see fit to print these types of allegations?