Cutting Edge Research

How To Stop Coal

Sample Letter to Representative
(supporting moratorium on coal)

(the date)

(your address)

The Honorable (your representative - Governor, Senator, Mayor, Congressman. Etc.)
(The representative's address)

Dear (insert title and last name):

I am writing to encourage you to support a moratorium on coal. This moratorium would begin with an immediate halt to the construction of all new conventional coal-fired power plants, followed by a phasing out of existing plants. This approach puts an immediate cap on coal plant emissions while allowing enough time to retrain coal workers for healthier jobs.

Stopping coal is the 'silver bullet' for reversing global warming. With global reserves of oil and natural gas being depleted and their prices increasing, coal is the only fossil fuel plentiful and supposedly cheap enough to push the planet to 450 parts per million (ppm) CO2 in the atmosphere, the threshold scientists have defined as dangerous climate change and the trigger point for potentially irreversible glacial melt and sea level rise.

Scientists estimate that continued growth of CO2-producing infrastructure and emissions for another 10 years will make it impractical, and most likely impossible, to avert exceeding the 450 ppm threshold. Yet there are 151 new conventional coal plants in various stages of development in the US today. Therefore, we must act quickly.

Therefore, I urge you, as a leader and steward of our nation (City, County, State), to take action on this sobering issue by calling for an immediate moratorium on the construction of new coal-fired power plants.

Respectively,

(Your name)
(Your address)

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