Brianna and I were stoked this week to get a piece back from Al Jazeera’s “Inside USA,” featuring Energy Action executive director Jessy Tolkan talking about America’s dependence on coal.

The Inside USA team traveled to the coal mines of Illinois to look at the personalities and the politics behind the fossil fuel. Half of America’s electricity is generated by coal; an amount that produces 40 percent of the country’s greenhouse gases. With this in mind, advocates - including those those taking part in Power Vote - have joined leading climate scientists in calling for a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants as a top priority, saying that truly addressing global warming means ending America’s dependence on coal.

Juxtaposed to the proposed moratorium on coal, however, is the prospect of of the mythical “clean coal” and the millions being spent by Big Coal to promote its feasibility. It’s evident throughout the segment that there is a deep seam of this other black gold running just beneath the surface of the current presidential election - particularly underneath some key swing states.

Thankfully, Al Jazeera makes anyone who buys into clean coal look ignorant. Says Jeff Goodell, author of Big Coal, “Mining and burning coal is one of the most destructive things we do as humans… the idea that it can be clean is just PR spin.”

As mentioned Jessy Tolkan, executive director of Energy Action Coalition, is featured throughout the piece along with top climate scientist James Hansen. You can see what the Power Vote campaign’s fearless leader had to say at 4:08, 12:55 and 13:20.