coal prophecy
a long time ago i read a cute little fantasy book. the protagonist needed to travel across a nation to save the world. there was a prophecy: aid this man and a third will die. so everyone tried to kill him. eventually, they find out the other half of the prophecy: hinder him and all are lost. i feel this way about coal. if we burn coal the dirty way the pollution will kill a third of us. but the other half of the prophecy is to burn coal the clean way and everyone dies. that sure sounds backwards, doesn't it? but it's right. as in, stated correctly. the pollution from dirty coal cools the planet. without it (ie clean coal) we cook.