If a little girl says something, it must be true, right? According to the adorable children in the new ad campaign for www.learnaboutcoal.org, we've been going about this dependency on foreign oil all wrong. Each ad involves a 10-year-old patiently informing us that America has a 250-year supply of coal right its own backyard. That's right, forget about ethanol, forget about biodiesel and forget about more efficient cars - the way to break America's Middle East oil addiction is through coal, this irresponsible ad campaign would have us believe.

The group responsible for these ads is called Americans for Balanced Energy Choices, a nonprofit advocating "policies that strike the proper balance between protecting the environment and providing for continued economic growth and prosperity for America's working families." Nothing surprising there from a group funded by coal producers, coal transporters and electricity companies. Yes, coal does provide a lot of the U.S. electrical supply. America produces 35 percent of the world's coal, and consumes 574 million tons of it a year. It's the "fuel of the future," according to the ABEC, But by promoting the use of coal, this campaign would make the country trade an oil addiction for irreversible climate damage.

The United States is responsible for one-quarter of the world's carbon emissions, and an increased dependence on coal would be disastrous. The planet's temperature rose nearly a whole degree in the last century, and it's because of oil and coal burning that the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere keeps going up. Keep upping the amount of coal combustion, and greenhouse gases will increase, causing acid rain, smog and warming of the oceans. It's no secret that coal is the chief contributor to these factors. The Economist labeled it the number-one environmental concern.

One look at China's consumption of coal and what it's doing to that country is reason enough to prevent the pursuit of coal as an energy source. China lacks both the technology and money to use alterative energies or reduce emissions from coal - and as a result 400,000 Chinese die each year from health problems related to air pollution. They too have a motivation to avoid achieving title of world's heaviest polluter. If sea levels rise significantly, some of China's largest cities, like Shanghai, will end up beneath the ocean.

Coal may be the primary energy source in the United States today, but the government can ensure coal is not America's "fuel of the future." While even oil companies are finally making an effort to research alternative energies, the coal lobby is putting false hope in a limited solution. Oil and coal lobbies have too much influence on Washington, but the new Congress has the opportunity to work toward solving the energy problem.

It could start by ratifying the Kyoto Treaty - the United States is one of a handful of the more than 160 signatories not to ratify the agreement. Why? President Bill Clinton couldn't get it through Newt Gingrich's Congress. In their newfound position of power, Democrats now have the chance to right a terrible wrong. The long-term solution to this country's energy problems is not under our own soil, but in the hands of the officials we democratically elect. It is our responsibility to elect these people wisely and theirs to take actions that best serve our environmental future.

Kevin Bunkley is an LSA junior and a member of the Daily's editorial board.