Editor’s Note - The last holdout

Southern Co.

TXU Corp. seemed like the baddest utility around on global warming. Last year, the Houston-based power company announced plans for 11 new coal-fired plants, even though coal produces more greenhouse gas than any other fuel.

Then, last week, Wall Street financiers revealed they’re taking the company private. Not only that, they agreed with environmental groups to shelve eight of the plants and to double their investment in wind power.

Whew. They’re practically hippies out in Texas.

Or maybe hippies are sprouting up everywhere. Sunday’s Academy Awards lovefest between Al Gore and Hollywood didn’t exactly reflect Middle American values, but it hints at how far global warming has climbed in pop culture’s conscience. On Monday, five Western states announced plans to cut their greenhouse gases. Even Duke Energy, North Carolina’s main utility, now favors greenhouse-gas regulation.

Cut to Georgia, where Gov. Sonny Perdue is taking a break from building highways to build motorboat ramps. Or where legislators appear to take scientific advice from talk-show host (and self-proclaimed C-student) Neal Boortz, who says – depending on the day – that a) there’s no such thing as global warming; b) if there is, it’s not industry’s fault; and c) if it’s industry’s fault, global warming must be a good thing.

But this state’s creepiest global-warming news is the ongoing denial by Georgia Power and its parent, Southern Co., to even acknowledge the problem. The company’s official position: We need more “research” before we act. But its unspoken strategy is to frantically push for more nuclear power plants. And, oh yeah: to keep spending big bucks on lobbying, campaign contributions and ads that make Georgia Power actually look like a good corporate citizen.

In reality, Southern Co. is running scared. The giant utility produces more energy from coal than just about any other utility. It’s the nation’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gas among utilities. And while evidence of global warming has mounted for decades, Southern Co. has pumped billions of its shareholders’ dollars into propping up its outmoded plants.

A reckoning is coming. It may have begun. Since New Year’s Day (when a more environmentally astute Congress prepared to take power), Southern’s share price has dropped 1.25 percent while other electric utilities saw increases of 6.6 percent. Could it be that Wall Street is beginning to view Southern as the dinosaur it is? We can only hope so, because the amoral leadership of Georgia’s most unethical company understands just one language: money.