I often talk about the need for quick response to threats to critical infrastructure but here’s a video of Greenpeace climbers who took a long time to scale a 455 ft smokestack at a power plant in Chicago and paint it with giant letters: “QUIT COAL”

FOX News reports that the sign is related to a protest movement to regulate urban emissions.

Studies indicate that Chicago has the highest concentration of people in the country living near coal-fired power plants.

The Chicago City Council for the past year has been discussing an ordinance for clean energy generation sponsored by Alderman Daniel Solis.

The ordinance would obligate Fisk and Crawford to substitute natural gas for coal.

In addition, it would subject other polluting plants around Pilsen and Little Village to strict emission controls.

The proposed ordinance establishes that if a facility has a quarterly emissions average exceeding federal and state limits, it must suspend its operations until pollution controls are installed to bring it into compliance with those standards.

Will the Fisk plant just paint over the QUIT at the top?

Easy to turn the protest sign right back into a COAL message — no QUIT — although the publicity of climbers getting arrested is still a factor.

Had they painted SUSPEND OPERATIONS UNTIL POLLUTION CONTROLS ARE INSTALLED it would have left behind a sign much harder to convert or paint over (and even better publicity from a more sophisticated and impressive attack). Painting over SUSPEND OPERATIONS UNTIL would leave the smokestack with POLLUTION CONTROLS ARE INSTALLED…