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‘‘This was preventable’: Football heat deaths and the rising temperature
Most states rank poorly on heat safety for their high school football players. Too many teens have paid the price, and temperatures are only getting worse.
WildEarth Guardians
Fracking chemicals and kids' brains don’t mix: Study
New report highlights the dangers for children living near fracked oil and gas sites.
Multiple pollutants found in the air and water near fracked oil and gas sites are linked to brain problems in children, according to a science review published today.
Researchers focused on five types of pollution commonly found near the sites—heavy metals, particulate matter, polycyclic aromatic hydrobcarbons, BTEX and endocrine disrupting compounds—and scrutinized existing health studies of the compounds' impacts to kids' brains.
"Early life exposure to these air and water pollutants has been shown to be associated with learning and neuropsychological deficits, neurodevelopmental disorders, and neurological birth defects, with potentially permanent consequences to brain health," the authors wrote.
What they didn't find is as important as what they did find: while more than 1,000 studies have looked at health hazards from unconventional oil and gas drilling, none have focused specifically on the brain health of children near the sites.
"Many of us looking are looking at what's happening now and then we're going to revisit this to see what these exposures are doing to people," said Madelon Finkel, a professor of clinical healthcare policy and research at Weill Cornell Medical College who was not involved in the study.
"Unfortunately, we are just waiting to see what happens, it's really sad," she added.
Lead author of the new study, Ellen Webb of the Center for Environmental Health, said the research on children's health near oil and gas sites is "slowly emerging" but that "it's only reasonable to conclude that young children with frequent exposure to these pollutants would be at high risk for neurological diseases."
Since the mid-2000s, as extraction techniques such as fracking became more widespread and refined, oil and gas drilling has taken off. The FracTracker Alliance—a renewable energy advocate organization that studies and maps oil and gas development —
estimates there are about 1.7 million active oil and gas wells.
Webb and colleagues said regulators should increase setback distances between oil and gas development and places where children live or play. They recommend at least a mile "between drilling facility lines and the property line of occupied dwellings such as schools, hospitals and other spaces where infants and children might spend a substantial amount of time."
They also recommend more research on low level, chronic exposure, mandatory testing of industrial chemicals used on site, and increased transparency of the chemicals used in drilling. "We don't even know all of the chemicals used in the [fracking] mixtures," Finkel said.
To really protect the health of families "state and federal authorities need to adopt precautionary principles," Webb said.
Seth Whitehead, a spokesman for Energy in Depth, a research, education and public outreach campaign launched by the Independent Petroleum Association of America, said Webb's study is just the latest "deliberate media strategy to draw ties between fracking and health issues even when no hard evidence exists."
"The report merely identifies chemicals associated with oil and gas development, notes that some of these chemicals can be harmful to human health, and states that 'more research is needed to understand the extent of these concerns,'" Whitehead said in an emailed response.
"This is not unlike saying bleach — which can be found in most folks' laundry rooms — can make you sick if you drink it and that more research is needed to understand the extent to which people get sick from drinking bleach from their laundry rooms," he added.
Finkel disagreed: "Of course the study premise is logical. Exposure to some of these toxic chemicals is bound to have an effect."
Finkel sees little hope in the Trump Administration's willingness to take health concerns into account when it comes to energy development. Their energy regulation rollbacks have been "shortsighted and go against all the health evidence that we know," she said.
See the full study published today in the Reviews on Environmental Health journal.
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California fires leave 31 dead, a vast landscape charred, and a sky full of soot.
The reach of the blazes is spreading dramatically further by the day, as thick plumes of smoke blow through population centers across the Bay Area.
SONOMA, Calif. — Some of the worst wildfires ever to tear through California have killed 31 people and torched a vast area of the state’s north this week, but the reach of the blazes is spreading dramatically further by the day, as thick plumes of smoke blow through population centers across the Bay Area.
Everything now smells burnt. Hills and buildings are covered in a haze. Residents nowhere near the front lines of the fires now venture out wearing air masks. On a hillside above the Russian River, a broad and menacing band of fire is turning a blue sky into a gray miasma of soot.
Air-quality, based on levels of tiny particles that can flow deep into the lungs, is rated “unhealthy” across much of Northern California, and smoke has traveled as far as Fresno, more than 200 miles to the south. The effects are many: schoolchildren are being kept inside during recess, the Oakland Raiders canceled their outdoor practice on Thursday to prevent players from breathing in the bad air, and doctors are reporting an increase in visits and calls from people with lung and heart trouble.
It is the 31 deaths, however, a toll that surpasses the official number of people killed by the single deadliest wildfire in state history, that has horrified Californians. The Griffith Park fire of 1933, in Los Angeles, killed 29 people despite burning a mere 47 acres, according to officials.
Late Thursday, the authorities said they had identified 10 of 17 people who were killed in Sonoma County. Most were in their 70s and 80s, and most were found in houses. One was found next to a vehicle.
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“We have found bodies that were nothing more than ash and bones,” said Robert Giordano, the Sonoma County sheriff. In some cases, he said, the only way to identify the victims was by the serial numbers stamped on artificial joints and other medical devices that were in their bodies.
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William Roman, 13, wore a face mask as he watered plants in Santa Rosa. Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Because the fires have sent so many residents scrambling for safety, separating them from relatives, the authorities have received reports of 900 missing people and have deployed 30 detectives to track them down. Officials said they had confirmed the locations and safety of 437 people and were still looking for the other 463.
If they cannot find them by phone or online, they send search and rescue teams with cadaver dogs to the homes — if the homes are accessible, which in many cases, they still are not.
“It’s going to be a slow process,” Sheriff Giordano said.
Statewide, there were 21 major fires still burning on Thursday, which had consumed more than 191,000 acres since the outbreak began on Sunday night, said Ken Pimlott, the chief of Cal Fire, the state firefighting agency. The number of separate fires rises and falls often, as new blazes flare up and old ones merge, but the size of the devastated area has grown steadily.
Underscoring the vast scale of the crisis, a line of fire that appeared to span at least two miles descended into Alexander Valley, a wine grape growing region in Geyserville along the Russian River. Thick white columns of smoke poured from the forested hillside above the vineyards as the fire crept down into the valley.
Health officials were particularly focused on young children, who are at a higher risk than adults from dirty air. They breathe faster and take in more air than adults because they run around more. They also have smaller airways, so irritation in those narrower pipes is more prone to cause breathing trouble.
“People with pre-existing heart and lung disease, the elderly and young children should stay in the house with the windows closed,” said Dr. John Balmes, an expert on the respiratory effects of air pollutants at the University of California, in both Berkeley and San Francisco.
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Firefighters in Sonoma looked at a wall of smoke rising from the Norrbom Fire burning across the valley. Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Certain masks can filter out fine particles, but surgical masks are useless, and so are the ones used to protect against big particles. The masks that work are a type called N95, available in many hardware stores.
Nancy Barkley, 40, a nurse from Indiana who is on a 13-week assignment unrelated to the fire emergency, drove dozens of miles from Santa Rosa to find face masks.
“I kept on driving because they were out everywhere,” she said, pulling down her surgical mask to talk.
Northern California is accustomed to wildfires and occasional wafts of smoke that drift with the winds. But nothing like this.
“I’ve lived here 50 years — I’ve never seen it this bad,” said Paul Ackerley, a 90-year-old World War II veteran.
Mr. Ackerley was walking through his neighborhood Wednesday when a woman stopped her car and offered him a mask.
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Smoke hung in the air in Sonoma’s town square on Thursday. Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times
People closest to the fires have the greatest risk of health problems. There, heavy smoke can include toxic substances emitted when man-made materials burn. Plastics can release hydrochloric acid and cyanide.
“Smoke inhalation can kill you,” Dr. Balmes said. “There’s no doubt about that, but it’s all dose-related. If you breathe in a lot of smoke from any fire, especially a fire in a building with man-made materials that can emit these toxins, you basically have chemical burns of the airway.
“Just like your skin can slough off when it’s burned, the airway lining can slough off. It can be life-threatening. People have to be intubated and put on a ventilator,” he said.
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Hospitals near the worst fires are struggling as they continue to take in patients.
At Santa Rosa Memorial, the city’s largest hospital, technicians installed a large air filtration system to clear smoky air from the hospital lobby. The hospital has handled 130 fire-related cases since Sunday night, when the fires began. Bus drivers in the city have been issued face masks.
“We’ve seen patients who have chronic lung disease, like emphysema, generally older patients, which is really exacerbated by the smoke,” said Dr. Chad Krilich, chief medical officer for St. Joseph Health, which includes Santa Rosa Memorial, another hospital and other facilities in Sonoma County.
“For some of them, it’s really life-threatening,” he said, adding that patients even without asthma or other lung problems are coming in with breathing trouble. Most are being treated in the emergency rooms, which would normally see 105 to 135 patients a day, but are now seeing 150 to 180 a day.
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Capt. John Clays lit a backfire on Wednesday in Sonoma County. Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Their inpatient count rose at first, but they have been transferring patients elsewhere, “because we are at risk of evacuation, too,” Dr. Krilich said, adding, “We know at least 108 of our employees are homeless, and 46 others have had to evacuate.”
Steve Huddleston, vice president for public affairs of NorthBay Healthcare, said the network has two small hospitals and three outpatient clinics in Solano County, east of the fires. One of its outpatient clinics is less than a mile from the fire line, but still operating.
In the emergency rooms and the clinics, he said, “we’re seeing 100 patients a day with respiratory distress and asthmatic attacks from the smoke.”
Many have chronic lung disease or asthma, but not all.
“All of our beds are full, and they have been for two days,” Mr. Huddleston said.
He added: “We’re on the edge of feeling overwhelmed. The staffing is becoming challenging. We’ve had half a dozen of our physicians or staff members lose their homes in the fires. We have staff members who live in the evacuation zones, and they’re trying to get their belongings and their loved ones out of there.”
In areas directly affected by the fires, many schools have canceled classes for the week, leaving parents scrambling.
On Thursday, William Roman, 13, a middle-school student, was helping his grandfather in a landscaping job at a strip mall in Santa Rosa, watering plants — with a face mask on.
“If we’re going to play outside we need to wear a face mask — that’s what my mother says,” William said.
Depending on the winds, the smoke can range from heavy to none. In parts of Santa Rosa on Thursday, there was something resembling a blue sky. Yet even when the smoke was not visible, the outdoors smelled like a fireplace.
Thomas Fuller reported from Sonoma, Calif., and Denise Grady and Richard Pérez-Peña from New York. Matt Stevens contributed reporting from New York.
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Africa tops global hunger index, driven by war and climate shocks.
Global hunger has fallen more than a quarter since 2000, but conflict and climate shocks are beginning to reverse these gains, an annual global hunger index said on Thursday.
Women, girls and ethnic minorities are most at risk of hunger
ROME, Oct 12 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Global hunger has fallen more than a quarter since 2000, but conflict and climate shocks are beginning to reverse these gains, an annual global hunger index said on Thursday.
Nearly half of the 119 countries surveyed had "serious", "alarming" or "extremely alarming" hunger levels between 2012 and 2016, with war-torn Central African Republic worst affected, followed by Chad, Sierra Leone, Madagascar and Zambia.
"Conflict and climate-related shocks are at the heart of this problem," said Dominic MacSorley, chief executive of Concern, which compiled the report along with the International Food Policy Research Institute and Welthungerhilfe.
About half of the populations in the hungriest countries were short of food, it said.
South Sudan and Somalia, which are at risk of renewed famine, were among 13 countries excluded from the index due to lack of data.
The United Nations said last month that global hunger levels have risen for the first time in more than a decade, now affecting 11 percent of the world's population - or 815 million people.
Famine struck parts of South Sudan earlier this year, and there is a high risk that it could return there - and develop in other countries hit by conflict: northeast Nigeria, Somalia and Yemen, the U.N. said.
Yemen came sixth in the index as its hunger crisis has spiked since 2015 when civil war erupted and the data covers the period 2012 to 2016.
Although most of Nigeria is relatively food secure, the eight-year Islamist Boko Haram insurgency has left millions in the northeast at risk of starvation.
"We must build the resilience of communities on the ground, but we must also bolster public and political solidarity internationally," MacSorley said in a statement.
The survey found that 14 countries – including Senegal, Azerbaijan, Peru, Panama, Brazil and China – have made significant improvements since 2000.
The index is based on levels of hunger in the general population, and rates of wasting, stunting and deaths among children under five years old.
Women, girls and ethnic minorities are most at risk of hunger, which causes nearly half of deaths in under fives, it said.
"The world needs to act as one community with the shared goal of ensuring not a single child goes to bed hungry each night and no-one is left behind," MacSorley said.
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Agent Orange, exposed: How U.S. chemical warfare in Vietnam unleashed a slow-moving disaster.
Some 45 million liters of the poisoned spray was Agent Orange, which contains the toxic compound dioxin. It has unleashed in Vietnam a slow-onset disaster whose devastating economic, health and ecological impacts that are still being felt today.
In the end, the military campaign was called Operation Ranch Hand, but it originally went by a more appropriately hellish appellation: Operation Hades. As part of this Vietnam War effort, from 1961 to 1971, the United States sprayed over 73 million liters of chemical agents on the country to strip away the vegetation that provided cover for Vietcong troops in “enemy territory.”
Using a variety of defoliants, the U.S. military also intentionally targeted cultivated land, destroying crops and disrupting rice production and distribution by the largely communist National Liberation Front, a party devoted to reunification of North and South Vietnam.
Some 45 million liters of the poisoned spray was Agent Orange, which contains the toxic compound dioxin. It has unleashed in Vietnam a slow-onset disaster whose devastating economic, health and ecological impacts that are still being felt today.
This is one of the greatest legacies of the country’s 20-year war, but is yet to be honestly confronted. Even Ken Burns and Lynn Novick seem to gloss over this contentious issue, both in their supposedly exhaustive “Vietnam War” documentary series and in subsequent interviews about the horrors of Vietnam.
Vietnam’s half-century of disaster
More than 10 years of U.S. chemical warfare in Vietnam exposed an estimated 2.1 to 4.8 million Vietnamese people to Agent Orange. More than 40 years on, the impact on their health has been staggering.
This dispersion of Agent Orange over a vast area of central and south Vietnam poisoned the soil, river systems, lakes and rice paddies of Vietnam, enabling toxic chemicals to enter the food chain.
Today crops are grown and livestock graze at former U.S. bases where toxic dioxin continues to pollute the soil. HOANG DINH NAM / AFP
Vietnamese people weren’t the only ones poisoned by Agent Orange. U.S. soldiers, unaware of the dangers, sometimes showered in the empty 55-gallon drums, used them to store food and repurposed them as barbecue pits.
Unlike the effects of another chemical weapon used in Vietnam – namely napalm, which caused painful death by burns or asphyxiation – Agent Orange exposure did not affect its victims immediately.
In the first generation, the impacts were mostly visible in high rates of various forms of cancer among both U.S. soldiers and Vietnam residents.
But then the children were born. It is estimated that, in total, tens of thousands of people have suffered serious birth defects – spina bifida, cerebral palsy, physical and intellectual disabilities and missing or deformed limbs. Because the effects of the chemical are passed from one generation to the next, Agent Orange is now debilitating its third and fourth generation.
Aerial spraying in central and southern Vietnam. Wikimedia
A legacy of environmental devastation
During the 10-year campaign, U.S. aircraft targeted 4.5 million acres across 30 different provinces in the area below the 17th parallel and in the Mekong Delta, destroying inland hardwood forests and coastal mangrove swamps as they sprayed.
The most heavily exposed locations – among them Dong Nai, Binh Phuoc, Thua Thien Hue and Kontum – were sprayed multiple times. Toxic hotspots also remain at several former U.S. air force bases.
And while research in those areas is limited – an extensive 2003 study was canceled in 2005 due to a reported “lack of mutual understanding” between the U.S. and the Vietnamese governments – evidence suggests that the heavily polluted soil and water in these locations have yet to recover.
The dangerous quantity of residual dioxin in the earth thwarts the normal growth of crops and trees, while continuing to poison the food chain.
Vietnam’s natural defenses were also debilitated. Nearly 50 percent of the country’s mangroves, which protect shorelines from typhoons and tsunamis, were destroyed.
On a positive note, the Vietnamese government and both local and international organizations are making strides toward restoring this critical landscape. The U.S. and Vietnam are also undertaking a joint remediation program to deal with dioxin-contaminated soil and water.
Mangrove forests before and after spraying. Wikimedia
The destruction of Vietnamese forests, however, has proven irreversible. The natural habitat of such rare species as tigers, elephants, bears and leopards were distorted, in many cases beyond repair.
In parts of central and southern Vietnam that were already exposed to environmental hazards such as frequent typhoons and flooding in low-lying areas and droughts and water scarcity in the highlands and Mekong Delta, herbicide spraying led to nutrient loss in the soil.
This, in turn, has caused erosion, compromising forests in 28 river basins. As a result, flooding has gotten worse in numerous watershed areas.
Some of these vulnerable areas also happen to be very poor and, these days, home to a large number of Agent Orange victims.
War propaganda and delayed justice
During Operation Ranch Hand, the U.S. and South Vietnamese governments spent considerable time and effort making the claim that tactical herbicides were safe for humans and the environment.
U.S. propaganda about Agent Orange was so effective, it fooled American troops into thinking it was safe, too.
It launched a public relations campaign included educational programs showing civilians happily applying herbicides to their skin and passing through defoliated areas without concern.
One prominent comic strip featured a character named Brother Nam who explained that “The only effect of defoliant is to kill trees and force leaves to whither, and normally does not cause harm to people, livestock, land, or the drinking water of our compatriots.”
Brother Nam assured readers that herbicides were safe. Wikimedia
It’s abundantly clear now that this is false. Allegedly, chemical manufacturers had informed the U.S. military that Agent Orange was toxic, but spraying went forward anyway.
Today, Agent Orange has become a contentious legal and political issue, both within Vietnam and internationally. From 2005 to 2015, more than 200,000 Vietnamese victims suffering from 17 diseases linked to cancers, diabetes and birth defects were eligible for limited compensation, via a government program.
U.S. companies, including Monsanto and Dow Chemical, have taken the position that the governments involved in the war are solely responsible for paying out damages to Agent Orange victims. In 2004, a Vietnamese group unsuccessfully attempted to sue some 30 companies, alleging that the use of chemical weapons constituted a war crime. The class action case was dismissed in 2005 by a district court in Brooklyn, New York.
Many American victims have had better luck, though, seeing successful multi-million-dollar class action settlements with manufacturers of the chemical, including Dow, in 1984 and 2012.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government recently allocated more than US$13 billion to fund expanded Agent Orange-related health services in America. No such plan is in store in Vietnam.
It is unlikely that the U.S. will admit liability for the horrors Agent Orange unleashed in Vietnam. To do so would set an unwelcome precedent: Despite official denials, the U.S. and its allies, including Israel, have been accused of using chemical weapons in conflicts in Gaza, Iraq and Syria.
As a result, nobody is officially accountable for the suffering of Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange. The Burns and Novick documentary could have finally raised this uncomfortable truth, but, alas, the directors missed their chance.
This story was co-authored by Hang Thai T.M., a research assistant at the Posts and Telecommunications Institute of Technology, in Hanoi.
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Jane Goodall: "Giving up hope won't save the planet. Ending poverty might."
We haven't inherited this planet from our parents; we've borrowed it from our children.
We are destroying the world at a very rapid rate, and an awful lot of people are just giving up hope and thinking, "Well, there's nothing I can do." The rain forests are disappearing everywhere. Big dams are draining whole countries of their water supply: The famous Serengeti, in Tanzania, is threatened by a dam in Kenya; and the Nile is being threatened by a huge dam in Ethiopia. There's mining, there's fracking, there's drilling for oil. We're in the middle of the sixth great species extinction; we're losing biodiversity in place after place. We're burning fossil fuels very, very fast.
We are breeding billions of animals to eat them, and that means that whole habitats are being destroyed to grow grain, masses of fossil fuel are being used to take the grain to the animals, the animals to slaughter, the meat to the table. In addition, the animals are producing masses of methane gas with their digestion, and that's a very virulent greenhouse gas.
Not only is the ice in the Arctic and Antarctic melting, but, very frighteningly, the permafrost is, too, releasing even more methane. This plus carbon dioxide, and a couple of other gasses, are blanketing the earth and trapping the heat of the sun. And that's led to climate change with terrible hurricanes and flooding and droughts.
There are certain things that must be done if we're to put the world right. One is alleviating poverty. Because if you're living in desperate poverty, you're going to continue destroying the environment in order to live.
People understand perfectly well that cutting down the last trees in a desperate effort to grow food is going to lead to terrible erosion. That erosion, in turn, will lead to the silting up of the water. Meanwhile, if you live in an urban area — including the U.S. — and you're very poor, then you buy the cheapest food. You can't afford to ask yourself how many miles did the food travel, did it harm the environment, did it result in animals suffering, did it involve child slave labor and so on.
But, we do need to start thinking how everybody else can lead more sustainable lives, particularly the very rich. There's just so much waste. That's partly because food isn't priced properly; there's no account made in the prices of cheap food for the cost that's very often involved in producing it.
The wealthy need to start thinking about their environmental footprint — what do I buy, what do I eat, what do I wear, how was it made, where did it come from — and thinking whether they need all the stuff that they buy and how they could live in more environmentally sustainable ways.
The urgent message is that, if we carry on with business as usual, then there's very little hope for sustaining human life on this planet in the manner to which people aspire today. The reason for all my lecturing is to, first of all, try and raise awareness about what's happening and, secondly, to try and help people understand there is something that can be done. So, for instance, by working with the MasterClass, I hope this message, and a whole lot more besides, can get out to a much, much wider audience.
One of the other programs that the Jane Goodall Institute supports is a humanitarian and environmental program for young people called Roots & Shoots. It started with 12 high school students in Tanzania, and now has members from kindergarten through university in 100 countries. The program's main message is that every individual makes a difference every day. Every group chooses itself three projects that are pertinent to the area around them that can make things better for people, for animals and for the environment — everything from planting trees to recycling to raising money for victims of earthquakes and hurricanes to growing organic food.
Of course, they also learn about what's going on in the world, how everything is interconnected and the urgency of trying to do something about it. And even if the young people in the program don't continue with the volunteer work, they certainly continue with an understanding of their life's impact.
I meet people all over Tanzania, and they say to me, "Well, it taught me that the environment is terribly important and I must try and preserve it. I'm getting my children involved Roots & Shoots in their school." In China, where we have about 2,000 groups, people tell me, "Well, of course, I care about the environment because I was in your Roots & Shoots program in primary school. Of course, I care about animals, I watched your documentaries about chimpanzees when I was in primary school."
I find that young people — when they know the problem, when you listen to them, when they're then empowered to take action — they just roll up their sleeves and get out there and go to work. And, as young people learn more, they are influencing their parents, they're influencing their grandparents — and some of them already are in high positions.
You very often hear that we haven't inherited this planet from our parents; we've borrowed it from our children. But, the way we're living today, we're stealing. We have been stealing for years, and we're still stealing their future today. In many places, we are using up more of the finite natural resources of the planet than nature can replenish. People have to start thinking. We have a window of opportunity for making some changes, for slowing down climate change. But it's going to require much more effort.
As told to THINK editor Megan Carpentier, edited and condensed for clarity.
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Maine will suffer from EPA chief's pro-coal stand.
A warming climate and polluted air are all we have to gain from keeping dirty power plants running.
A warming climate and polluted air are all we have to gain from keeping dirty power plants running.
BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD
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The Clean Power Plan would level the economic playing field for Maine, which has to compete with parts of the country where electricity produced at dirty power plants, like the Homer City Generating Station in Homer City, Pa., above, is inexpensive. Associated Press/Keith Srakocic
Heat-trapping greenhouse gases and toxic particles spew from the smokestacks of coal-fired power plants all through the Rust Belt.
We don’t have those kinds of plants here in Maine, but we have plenty of evidence that they exist.
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EPA chief to lift limits on emissions, says ‘war on coal is over’
Our winters are wetter and shorter than they used to be, thanks to climate change. Lobstermen report that their quarry is moving north and east to find colder water.
And Maine children have some of the highest rates of asthma in the nation, partly as a result of our position downwind from the power plants in the Midwest and Great Lakes states, putting young lungs at the end of the nation’s tailpipe.
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So Environmental Protection Agency director Scott Pruitt’s boast Monday that “The war on coal is over!” probably sounded like great news to a few hundred people in Kentucky and West Virginia who might get work as a result of his upending the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan rules, but it should be clear why he didn’t make that announcement here.
Maine will be a big loser both environmentally and economically if Pruitt is successful, and Maine’s leaders should fight to make sure that he doesn’t succeed.
One-third of the greenhouse gases emitted in this country come from fossil fuel-burning power plants, mostly coal and natural gas. The Clean Power Plan created a financial incentive to produce less pollution over time. Since coal plants are the dirtiest, logic would dictate that they would be the first to go.
That might be bad news in the short term for people who own mining companies or utility stock, but it would speed the transition to other sources of power that do not have the same negative effects. The number of jobs in the solar power industry has already outstripped the number of jobs in coal mining, and it’s reasonable to assume that the trend will continue, as solar collector and battery technology get less expensive and more effective.
The Clean Power Plan would also level the economic playing field for Maine, which has to compete with parts of the country where electricity produced at dirty power plants is cheap. Not only do we have to pay more for our power than consumers in the coal belt, but we have to live with the consequences of the pollution that they produce.
And more importantly, there is no safe amount of pollution. Research by the American Lung Association has confirmed that every reduction of toxic chemicals in the air we breathe correlates to a reduction in illness and death. Children are especially sensitive to diseases caused by exposure to the airborne particles that are blown here on prevailing winds.
Pruitt claims that he is protecting the American people from government, but this is a time when we need the government to protect us from those who would value cheap electricity and quarterly profits above the public well-being.
By announcing an end to “the war on coal,” Pruitt and the administration are ramping up the war on clean air and a healthy environment. At this end of the tailpipe, that’s nothing to celebrate.
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