Clean energy is not only about climate change. Still, Republicans oppose it

[Johan]

Scientists: EPA’s curbs on coal-burning will save thousands of lives


The Obama administration’s proposed curbs on coal-burning power plants could prevent thousands of deaths each year from heart attack and respiratory disease, scientists said Monday in the first peer-reviewed study to examine the measure’s health impacts.

Many parts of the country could see immediate improvements in air quality as a side-effect of the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed “Clean Power Plan” regulations, which are primarily intended to cut greenhouse gas emissions linked to climate change, the researchers said in a study published in Nature Climate Change.

Depending on implementation, the proposals could prevent about 3,500 premature deaths a year, mostly from respiratory disease, said the study’s authors, scientists from Harvard and Syracuse universities and four other institutions.

“The bottom line is, the more the standards promote cleaner fuels and energy efficiency, the greater the added health benefits,” said lead author Charles Driscoll, a professor of environmental systems engineering at Syracuse.

The finding comes as the Obama administration deliberates over the final shape of the proposed rules, which have drawn a fierce backlash from the Republican-controlled Congress. GOP lawmakers are gearing up to battle the measures on Capitol Hill and in the courts, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has written letters to the governors of all 50 states urging them not to support the regulations. McConnell has called the proposals harmful to the coal industry and the economy.

The EPA’s Clean Power Plan seeks to cut emissions of carbon dioxide largely through stricter limits on the coal-fired power plants, one of the country’s largest sources of greenhouse gas pollution. The rules, a key component of the administration’s climate-change strategy, are due to be finalized in mid-summer.

But while carbon dioxide is the focus of the EPA’s regulations, other kinds of air pollution also would be reduced if the rules go into effect, according to the Nature study. The researchers attempted to measure the health impacts from lowering emissions of sulfur dioxide, soot and other pollutants that come from coal-burning.

The study compared different implementation scenarios and found that a robust standard — roughly similar to the one outlined by the EPA when it unveiled its proposal last year — would result in substantial, and rapid, improvements in air quality, along with a sharp drop in deaths from heart attacks and respiratory ailments. The most significant gains, the report said, would occur in states such as Texas and Ohio, home to some of the most vociferous opponents of the proposed regulations.

“An important implication of this study is that the largest health benefits from the transition to cleaner energy are expected in states that currently have the greatest dependence on coal-fired electricity,” said co-author Dallas Burtraw, a senior fellow at Resources for the Future, a nonpartisan research institute.

Pro-coal organizations criticized the study for failing to examine a wider range of impacts, including local economic costs. Laura Sheehan, senior vice president for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, said shuttering some of the nation’s coal-fired power plants could increase utility bills for poorer consumers. She also suggested that the EPA’s plan could lead to temporary shortages of electricity, an assertion made by industry-backed studies but disputed by several independent analyses.

“Taking coal power offline will lead to electricity disruptions including blackouts, brownouts and rationing,” Sheehan said.

The EPA on Monday welcomed the Nature study as a validation that its Clean Power Plan “is on the right track,” spokeswoman Liz Purchia said.

“These benefits are in addition to the benefits that will be realized by addressing a changing climate,” Purchia said in a prepared statement. “Overall, the proposed Clean Power Plan’s billions of dollars in health and climate benefits would far outweigh the projected costs.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...on-coal-burning-will-save-thousands-of-lives/


Funny how conservatives thinks the plan would be harmfull to the coal industry but they don't matter how much coal power energy could be harmfull to the people...
Money > People

 

[Deepcover]

Blame the US Veterans since they pollute and only want to do battle

 

[Rattrap]

Here's a very familiar topic...

Let me ask you (all) this: we know we consume far more than we need to, and that consumption has very real, very bad effects on our environment. Air quality, water quality, landfills, etc. These are not debatable. Then there's also this very good chance that it's fucking with our atmosphere, accelerating natural cycles to unnatural levels that many species we depend on can't cope with.

With that in mind - even if our actions aren't a heavily contributing factor in climate change - would it be so bad if we wasted less?

I'm not talking about effects on the over all climate when I talk about certain aspects of pollution. I'm talking about the more specific instances - we dump something in a river, half the river ecosystem dies and people get sick from swimming in it. Loads of specific instances where pollution and waste is obviously bad to the immediate environment.

China’s Poison Air Is Becoming Its Leading Export

...and I've already posted that some of it is reaching as far as the California coast.

China is the prime example of the follies of the environment VS economy debate; quick growth comes with a very steep price. Just because people aren't measuring it in currency doesn't mean it's not there. This is one of my biggest beefs with the climate change deniers - the prevailing idea from that crowd seems to be that so long as man-affected climate change is some kind of hoax, it's okay to burn fossil fuels like they're going out of style. Here's the thing: even if you take global warming entirely out of the equation, we know the shit is bad for us.

Past Century’s Global Temperature Change Is Fastest On Record
Health effects of particulate air pollution

Here's my problem with this whole debate: no it isn't. Take away man's contribution to climate change, entirely - just set it aside from the debate - we still know we're fucking up the environment left and right. We still know that our energy policy is unsustainable. Hell, the world's economic policy of reaching for never-ending growth is a physical impossibility. There's a pretty damn long list of irrefutable, adverse affects on our environment caused by man without ever mentioning the weather/climate/temperatures.

The idea that 'no matter what we do, the Earth will spin on' is really pointless. We're not interested in whether the Earth keeps spinning. We're interested in whether life will be tenable for us - human beings. That the contention around human-caused/accelerated climate change is an excuse to carry on wastefully is ignorant at best, immoral at worse, because regardless of climate change we know this wasteful lifestyle is bad for us and everything else. This is undeniable. Pollution floating in the ocean? Not good. Smog conditions over many major US cities that make breathing difficult? Not good. The shit that blows onto already-overpolluted California coast from China's happy-go-luck-smog spree? Not good. Mercury in our fish? Lead in our bones? Urban tumbleweeds, epic mountains of garbage hidden from the public eye containing shit that will outlast human civilization? The list goes on.

Let's put aside climate change. Let's say hypothetically that we've proven without a shadow of a doubt that human activity has no bearing on it. We still have countless reasons why our waste and energy usage does us - and everything around us - harm.

Why is there such push-back from conservatives to conserve the thing that sustains our life? What could be more important to conserve?

I've got more where that came from, but I think the idea is pretty clear. I've yet to get any decent rebuttals to these points (or much of rebuttals at all, really). Especially the last sentence, which I want to reiterate:

Why is there such push-back from conservatives to conserve the thing that sustains our life? What could be more important to conserve?

Anybody? I know the answer for politicians, that's no secret. But voters? What's the deal?

 

[MMMariah]

if it takes money out of corporate pockets they oppose it. they will try to tell you that oil pouring into the gulf of mexico millions of gallons a day isnt bad for the environment if it means tightening regulations on oil companies. They are conservative and "keep government out of our lives" until its something they don't agree with then government can invade your life as much as is needed. If the Koch brothers made money from air they would be pouring billions into keeping it fresh and clean, but they dont. They make money from polluting the air. and the water and anything else that cuts costs.