We hear a lot about the health risks associated with coal-fired power plants--by far the most prevalent source of electricity in the United States and many other countries--but how can you assess your personal vulnerability to the effects of dirty coal?
The Sierra Club has just released a simple online quiz that will show you how coal pollution is affecting your life, your health and your community.
Take the Coal In Your Life Quiz
Just click over to the Coal In Your Life quiz at www.coalinyourlife.org and answer a few simple questions about where you live, the fish you eat, and your general health and lifestyle and, voilà, the site will email you a score between 1 and 10 that offers a snapshot of your personal level of risk from coal pollution.
Coal Pollution Kills
The health risks from coal pollution are no small thing. A report by the Clean Air Task Force predicted that in 2010 coal pollution would cause some 13,200 premature deaths in the United States, along with about 9,700 additional hospitalizations and some 20,000 heart attacks, adding approximately $100 billion to the nation's annual health-care bill.
And those numbers were roughly half what they were in 2004 when coal pollution caused some 24,000 premature deaths in the United States.
Backing the Coal In Your Life quiz is a compilation of data from a variety of government agencies, nonprofit organizations and scientific studies.
After You Take the Quiz, Take Action
The Sierra Club is encouraging people to take the quiz and then pass it along to at least five friends, hoping that as more people discover how coal pollution affects them and their families personally they will be motivated to join the fight for stronger pollution safeguards on coal-fired power plants.
So take the quiz and see what you think. It could save your life.
Photo by Carsten Koall/Getty Images
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Comments
Let’s quit burning coal so that we can’t power our electric cars and we can live like Mother Nature intended, in the dark.
Edge, nobody is suggesting doing away with electricity, but what is your objection to making the ways we generate that power safer and less damaging to human health?
Coal emissions are responsible for thousands of premature deaths every year and a host of other health problems that have both human and financial costs. Those facts are well-documented by scientists in both the public and private sectors. Do you really object to making the air and water cleaner and lowering the death rate?
As for the quiz, there are more than two questions and they all have to do with coal.
The question about fish may seem off-topic to you, but coal-fired power plants emit a lot of mercury, which gets into the food chain and becomes more concentrated the higher it goes. Coal pollution is worse in some parts of the country than in others, hence the question about where you live. And people with certain health conditions and lifestyle traits are more vulnerable to the effects of particle pollution and other emissions from coal.
Where is the proof that burning coal causes thousands of deaths every year? Some scientists guessing?
Most scientists are pretty careful not to guess. They collect and study data, draw conclusions the data support, and point out when anything more would be a leap of faith the science won’t allow.
The public health and financial cost of coal-fired power plants has been studied for years. Particle pollution damages health and can be deadly, and so can some of the other emissions from coal-fired plants. One of the most recent studies is “The Toll of Coal” from the Clean Air Task Force, published in late 2010.
If we dismiss science out of hand, as you seem to do with your “some scientists guessing” comment, then what’s left? Uninformed opinions with no research behind them? If the choice is between scientific method and the opinions of people who simply think they know more than anyone else, I choose science.
Coal is a fossil fuel consisting of carbonized vegetable matter deposited in the Carboniferous period. It causes as to destroy our health, pollution and”global warming effect”. As what we have noticed nowadays, our mother earth cries out for help to stop destroying our environment. That’s why Pag asa ng Buhay Association established in order to fight the global warming effect which is happening nowadays. It aims to help in preventing floods and denuding forest. It also aims to have a clean and green community. The ”Pag asa ng Buhay Association”</will conduct a ”tree planting” event this coming July 16, 2011 at Bgy. San Andres, Tanay, Rizal which dubbed as “Plant Trees Fight Global Warming” in order to become part of fighting against the ”global warming effect”t. Join and adopt a tree
Coal is dirty no matter how you look at it and with solar, wind and biofuel power as viable options, we’d might as well start adding these alternatives so we can eventually do away with having to burn coal for power. Guido: I admit that we have cleaned up plant emissions in the last few decades but it’s nothing more than harm reduction. You’re the same guy who tried to disprove global climate change by stating it violates Kirchoff’s Law (a massive intelligence fail) so I call into question your ability evaluate data…even if you do practice medicine. You should also look at NASA’s satellite photos of air pollution in the US to get a bigger picture of what’s going on. Perhaps you don’t care, but when you see how isolated our planet is in the vastness of space, and the thin film of an atmosphere we have to exist in, the fragility of this system becomes more evident than if you just step outside you’re house in Illinois.
Guido, your post from 1/20/2010 you talk about “Kirchow’s” Law, which I took as a typo for Kirchoff, which you say deals with radiation absorbtion and emission which I corrected you on. So, unless someone stole your blog name, or vice versa, you should own up to your work. Secondly I never stated that we’ll run out of air and I dunno where you got that from. You can call me emotionally “weak” but I think you’re just embarassed about me calling you out. I always welcome differing points of view but they have to be based in logic, and not something you made up to suit your position.
I stand corrected about Kirchhoff. I forgot he had more than one law. He did state also that absorptivity equals emissivity. BTW- in that old thread you asked why Venus is so hot: it has to do with the gas law, PV=nRT, not with its co2 content. Venus has a very high atm pressure, therefore a very hi temp. I apologize if you took my comment about emotion as an insult; I merely meant to point out that we need quantitative analysis before we act on our qualitative views.
Unfiltered burning of coal is a bad option, as is complete removal of coal power plants in places where coal is most advantageous. Contain the most annoying pollutants: H2S, SO2, NOx, Hg and coal-fueled power plants should be fine. And I don’t think that people with otherwise healthy hearts get heart attacks from coal pollution. There are too many factors (weight, lifestyle) that need to be taken into account before coal is blamed as the root of all problems. I am not affiliated with a coal mining or distribution company nor do I nor my community use coal. Natgas is cleaner but uneconomical in many areas.