With Michigan’s economy in the dumper and deficits rising, it’s hard for many to stick to a green path in Michigan. Construction of two new coalburners by Wolverine Power Supply and Consumers Energy are planned that will bring work there for a while.
But how do we think this will fair alongside new green industry Michigan is looking to entice to our area? We can’t expect green companies to park themselves next to one of the greatest pollution producing industries—coal. It would make for strange neighbors.
And what about our health in Michigan? If we expect to horde our water to keep it here, than we have the responsibility to keep that water fresh. Exposing more of our open fresh water to toxic mercury from these plants is unacceptable. Besides that our own health from the air born toxins are in jeopardy. The following is an excerpt from those in Michigan’s medical profession:
As medical doctors conducting health research at Michigan State University and the University of Michigan respectively, we feel compelled to warn that construction of these plants would gravely impair Michigan’s air quality and expose our communities to severe, even lethal, health impacts.
Coal plants release at least 70 different pollutants, including nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, particulate matter and mercury. These pollutants are known carcinogens, teratogens, neurotoxins, and/or cardiopulmonary irritants.
And we wonder why there are so many new cases of autoimmune disease and cancer? This isn’t just about jobs, this is about our health and welfare, which is supported by our environment, the air we breathe, water and food we drink and eat. There are so many more pollutants and toxins in our environment than our ancestors experienced that our bodies are overworked daily. So when we face something as simple as allergies our immune response is flooded. Just yesterday a friend called me to say that another dear friend died of problems arising from his immune system.
As Americans we have a tendency to seek instant gratification, only that can sometimes lead to acting without foresight and create more drastic problems down the road. We can’t wait to get jobs in Michigan and are quick to overlook the ramifications of adding more pollution to our state with these coalburners without really, really attempting to facilitate other sources. We gets jobs, get a paycheck for building coal fired power plants, but down the line we suffer grief and lose that income and more to illness. It isn’t worth it.
We have a new president on the way with new economic ideas that are environmentally friendly. It looks like this push to start construction on these coalburners is a rush to get by before the new president takes office. And when everyone finds that there are many, many jobs waiting in green industry also, that we have a choice of work, and alternatives for energy, there won’t be much of a long-term future for the archaic fossil fuel industry will there? That’s motive for the fossil fuel energy companies that isn’t in the best interest of the people in this state. The more we manage to forge ahead into green technology, the greater the strides we will make toward some pretty remarkable energy sources that won’t infringe on the environment and ultimately on our own well being.
Contact Governor Granholm that you want a stay on these permits for now: http://www.michigan.gov/gov/0,1607,7-168-21995—,00.html
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009901070332
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009901070345
it is getting very cold out. not sure we should be concerned with global warming….but as you know i never have…could be a record winter!!!!
Global Cooling is Global Warming
http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/?p=240#comments
Global warming is still the correct terminology for the cooling and snow many are experiencing this winter. The article is right about one thing. Scientists that specialize in warming ocean waters, wind currents, gulf streams, etc., are just now coming together as a group to examine the alarming collective effects of global warming. Global cooling is taking place because the Meridional Overturning Circulation or MOC is slowing. It’s not exactly the same as the Gulf Stream but I’m calling it that, so you can understand more easily. The only reason Great Britain enjoys a moderate climate is because of the Gulf Stream, which acts like a giant conveyor carrying warm surface ocean water to Britain where salinity forces it down to cool as it returns toward us. Global warming hasn’t just melted glaciers, it has also melted snow and ice in Siberia and other places where “freshwater” glutted rivers that dump into the ocean reducing salinity, and so the Gulf Stream is slowing as salinity decreases.
In the past when the Gulf Stream stopped, there was like an instantaneous ice age in that region. If it happens again, Britain will freeze over without proper warning. Power lines will snap, snow will increase and many will perish. This will continue throughout the northern hemisphere, while the tropics suffer drought and excessive heat. This has happened before during increase in overall temperature or global warming. It’s not that global warming hasn’t happened before. It has not happened at the rate of speed it progresses now. This escalation is the reason scientists started looking at the effects of human pollution on environment in the first place and found results we don’t want to hear.
The link above has more from someone else that thought global warming means everywhere on earth it’s going to be hot–NOT. Lucky ole Michigan will more than likely freeze.
i agree it’s happened before and it will happen again. what i do not agree with is that we are the cause. to say that “it has never happened this fast before” is not, in my veiw, knowable. since it happened before, and i wasn’t driving an suv, that tells me it occurs by nature. as a Christian i believe God is the creator of all things, GEN 1:1, and therefore is in control of what occurs with the weather. this is all for His reasons and we’ll never know why. i’m reminded of Gods comment to job. after all job had gone through he was begging, pleading and crying to God for an answer to all of this. God response was in a nut shell this. “I tell you but you couldn’t understand it.” “were you there when I told the ocean this far and no farther.”
It hasn’t happened before this way Matt. I’ve already blogged about the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warming Period where the Arctic passage was open. Our planet is heating up like never before, much quicker. We have data like ice core samples that help us know what was in the atmosphere and what took place ions ago. I wrote about the first global warming that happened 40 million years ago. It was caused by a build up of methane gas spewing from fissures in the earth, and rotting plant life. It took centuries for the overall worldwide temperature, not what we look at on our outdoor thermometers, to increase one degree back then causing the first global warming. There’s a big difference between our regional temperature changes and the entire worldwide average temperature. It’s explained on Nat Geo’s “Six Degrees” of Climate change and what would happen.
Besides, what is so hard to understand that we are a closed system? Stuff does not simply go away floating off into the universe. It’s trapped here and if the sources on earth that used to clean and reverse the process of gases building up like rainforests, and overfishing that results in rotting plankton because there aren’t enough fish to eat it, than the gases will build up again. Methane gas explosions along the coast of Africa can be seen from satellites now because sardines that eat plankton have diminished so much the natives along there are eating every animal in sight because they no longer have fish to eat. I’ve shown pics of fried monkeys. Rainforests and trees are either burned down or cut down and elephants killed for coffee plantations. There is a huge chain reaction to our actions that you just don’t get. Get out from the localized world and look what’s happening to the Great Barrier Reef, where coral is disappearing en mass, and to other people who are being driven from their island homes because of rising waters. No one is making that up. So our atmosphere can indeed fill up with the wrong stuff. The ocean can become grossly polluted. It has no where to go.
Now recall pics of just about every major city in America and the smokestacks that come with each. I just blogged what our university doctors published about pollution that spews out of coalburners too. Heck Zug island used to be really horrible. I remember driving from Warren to Monroe with my girlfriend. We learned to roll up our windows going over the bridge because our hair would literally get dirty if we didn’t. It took a while to figure out what was causing that. That was decades ago.
All those years, all the polllution, why do you expect miracles from Mother Nature? She’s just supposed to miraculously clean up all we throw out there, when we keep hacking away at her cleaners like trees to build more, bigger, and better? It’s a dirty deal we’re giving the earth and you’re the 23% of America that still doubts global warming. A recent countrywide poll had 77% of all people wanting something done about the environment from the new administration. You still believe the doubts about global warming propagated by the former administration to benefit corporations. We see where that got us.