Tag Archives: Fossil fuel power station

We can’t let them get away with it


Dirty coal power plants are causing children asthma attacks and their parents heart attacks – all while leaking toxic chemicals into local tap water. This is simply unacceptable.

Up to 34,000 people – many children – are killed by pollution from coal plants every year.  At one plant in Portland, PA 30 people die prematurely a year!

Right now, owners of obsolete, dangerous coal plants around the country – like the one in Portland – are considering spending billions of dollars to keep these killers open. With an aggressive campaign right now, we can rally communities and shut the plants down. Can you help?

Please donate by midnight tonight  to help shut these worst-of-the-worst plants down. We need just 14 donations to reach our goal of $34,000 – one dollar for every coal-related death we must stop.

A drunk driver that kills one person faces justice. But what does a company whose pollution kills 30 children and adults get? Four years to slightly reduce its pollution – and a free pass to keep killing hundreds even after its facelift. I’m not ok with that.

What’s worse, it’s children who pay the highest price. The Portland coal plant alone causes five hundred asthma attacks a year. Right now, somewhere in Pennsylvania, one of those children with asthma is struggling to breathe. We don’t know her name, but we know she’s one of hundreds and could be the next victim if we don’t act now. Fight back >>

Just a few weeks ago, the owners of the half-century-old plant in Portland began reviewing whether to spend up to half a billion dollars to keep the plant open and continue to spew toxins into the air and water. We need to act now before they make a final decision.

We’ve seen what’s possible when we fight on the ground to expose the truth, mobilize local communities, and unite national opposition with grassroots action. In the last few weeks, we’ve seen the dirty coal plant in Salem, Mass and the Beckjord plant in Ohio announce shut-down plans – though we’ll keep fighting until they close their doors for good.

We can and must stop the coal industry from taking our children’s lives and their futures – but we need you to step up before midnight tonight.

Please help end the Portland plant’s reign of terror and stop other deadly plants like it. We need just 14 gifts from Washington to reach our goal of $34,000 – one dollar for every coal-related death we can prevent when we quit coal. Deadline: midnight tonight.

Coal-fired power plants kill in many ways ranging from coal ash to toxic emittants to being the biggest source of man-made CO2 emissions. But the coal industry has given millions in campaign contributions to buy a free pass – and leave children and families paying the cost of their dirty business.

If we have the strength to act urgently, we will save lives. Are you in? We have this moment to do right by our planet and right by our children.

Join me in quitting coal,

 

Philip Radford, Greenpeace

P.S. Please make your donation by midnight tonight on our secure website or by calling 1-800-792-6995. We need just 14 donors from Washington to step up.Thank you

The coal industry


Somewhere in America a family will lose a loved one in the next hour as a result of pollution from coal-fired power plants.

Pollution from the coal industry isn’t just poisoning our communities. It’s polluting our political process as well. The millions of dollars they spend on lobbying and campaign contributions has allowed them to continue doing business as usual. But that’s changing.

Communities everywhere are standing up to the coal industry and doing what they have to do to keep their families safe and protect their air and water. And Greenpeace is supporting them.

That’s why we created a new website — www.quitcoal.org — especially for these activists and for anyone who is concerned about coal. Check out their stories and be one of the first people to see our new site by clicking on the video below.

We feel that this site can serve as a valuable resource by providing a platform for these activists to share their story and connect with other people in the movement and to highlight the work that is being done across the country to build a clean energy future.

You’ll be hearing a lot more about the site in the future. Thanks for all you do.

Quit Coal,

Kelly Mitchell

Greenpeace Coal Campaigner

Chicago is sick of coal plants …Amanda Starbuck, Rainforest Action Network


The Fisk and Crawford coal plants, owned by Midwest Generation, are located right in the heart of Chicago. Combined these two ancient plants have been spewing pollution directly into the Windy City‘s bustling neighborhoods for over 150 years.

“Every class I teach has four to seven students who suffer from  horrifying respiratory illness,” says Chicago public school teacher  Gloria Fallon. “I can no longer sit back and watch my students and my community being sacrificed for dirty coal.”

                    The asthma hospitalization rate in Chicago is nearly double the U.S. national average. In some neighborhoods, over 25% of the children under twelve suffer from asthma.

                    Midwest Generation must be stopped.

Tell Bank of America, Citi, and Chase to pull funding from Midwest Generation, so these coal plants will finally be shut down.

                    Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO) and the Pilsen Environmental Rights and Reform Organization (PERRO) have been working for many years to demand that Midwest Generation stop poisoning their communities with 45,000 tons of pollution every year. Join them.

                    Stand with LVEJO and PERRO for environmental justice. Wake up the financial institutions that fuel U.S. polluters today.

                    Air pollution from Fisk and Crawford causes more than 40 deaths, 66 heart attacks and 720 asthma attacks every year. Big banks enable devastating coal projects like these to continue hurting communities in Chicago and all across the United States.

Enough is enough. Americans deserve clean air and healthy communities. It’s time for U.S. financial institutions to take responsibility  for their actions, pull financing from dirty fossil fuel projects and start banking on clean, sustainable energy.

Demand that Bank of America, Citi, and Chase support clean energy projects instead of dirty, deadly ones.

 

 

 

 

For a clean energy future,

 
Amanda Starbuck
                                Energy & Finance Program Director

Twitter: @DirtyEnergy

Tell the EPA: Protect us from Toxic Air … Kathleen Rogers, Earth Day Network


Mercury is so toxic… just 1/70th of a teaspoon can  contaminate a 20 acre lake. Imagine the damage 50 tons can do.

Coal-fired power plants emit over 50 tons of mercury into our air every  single year, more than any other source. Today, mercury exposure is so  widespread in our country that as many as 1 in 6 women of childbearing age have  blood mercury levels high enough to put a baby at risk of mercury poisoning.

There are no restrictions on the amount of toxic mercury  that utility companies can emit. But, at long last, the EPA has proposed a critical  rule to reduce the emission of mercury and other toxic chemicals that power  plants are now able to freely dump into our air.

The Power Plant Mercury and Air Toxics Standard is the most  important clean air rule since 1990 — and the EPA is predictably under  tremendous pressure by the coal industry and other polluters to weaken it. Now,  the EPA has asked us – the public – to weigh in on this critical  rule.

Tell the EPA to uphold this rule and protect Americans from dangerous air pollution. Submit your public comment now.

For decades, the electric industry has successfully fought  requirements to reduce these toxics.

They’ve kept releasing mercury into our air, where it finds  its way into the vast majority of our lakes and waterways, into our fish, and  then into our bodies, where the poison accumulates, causing deadly diseases and  impairing fundamental brain functions like the ability to walk, talk, read,  write and learn.

According to the EPA, reduced emissions from this new air  toxics rule will save as many as 17,000 American lives every year by 2015, and  will prevent up to 120,000 cases of childhood asthma. We must put our support  behind this lifesaving new emissions standard!

Tell  the EPA to uphold this rule and protect Americans from dangerous air pollution.  Submit your public comment now.

Thank  you for taking action during this critical comment period,
Kathleen  Rogers

How to Quit Coal in 30 Seconds …Greenpeace


Check out this amazing video of Greenpeace activists painting “Quit Coal” on the 450 ft. tall smokestack at the Fisk power plant in Chicago. They were up there for 26 hours getting the message out.

Watch the video and then help them spread the word even more by sharing it with your friends. Just click the image below…

All told, air pollution from coal-fired power plants kills tens of thousands of Americans every year. That human cost isn’t part of the bottom-line for giant utility companies like Edison International that operate plants like the ones in Chicago.

But local communities everywhere are fighting back. And Greenpeace has a campaign to support them.

Spread the word about the movement to quit coal by watching our video and sharing it with your friends right now.

The more views this video gets in its first 24 hours the more likely it is to become popular on YouTube! And the more popular it becomes the more people will hear about the amazing work activist all over are doing to get coal out of their communities.

Sincerely,

Kelly Mitchell

Greenpeace Coal Campaigner

P.S. Please forward this to everyone you know who likes amazing videos!