When it comes to clean air, is economic growth more important to companies than lives?
After reading that Governor Haley and 10 other Republican governors are blasting the new federal air pollution rules they say are so extreme that businesses will suffer and economic growth will slow down ifregulations take effect. This really concerns me and I wonder if economic growth is more important to them than lives.
I also read several letters from educated people their views on the pros and cons of global warming, citing scientific facts that they believed in.
Well I’m certainly not educated in this but I do know some facts. Most life, including human life must have air and safe water. Pollution by Big Corporations is making the air unsafe to breathe and water unsafe to drink.
COPD, (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) which formerly was associated with smoking cigarettes, is now the third largest killer and many/most of these people who die due to COPD have never smoked. It seems as if almost every family I meet is touched in some way by this disease. It puts a burden on not only families but a financial burden on states and the federal government.
It gets to the point that anyone who suffers from COPD cannot work and then they are eligible for disability, Medicaid, and other benefits which also cost a lot of money. It gets more expensive each year as they need more and more medicines, oxygen, home health and nursing homes. It’s a terrible disease, a slow death struggling to breathe and fight the various hospitalizations for things like pneumonia, bronchitis, and other lung problems.
An extremely large percentage of this can be avoided by clean air. Is that not incentive enough to reduce the smog and tighten ozone standards? Is money more important than life for these Big Corporations and our government?
Asthma in children has more than doubled and is now the leading chronic disease in children. The deaths in children 5 to 14 years old have more than doubled in city dwellers or that live near coal-powered plants or businesses that emit dirty air. Is the future for our children less important than the cost to the economics of big corporations to clean up our air?
These BIG Corporations do nothing but pass the cost on to us, the consumer.
Not only does smog and dirty air cause problems for suffers of asthma, COPD and other lung diseases, it affects numerous people who suffer from chronic conditions such as heart disease, diabetics, and many others, which is a scientific fact.
I am from a small little town called Cliffside, N.C., but it is home to one of the largest Duke Energy coal powered plants. We lived 3 miles from this coal plant but only about a mile as the crow flies. My first husband lost his life to COPD, my son is disabled now with COPD and on oxygen 24/7.
I have chronic bronchitis, and every person I know not only in Cliffside but in the county has someone with COPD in their family.
Duke has contaminated and polluted our beautiful Broad River with its ash and sludge pits. The mighty Broad supplies drinking water to many towns and counties through which it flows both in North Carolina and South Carolina. While they have been ordered to clean it up, we the people will end up paying for it in our power bills and we’ve already paid for itin our health.
As this paper reported, Frank O’Donald, president of Clean Air Watch, said it best, “It’s really regrettable that Gov. Haley and her colleagues are listening to oil companies and industrial opponents of EPA while giving the short stick to children with asthma and the many millions dying from COPD who are harmed by dirty air.”
How many South Carolina Rivers that supply drinking water to towns and counties in SC have toxic waste polluting their river by Big
If you think oil exploration and oil drilling is going to bring any money or jobs to South Carolina, ask anyone in the Gulf Coast states. All will tell you it has done them absolutely no good at all and some in Alabama and Louisiana will tell you the great cost it’s been to them in their livelihood, their health, and the cost to their county and state. Is that what we want for South Carolina and our beaches and coastal towns?
The writer lives in Myrtle Beach.
This story was originally published May 23, 2015 at 1:30 PM with the headline "When it comes to clean air, is economic growth more important to companies than lives?."