Doctors say wind and solar power should replace coal
Doctors, nurses and lung specialists in Ontario will launch an expensive advertising campaign to promote wind and solar power over the continued use of coal plants in Canada’s most populated province.
The Ontario College of Family Physicians, the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE), the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario, the Ontario Lung Association, and the Asthma Society of Canada have agreed to launch the pro-renewables campaign in advance of a provincial election held later this year.
The current Liberal government has said it will shut coal plants in Ontario, which has a population of more than 13 million people, by 2014.
The Toronto Star noted the opposition Conservatives have been highly critical of the Green Energy Act, which seeks to replace coal with renewables and conservation.
Niagara This Week said the ads — which carry the headline “Doctors and Nurses Support Green Energy” — remind readers that the province’s coal plants caused more than 150,000 illnesses and more than 300 deaths last year alone.
“Ontario doctors, nurses and other health professionals support energy conservation combined with wind and solar power, to help us move away from coal,” the ads say.
Campaign spokesman Gideon Forman, who is also executive director of CAPE, said nurses and doctors are concerned of the possibility that a new government would not honour the promise to phase out coal-fired electricity plants.
“All the research we’ve done shows that coal has to go,” Forman was quoted as saying.
As Ontario has been developing its wind power resources, critics have complained that turbines can cause health problems to people living near wind farms.
In November, Forman wrote that while health concerns are raised by the anti-wind-power lobby, coal plants in Ontario are the largest source of greenhouse gases in the province.
“In the midst of this ruckus,” Forman wrote, “there’s an often-missed and very important distinction to be made: coal plants are inherently harmful while wind turbines are not.”
This is what we have all been trying to accomplish for many years. These coal mines are not just dangerous to are air quality but to all miners whom work the mines. There have been too many deaths associated to coal mines in one form or another. I am so proud that there is finally a good stand against this issue. I wish you all the best of luck with this endeavor!
I think renewables can play a part in the production of electricity but if we abandon coal for wind and solar, you would have to have the salary of a Dr. to pay the light bill.
Wind energy is a must! We haven’t a moment to loose! Less thinking about it and more DOING about it. A massive campaign needs to happen before we run out of fossil fuel energy needed to do produce the wind farms. More wind component producing factories need to be built here in the USA to put more Americans to work to build enough wind generators. The foreign aid we spend amounts to about half of one percent of the federal budget and that ain’t no chunk change either. It’s hard to believe we can’t find more money in the budget to assist more entrepreneurs to open more plants here in the states instead of sending so much of it to China. More plants mean more tax revenues from the industries and especially the workers who will wind up paying most of the taxes anyway. Get it and get on with it America! Get a hold of the situation before it’s too late!
I sure would like to know what kind of alleged health problems can occur from wind turbines. Extreme dizzyness from the happiness of zero harmful emissions? Extensive light headedness from thinking we should have done this years ago? Un-controlled screaming from shutting down money hungry power companies and making yourself completly self sufficent?