Southern Company operates coal-burning power plants which are the number one source of fine particles which pollute the air and reek havoc on the environment. In Alabama alone, 1,110 people die each year due to air pollution. For Alabama, Georgia, Florida and Mississippi there are 4,969 deaths per year due to filthy air! (ABC News Internet Ventures 2000)1. That's almost 5,000 new crosses and graves annually!
A study by Harvard School of Public Health estimates that power plants nation-wide are responsible for approximately 150,000 deaths per decade! (Clean the Air Policy Net 2000)2. That's 50 times the number of people killed by terrorists on 9/11!
Why is not the public outraged by this murderous death toll? Could it be we have been seduced by the false advertising and propaganda distributed through the media by giant power conglomerates like Southern Company?
By spending millions of dollars to promote a positive image, Southern Company makes puppets out of the media. As a result the public is largely ignorant, unaware that coal-fired power plants are killing thousands of people.
If you laid the dead in front of the state Capitol they would stretch down Dexter Avenue as far as the eye could see. Yet no one notices when they die alone, suffering from lung cancer, congestive heart failure, chronic bronchitis, or other respiratory diseases.
We are all being gassed, not by terrorists, not by Iraq, but by coal-fueled power plants! What is so terrible about this is that Southern Company will not invest whatever it takes to clean up its act. These greedy, power hungry people just want to make more money. They know we will all be dead breathing the soot they spew into the air, and the lies they tell, before anyone can do anything about it.
Sincerely,
Terry Lynch
Date: 11 April, 2003
Sources:
1. ABC News Internet Ventures. Oct. 17, 2000. Polluting Plants: Study Examines Health Effects of Power Plants.
2. Clean the Air Policy Net. 2000. Death, Disease & Dirty Power: Mortality and Health Damage Due to Air Pollution from Power Plants.
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