Starting July 12th, the Sierra Club started taking over all of the ad space inside Washington, D.C.’s Farragut North Station. They are sharing their message about the dangers of air pollution from coal-fired power plants and the related health risks. Around 80 metro cars have carried similar ads since April.
According to the Sierra Club, the group aims to raise attention to the dangers of coal-fired power plants. The organization reports that these plants “emit air pollutants like smog and soot, which exacerbate asthma and other health problems. Washington metro area residents are demanding that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) protect their health by enacting strong standards to reduce toxic air pollution.”
According to a report from the American Lung Association (ALA) released in March:
“Particle pollution from power plants is estimated to kill approximately 13,000 people a year.” Coal-fired power plants were targeted as one of the biggest culprits.”
This past April, when the ALA released their State of the Air Report, they received a lot of backlash from the public.
Janice Nolen a representative from the ALA told The Huffington Post, “We get criticized for… making the public aware of the air pollution in their community. Sometimes the fact that there still is an air pollution problem is not a message that people want to hear.”
While the Sierra Club ads are rather disturbing, the effects that coal-fired power plants has on everyone should not be ignored. Coal is not a clean source of energy — the health impacts can be devastating to humans and it destroy’s our environment. I’m sure that Sierra Club ads will be criticized by some, but maybe this is what we need to make people aware of the dangers of Coal.
Ad Images via Sierra Club
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