[*BCM*] Roll Against Coal! Nov 13 bike ride to Salem

[Patrick Kelleher-Calnan]

Hi Jim,

I agree that activists could stand to provide better information -
specifically your point about the lack of a time frame for some of the
statistics - you should recognize the type of communication you're dealing
with.  This is an advertisement for an event, not a policy paper or article
in a periodical, and it's already a little on the long side.  The activists
are trying to get as many people as possible out to an event which they hope
will build political pressure to change Massachusetts' sources of
electricity.  It's not really the best space to go into detail about green
energy in general and this power plant in particular (though you're right to
expect that they have this sort of information *somewhere*).  And they do
cite a credible source (2001 HSPH study), though if this was an article in a
newspaper, an academic article, a Greenpeace policy recommendation, or even
Wikipedia, you'd hope the citation would be more clear.  Finally, I
definitely find it problematic that they don't provide any proposal on what
we should do to replace that power source, but the question of what the
'real costs (financial, environmental, political, etc)' of replacing this
plant with another source is something that will probably take months and
thousands of dollars to actually answer.

Best,
Patrick


On Mon, Nov 8, 2010 at 9:56 AM, Jim Leonard <jim_bcm at xuth.net> wrote:

> ARRRGH!!!  Why must protest groups use such horrible nonsensical statistics
> to promote their causes?  Even for causes that are completely legitimate the
> facts that are presented routinely make no sense.
>
>
> On Mon, Nov 08, 2010 at 12:01:47PM -0500, Bikes Not Bombs wrote:
> > WHY?
> > The Salem Harbor Coal Plant has negative impacts on people and
> > environment. Salem Harbor is Massachusetts' third largest contributor
> > of carbon emissions
>
> Well, third largest single entity (assuming this is true), thus arguably
> low hanging fruit.  But it's also the 4th largest power plant in MA.  What
> is its efficiency?
>
>
> > , and damages local ecosystems through waste
> > discharge into the air and the Atlantic. There are 100,000 people who
> > live within 3 miles of this plant, and these people are directly
> > impacted by the plant. In 2001 The Harvard School of Public Health
> > preformed a study that estimated that Salem Harbor and its sister
> > plant, Brayton Point, cause 159 premature deaths, 43,000 asthma
> > attacks and upper respiratory irritation in 300,000 people across New
> > England.
>
> Over what duration?  Without that these numbers are completely meaningless.
>  Even with that, what is a "premature death"?  You're using asthma attack as
> a discrete event.  Most people who have asthma attacks have something about
> them that cause multiple attacks over time.  Am I reading that this is also
> the single cause of "upper respiratory irritation" huge numbers of people?
>
> You're also conjoining Salem Harbor power plant with the Brayton Point
> power plant in these non-statistics.  So even if the statistics themselves
> made sense they wouldn't directly implicate Salem Harbor.
>
> You also fail to provide sources, preferably reliable sources.
>
> Assuming that all of the above were fixed, a rational person would also
> want to know what the real costs (financial, environmental, political, etc)
> of the alternatives.  Yes it's a 60 year old plant with some modern
> pollution controls bolted on but how does that compare with trashing the
> current plant, and building something new.  Include in the previous question
> all of the electric transmission infrastructure.  What about the fuel
> transportation infrastructure?
>
> I'm not saying your cause is without merit.  I'm just saying that your
> message sucks.
>
> --jim
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