British doctors and health professionals call for rapid coal phase-out

Groups representing Britain’s 600,000 doctors and health professionals say it is “imperative” to phase out coal rapidly to improve health and reduce NHS costs.

The doctors and nurses say tackling outdoor air pollution from traffic and power stations would cut climate emissions, reduce air pollution, and deliver a powerful boost to the nation’s health.

“Climate change and air pollution are both major health threats,” says the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change in a report. “They share a common driver: the combustion of fossil fuels. Pollution from coal plants alone costs the UK as much as £3.1bn each year in human health impacts.”

The group of 15 health bodies includes seven royal colleges of medicine and the British Medical Association.

Pollution from coal plants causes many serious health conditions including stroke, coronary heart disease and lung cancer. It disproportionally affects children and kills more people than road accidents , says the report.

The government has said it intends to phase out coal power plants by 2025 but the doctors say they are alarmed that no consultation papers looking at how this could be achieved have been published in more than a year.

“Ending the use of coal is a simple, no-regrets public health intervention. The rapid phase-out of coal fired stations is an imperative first step. Coal is the most carbon-intensive source of power generation, and is a key focus for reducing the risks of climate change.

“In the UK, burning coal is linked to 1,600 premature deaths, 68,000 additional days of medication, 363,266 working days lost and more than 1m incidents of lower respiratory symptoms,” says the report.

It urges politicians not to tackle air pollution and climate individually, as has been done in the past. “The UK has witnessed … policies that encouraged the use of diesel cars which inadvertently worsened air quality. Considering air pollution and climate change together can limit adverse health effects.

“Some strategies can be good for both air quality and climate change, for instance wind, solar and tidal energy. Acting on ones that are beneficial to both is advantageous to health. Indeed, joining up policies on health, air pollution and climate change can offset the costs of climate mitigation policies through the health benefits that they bring.”

Air pollution is the second biggest public health threat in the UK after smoking and kills 40,000 people a year in Britain, said Prof John Middleton, president of the Faculty of Public Health. “Coal-fired energy is particularly damaging through its invisible particulates and because it is a driver of climate change,” he said.

“The phase-out of coal use is an essential step towards creating a sustainable energy policy for the UK,” said Dr Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of the Lancet medical journal. “It is also a vital co-benefit for health – ending coal use will deliver long-lasting health and dividends for the British population. Life expectancies will be prolonged, disease and disabilities reduced, and future risks to health diminished. This is an opportunity to be seized.”

Jonathan Griggs, professor of paediatric respiratory and environmental medicine and fellow of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health said that children were particularly vulnerable to burning coal.

“Air pollution from burning coal has been linked to low birth weight and pre-term delivery as a result of maternal exposure during pregnancy,” he said. “The phase-out of coal is a double win for tackling the twin health threats of air pollution and climate change.”

“Tackling air pollution and climate change will have numerous health benefits but it requires a joined-up approach from government to ensure the health impacts are better recognised and fully realised,” said Janet Davies, the Royal College of Nursing’s chief executive and general secretary.

British doctors and health professionals call for rapid coal phase-out

Obama administration tightens coal dust rules to lessen black lung situations

The Obama administration stated Wednesday it is cutting the amount of coal dust permitted in coal mines in an energy to help lessen black lung condition.

“Nowadays we advance a really simple principle: you shouldn’t have to sacrifice your lifestyle for your livelihood,” Labor Secretary Thomas E Perez said. “But which is been the fate of a lot more than 76,000 miners who have died at least in part because of black lung since 1968.”

Perez was one particular of many best government officials to announce the lengthy-awaited final rule Wednesday at an event in Morgantown, West Virginia.

Black lung is an irreversible and potentially deadly ailment caused by publicity to coal dust, the place the dust particles accumulate in the lungs.

The rule by the Labor Department’s Mine Security and Overall health Administration lowers the overall dust regular from 2. to 1.5 milligrams per cubic meter of air. For certain mine entries and miners with black lung condition, the normal is cut in half, from 1. to .5. The rule also increases the frequency of dust sampling, and calls for coal operators to take instant action when dust levels are higher. In addition, coal mine operators will be required to use new technology to supply true-time dust levels. The needs will be phased in in excess of two years.

“It is a significant occurring in the coal fields,” Joseph A Major, assistant secretary of labor for mine security and health, explained in an interview just before Wednesday’s event. “And it truly is 1 whose time has genuinely come.”

Principal, who worked as a coal miner in Pennsylvania and West Virginia for about eight many years beginning when he was 18, mentioned he manufactured a “personalized commitment” to assisting to eradicate black lung illness.

“I personally know miners who have had the ailment and died from the disease – the very same as other folks who grew up in coal mining communities,” Major mentioned.

The administration 1st proposed the rule back in 2010, when it said it would fight a resurgence of black lung ailment. The Mine Security and Wellness Administration held 7 public hearings, extended the comment time period three times, and received all around two,000 pages of feedback. It took 3 ½ years for the rule to be finalized.

“We possibly all would have liked to move faster, but you’ve received to be cautious when you are getting to regulatory processes like this,” Primary explained. “Acquiring it appropriate was extremely crucial.”

Major and John Howard, the director of the Nationwide Institute for Occupational Safety and Overall health, joined Perez at the event in West Virginia.

Hal Quinn, president and CEO of the National Mining Association, a trade association, known as the rule “a lost possibility to supply much better protection for these who need it and more job protection for all our coal miners.”

The Mine Safety and Health Administration, Quinn stated in a statement, “declined to embrace constructive suggestions and confirmed remedies to reduce miner’s publicity to respirable coal dust.” Those incorporate the use of proven private protection technologies rotating miners to decrease their publicity to coal dust and requiring miners to participate in X-ray surveillance plans to encourage timely medical intervention, Quinn said.

But Senator Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, stated Wednesday marked a “really historic day” for coalminers.

“While this is a large stage forward, it is by no implies the finish of our fight to eradicate this scourge of coalminers,” he mentioned, referring to black lung condition.

The United Mine Workers of America had no quick comment on the rule.

Obama administration tightens coal dust rules to lessen black lung situations

Tim Flannery says coal communities are becoming kept in dark about dangers

Climate scientist Tim Flannery says communities living close to coalmines are currently being kept in the dark about the dangers, and has called for the inquiry into the results of wind turbines on wellness to also seem at mines and fires.

Thousands of residents have been affected by the fire at the Hazelwood coalmine which has been burning for 3 weeks, sending smoke across the neighborhood of Morwell in Victoria.

Flannery, the former chief commissioner of the Climate Commission and now head of the Climate Council, has expressed concern for the wellness of men and women exposed to the smoke, and questioned regardless of whether ample preparation was accomplished by mine operator GDF Suez.

The Abbott government has promised to commission “comprehensive” investigation into the attainable wellness dangers of wind turbines.

“Coal fires are a notorious risk for coalmines. In North America total towns have had to be relocated because of fires that have been uncontrollable,” Flannery stated.

“In the US and Canada there are something like fifty five,000 deaths associated to burning coal,” he stated, citing a statement from the US organisation Doctors for Social Obligation.

Medical professionals earlier this week warned of the danger to residents of Morwell from carcinogenic particulate pollution, which was discovered to be at amounts up to 20 occasions the standard average.

Vulnerable groups of folks in South Morwell have been recommended to temporarily relocate due to the danger of PM2.5 particle, but numerous residents expressed confusion about the dangers.

Flannery called for a government inquiry into all Australian mines and the risks to communities.

“Our government is doing an inquiry into the overall health affect of wind [turbines], but here we’ve acquired this chance with coal. If the federal government expanded their inquiry that would be excellent commence,” he explained.

“I’m anxious that we do not but know what this coal fire means for the wellness of firefighters and the individuals of Morwell,” Flannery told representatives of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation.

Flannery questioned whether GDF Suez was taking ample action to maintain the local community informed and mentioned the fire highlighted the require for better preparation and inquiry into the state of mines all around the country, and the risks they posed to nearby communities.

“Do the businesses operating these operations know the health risks? If they do, then they need to share them. If not, then why not?” Flannery said in a statement.

“Other crucial queries have not been answered. Why did the fire take hold? Did GDF Suez correctly clean up the mine website?

“The core of our concern is that this is a widespread chance that is unacknowledged in the community, but without information on other coalmines we’re just in the dark.”

GDF Suez said in a statement on 20 January that the fire, which started in a element of the mine not utilized for thirty many years, is “one of the most significant fire circumstances ever confronted at the Morwell mine”, and rejected accusations that leftover infrastructure was not removed from the internet site.

On Wednesday the firm also said rehabilitation perform was carried out in 2007-08 in “a area of the northern batters … undertaken by truck and shovel, exactly where some of the exposed coal faces in this region had been covered with clay”.

GDF Suez mentioned all around 85% of the fire was now contained.

GDF Suez and the prime minister’s workplace have been contacted for further comment.

Tim Flannery says coal communities are becoming kept in dark about dangers