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

[Jim Leonard]

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