Reader comments
Readers' forum: Pollution facts distorted

I live in Sevier County and am not a radical environmentalist. But, I can smell, taste and see the mess from the smoke stacks that burn vast amounts of coal when I've traveled to Orangeville and around that locale. Coal stinks when its burned. The stacks carry the waste away for us ALL to breathe and contend with mercury, arsenic, etc. Coal for power generation is a dinosaur technology. I don't care how the promoters dress it up.

There's no question that coal-fired power is the most polluting of electricity sources. Utah ranks as the fourth most polluting state with regard to electricity generation. While the local air quality problems can be seen locally (think of the common pictures of the Grand Canyon on smoggy days, which comes from the coal-fired power plants near by), many of coal's effects, such as carbon emissions (climate change) and mercury emissions (think of all the reports about certain fish and ducks that cannot be eaten in Utah due to their high mercury levels) tend to be spread much further, so it's quite simplistic to think because a few neighbors haven't contracted cancer that all is fine and dandy with coal-fired power. There's no question that black lung disease of coal miners comes from coal. Just because the facts are disagreeable to your view of the world doesn't make them "radical environmental" ideas. They're still facts.

This is yet another person with their head willingly stuck in the sand.

Anybody who will not see the obvious growing problems with our environment, needs their head examined.

Lets continue to live our life like there is no tomorrow and there wont be one for our kids and grandkids. People like this writer scares me for our children's future. I hope he is a minority

Nothing wrong with leaving the campsite a little nicer than you found it.