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Posts Tagged ‘health effects’

Do you like clean air?

Do you like clean air for KIDS?

Seems like the rest of the state does, too.  According to TCEQ, a program to retrofit school buses around the state has been able to retrofit 2300 buses statewide. Even more amazing was the demand for the program exceeding its allotment by 40%, meaning for every 3 school buses we wanted to fix, we could only fix 2.   However, that means that for tens of thousands of kids, they are now riding in much better buses, and those school districts who gut put on the waiting list just have to wait for more money from the Legislature to get their buses clean, too.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKwjyXjvb6k]

A demonstration of how much pollution is prevented on a school bus

Local ISDs, schools, parents, and kids love this program because of how much it reduces toxic air pollution from our buses, and does so without taking money out of the classroom.  Local businesses and residents should love it because it is making their communities cleaner.  This is a win for air quality, a win for school districts, and most importantly, a win for children’s health.

More video, a press release, and gory details after the break: (more…)

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A new study from Tom Brikowski, a geosciences professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, and Drs. Yair Lotan and Margaret Pearle, urology professors at UT Southwestern Medical School, printed in this week’s issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, made an interesting conclusion. More global warming will mean more kidney stones. For those of us who are at risk for or have a family history of kidney stones (it’s because of all the Diet Coke I drink), this is even more worrisome.

The good news is we can easily change our diets and reduce other risk factors. Switching to non-carbon producing forms of energy and transportation may not be quite so easy. However, just like kicking a bad Diet Coke habit. we can get ourselves off of oil and especially coal by making new investments in renewable energy.

Kidney stones are just the beginning of the health problems we can prevent by stopping global warming. We can prevent the spread of previously tropical and exotic disease like malaria and West Nile virus that can migrate as the climate changes. By stopping greenhouse gas pollution we can also stop the pollution that leads to asthma, emphysema, and other lung ailments. And by investing in efficiency and renewable energy now, we can have cheaper energy and get more bang for our energy buck.

Read the story in the Dallas Morning News on this subject here.

~~Andy

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