Philadelphia has a very high asthma rate mostly due to pollution.
And a big source of this pollution is from a coal power plant in southeastern Pennsylvania that has taken advantage of a loophole in the law to not have environmentally safe emissions.
Lindy Li, a young immigrant and Democratic activist has been fighting this issue for a long time. She went into the “belly of the beast,” as it were - Fox News, to talk about this very issue.
See Clip Here
She quickly showed that the fundamentally dishonest nature of the talking points put out by the Koch Brothers and others on pollution is nonsense. Pollution is a negative externality. It is not “free.” In fact, Pennsylvania is shipping this negative externality to other states like Delaware because the wind carries the pollution, and it doesn’t stop at state lines. Taxpayers are in fact subsidizing these polluters by absorbing the cost of pollution. The coal plant is simply shifting it.
This is quite a serious issue, because as Lindy states 25 days of this year have been unsafe for children and seniors to be outside in the vicinity of the plant.
Lindy is right too in saying this should be a no-brainer bi-partisan issue. However, the fossil fuel industry pours millions into GOP campaign chests making this issue and others similar to it like climate change, “myths.”
Even the FOX News anchor had a hard time making the obligatory, “It will cost jobs” argument.
What I really liked about this interview is that it is not preaching to the choir. The Fox News viewers have children and grandchildren, it is all well and good to say the environment doesn’t matter when it is an abstraction. But here we have a eloquent speaker making the point that the bell does indeed “toll for thee.”
I personally would like to see more of this tactic of taking these common sense arguments to conservative audiences and making it concrete for them.
More please!!!