Nine months. That’s how much time we have to get the strongest ruling possible on toxic air emissions. We have nine months to show our support for the EPA’s first-ever national Mercury and Air Toxics Standards.
Nine months. Sound familiar?
Exactly. Just think of all the infants who will be born in nine months. Will they come into a world that cares enough about them to protect them from the nasty poisons being spewed into the air by coal plants? Or will they be greeted by the results of a cynical, greedy campaign on the part of coal plant owners, politicians and lobbyists to make it easier for polluters to poison the air?
Babies–even in the womb–are exposed to the poisons we breathe. And because they are so small, and their brains are proportionally so large, they are especially vulnerable to the toxins that cause brain damage. Mercury is especially troublesome. That’s why pregnant women are advised to cut back on eating tuna. The fatty flesh of tuna is laced with mercury. If mom eats it, it gets into baby, too.
We have nine months to fight the polluters.
If nine months is long enough to create the miracle that is a human life, it is long enough to create a regulation to protect the human lives we cherish so profoundly.