Johannesburg, South Africa (PANA) – Greenpeace on Thursday launched its anti-coal project that puts a human face on coal and challenges South Africans to question the source of the country’s energy.
Over 90% of South Africa’s electricity is generated from the burning of coal and it is communities living in the shadows of these coal plants that bear the brunt of the country’s coal addiction, the global environmental rights campaigner said in a statement.
“Beyond the figures and statistics, there is a human face behind coal in South Africa, and that face belongs to the hundreds of thousands of people who live with the daily reality of coal in their communities. It is people’s everyday realities that tell the true story of coal,” said Greenpeace Africa senior Climate and Energy campaigner Melita Steele.
During recent work in the Witbank area, Greenpeace witnessed first-hand the extensive problems facing coal communities on a daily basis.
Greenpeace has previously published several reports showing the impacts of coal both on people’s health and on South Africa’s scarce water resources.
According to Mrs Machete from Masakhane, a community in the shadow of the Duvha coal power station: “You find black dust coming out from your nose and when you try to clear your throat black saliva comes out…They don’t tell us anything at the hospital; they just give us medication and say we will get better. But when you try blowing a child’s nose, or if you have the flu and try to blow your nose, you will see black mucus on your cloth.”
Greenpeace said the evidence backing the fact that coal power stations harm human health is clear, and yet new coal power stations continue to be built.
Recently, South African’s power utility Eskom was forced to make public its health reports commissioned in 2006, which indicate the 8 power stations operating at the time were cumulatively responsible for 17 deaths and 661 respiratory hospital admissions per year.
Greenpeace therefore believes that as a minimum, polluters should be held accountable and comply with Minimum Emission Standards set to protect human health.
Greenpeace has created an online petition calling on South Africans to call on the National Air quality officer to deny Eskom’s application.
A photo exhibition, ‘The Poisoned People,’ that shows the extensive consequences of coal burning on coal communities, will open in Johannesburg Constitution Hill on August 21, 2014.
