To the Editor:
Our county should follow the great example set by the Cambridge Energy Alliance (profiled recently on PBS), who worked with the Rocky Mountain Institute, MIT, and Harvard – projected to cut electricity demand by 15 percent and save $160 million there over the next 10 years.
The City of Cambridge, Mass. will be using projected savings on utility bills to pay for energy efficiency retrofits, the “energy performance contracting” concept planned for literally half of all the buildings in Cambridge, not just publicly owned ones.
Dutchess, with three times the population of Cambridge, could save $480 million over the next decade for our residents – let’s do this, people (see CambridgeEnergyAlliance.org).
Second – up until 2002, particulate matter pollution was monitored in our county, but for the last six years it hasn’t been. Yet our county’s air quality was rated a “C” for the second year in a row (Ulster’s is an “A”), and there are over 39,000 of us across Dutchess with asthma, bronchitis, or emphysema (see ALANYS.org) – why?
Finally, two years ago San Francisco smartly banned toxic plastic softeners phthalates and bisphenol-a in children’s products (pacifiers, baby bottles, toys, etc.), and last year even G.O.P. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law a statewide version of this (done in Europe nine years ago in 1999).
Recently Dr. Janet Gray of Vassar College made a case for the precautionary principle to be taken seriously re: dangers of bisphenol-a and phthalates at the annual breast cancer options conference for our region.
At the very least our county’s Health Department Web site should have warning information on these dangerous endocrine disruptors to preventively protect our health – see BreastCancerOptions.org, BreastCancerFund.org, SafeMama.org, HealthyChild.org, and www.petitiononline.com/safetoys.
Joel Tyner
County Legislator (Clinton/Rhinebeck)