Solar power adds to nonusers' costs

[JDPriestly]

4. It's a cost that benefits us all -- because solar power means cleaner air.

Clean air is a big deal in California. Look at our geography.

To the West we have the ocean, an expanse of land, much of which, at least in Southern California, is urban and densely populated.

Then to the East, we have mountains including Mount Whitney, the highest mountain in the lower 48 states.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Whitney

The foggy air comes in from the ocean and meets the mountains. It has nowhere to go but down and settles in our basin. The gases from cars and industry and just human life are caught. They hover above us and congest our lungs.

I remember when I first visited Southern California in the 1960s. Smog was terrible, and as a contact lens wearer, I cried nearly the whole trip.

The air is cleaner now, but it could be cleaner. And solar energy could be the key to that cleaner air. Worth it. The cancer rate, the asthma in children, the general breathing problems would not be such a difficulty if we had cleaner air here.

Here is the information on our lung cancer rate.

http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/lung/statistics/state.htm

We are low, but if you saw how little people in Southern California smoke, you would be amazed that we have any cancer at all. I know a few people here who smoke, but I never see them smoke because I don't go out with them for their smoke breaks.

The anti-smoking campaign is fairly recent. I think our cancer rates will decline even more when those of us who worked in smoking environments are out of the picture.

Wow! To change the topic, note how high the lung cancer rates are in the South where people smoke a lot.

If I were a smoker, that chart would make me quit right now.