RETURN TO THE CANARY COALITION

Dear Clean Air Activists and others who breathe,

Attached is a copy of a petition to our state government leaders to remove the legal obstacles to the development of North Carolina's vast wind energy resources. This petition is an important part of a statewide campaign being conducted to demonstrate strong popular support for the use of wind power and other renewable sources of energy to begin replacing the coal and fossil fuel burning facilities that currently are polluting our air to dangerous levels.

Wind energy technology has achieved remarkable gains in the past five years. Large-scale wind is now economically competitive with any other source of power, so much so that it is the fastest growing energy source in the world. Western North Carolina has an abundance of wind sites that are in the upper five percent in the nation in potential for generating large quantities of electricity. And wind power is the source of energy that has the least impact on our health and the environment. Generating electricity with wind uses no fuel and creates no emissions or waste products.

Yet asthma rates and respiratory ailments are escalating in people of all ages and especially in children; trees on ridge tops and throughout the mountains are dying by the millions; and mercury is contaminating aquatic wildlife and damaging human nervous systems, due to emissions from coal-burning power plants. It's time for this to begin to change. But, our political leaders need to hear it from the people, because it will require changes to current North Carolina law to allow for the development of wind power on a large scale.

This petition drive is being co-sponsored by the Canary Coalition, Environmental Defense, Long Branch Environmental Education Center, the NC Sustainable Energy Association, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and the Western North Carolina Alliance Signatures will be collected until the beginning of the 2004 NC legislative session next winter.

Please help by passing along copies of this petition and the accompanying information to your mailing list, to your family and to your friends. Collect as many signatures as possible and send back the completed petitions to the Canary Coalition, 73 BRENDLE ST, Sylva, NC 28779. Remember to fill in the County in which signatures were collected in the box on the left-hand bottom of the petition. And be sure to use recycled paper when reproducing the petition.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Avram Friedman
Executive Director of the Canary Coalition

RETURN TO THE CANARY COALITION