As Al Gore was presenting his plan for making America a country that eliminates oil and coal in favor of 100 percent renewable energy – a small study we were tipped off to out of China this week points to the potential health benefits of such a plan. In the Chinese city of Tongliang a coal-fired power plant was shut down four years ago. Which presented an unusual opportunity to measure the health benefits of cleaner air for developing fetuses. Columbia University’s Center for Children’s Environmental Health moved in to test the air that pregnant Chinese women in Tongliang were breathing. What the researchers found was that children conceived after the coal plant was shut down were, overall, developing better, especially in terms of motor skills, compared to the children who were in the womb when their mothers were breathing the polluted air from the coal plant.
Pregnancy, Grief, Celebration
