Collateral healing: shutting fossil fuel plants cuts premature births

Moving to renewable energy isn’t just good for putting the brakes on climate change, it’s also good for reducing pollutants that have a major impact on public health.

When eight coal- and oil-fired power plants were shut down in California, premature births in those areas dropped 27 percent. The study, published last week in the American Journal of Epidemiology, looked at 57,000 births between 2001 in 2011 by mothers who lived near the power plants. For mothers who lived within 5 kilometers of one of the plants, premature births dropped from 7 to 5.1 percent.

InsideClimate News has the story.