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Lead in Paint, why???

Byoliveridley

1940-11_White_Lead_Paint.JPGThis makes my head explode, once again, science is helpless when faced with inertia, and greed. Lead-based paint has been banned in the US since 1978, and if this story is any indication, we’re still seeing the effects of peeling paint. But this bit of research from the University of Cincinnati suggests that not only is lead-based paint being used in more than half the world, it is actually legal.

Study Supports ‘Urgent’ Need for Worldwide Ban on Lead-Based Paint

Environmental and occupational health experts at the University of Cincinnati (UC) have found that major countries—including India, China and Malaysia—still produce and sell consumer paints with dangerously high lead levels.

Why would anyone need to use lead-based paint when alternatives have been available for the longest time, the health effects of lead, especially on children, are very well known, and there is no @#$%^&*# reason other than greed and unwillingness to change. What is the point of all these years of research if it makes no difference at all to the bulk of the world’s population? Depressing.

Guess what, even if lead-based paint was banned today, it’s still going to be on the walls forever. As the paint peels, kids will be exposed, have lowered IQ, and all other kinds of health issues for as long as that house is standing, which in India could be a 100 years.

Grassroots organizing is probably needed, and if effective, the stuff will be banned in India quickly, the government does move rapidly on these kinds of easy to legislate issues. But, enforcement will be lax, and awareness will lag, which means we are looking at (my rough guess) at least 20 years more of this issue.

Once again, the absence of a ban and its implementation affects the poor and uneducated disproportionately. The way I see it happening in India is

  1. Some grassroots awareness, media stories, etc.
  2. A furore that lasts about a week, before the next big story comes along
  3. Maybe a government action that will “ban” lead-based paint
  4. The middle class and above are now aware that they can use titania based paints, so, a quick change for them.
  5. Everyone else is still stuck with the lead-based paint.

And this does not even begin to address what the US is going through now, aging houses, peeling paint, poor people being exposed to dangerous levels of lead.

The world ain’t very fair…

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    Split court rules against Bush on greenhouse gases – CNN.com

    Byoliveridley

    Interesting, see here for background…. So, the Supreme Court has ruled that CO2 is a pollutant, good for them.

    Split court rules against Bush on greenhouse gases – CNN.com

    The Supreme Court ordered the federal government on Monday to take a fresh look at regulating carbon dioxide emissions from cars, a rebuke to Bush administration policy on global warming.

    In a 5-4 decision, the court said the Clean Air Act gives the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to regulate the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from cars.

    Greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the landmark environmental law, Justice John Paul Stevens said in his majority opinion.

    The court’s four conservative justices — Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas — dissented.

    Kennedy, swung left on this one! I stand by my original asseesment, just regulating cars using the clean air act is inadequate, but the important matter resolved here is that CO2 is a pollutant, and this will, I hope, provide precedent in cases to come.

  • John Kerry and the Environment

    Byoliveridley

    The fight in the Senate | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist

    Kerry, everyone’s favorite democrat summarizes the non-coal/auto democrat’s energy/environmental policy plans int he US senate.

    Highlights:

    1. Increase Fuel Economy standards
    2. Increase contribution of renewable sources
    3. No drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)
    4. No liquid coal
    5. NO MORE COAL WITHOUT SEQUESTRATION!!!

    This is all very sensible. He does not mention biofuels/corn ethanol, which I guess is because he’s from Mass, not exactly corn central.

    He’s a good man, this John Kerry.

  • We're all going to die – Indian Glacier Melting edition

    Byoliveridley

    Big Melt Threatens India’s Water — Bagla 2007 (112): 1 — ScienceNOW

    The massive glaciers of the Himalayas, which hold one of Earth’s largest reserves of snow and ice, have dwindled by one-fifth in the past 4 decades. A team of Indian geologists and remote sensing experts published the alarming news this week–a grim warning that if the trend continues, it could jeopardize the fresh water supply of more than 500 million people in India

    Well, still early news, the worst case scenarios come to pass if there is not enough rain during the monsoon to replenish the glaciers. Here’s a concise Yahoo Answers page compiled by an 18 year old Nicaraguan

    All states will have increased rainfall except Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu where it will decrease. Extreme precipitation will increase, particularly along the western coast and west central India.

    Excerpted from the Stern report… My reading of the Stern report leads to the conclusion that global warming will increase water availability in the subcontinent, but also lead to more extreme rainfall and flood events, increased run off, more soil erosion, landslides, etc. Increased glacial melting will add to this mess. So, I don’t really like the conclusion this science article seems to come to. South Asia is not going to run out of fresh water anytime soon, it’s just going to have a hell of a time dealing with it!

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    ES&T Online News: E-waste recycling spews dioxins into the air

    Byoliveridley

    ES&T Online News: E-waste recycling spews dioxins into the air

    When computers, televisions, music systems, and other electronic products reach the ends of their lives, they often end up in China or other developing countries as e-waste. Such waste is a serious environmental threat in these parts of the world because of the poorly regulated conditions under which the waste is dismantled. A new study published in ES&T (DOI 10.1021/es0702925) shows that Guiyu, a major e-waste recycling center in China, has the highest documented levels of atmospheric polychlorodibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs) and polychlorodibenzofurans (PCDFs) in the world.

    In e-waste recycling centers in China, discarded products are dipped into open pits of acid and heated over grills fueled with coal blocks to extract precious metals, such as gold. These processes often release toxic metals, such as lead, and organic compounds, such as dioxins. The emissions are not regulated, and occupational exposure is high because of the poor working conditions for e-waste recycling laborers.

    In March 2007, researchers at Hong Kong Baptist University showed that soil at e-waste recycling sites in China has high levels of dioxins and polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants. (Read the paper at ES&T‘s ASAP website.) More recently, another study published in ES&T showed that the workers at these sites have blood levels of the heavy PBDE, BDE–209, 50–200 times higher than those previously reported. Whereas dioxins are potentially carcinogenic for humans, PBDEs affect thyroid metabolism and brain development.

    In the current study, Ping’an Peng of the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry (China) and his colleagues sampled the air from Guiyu for a week in both the summer and the winter and analyzed the samples for 2,3,7,8-PCDD/Fs. The levels varied between 64.9 and 2765 picogram per cubic meter (pg/m3). The toxic equivalents (TEQ)—a value used to account for the different levels of toxicity of the individual dioxins—was 0.909–48.9 pg TEQ/m3. Given that Guiyu has no municipal or medical solid-waste incinerators, which are known to be major sources of dioxins, the authors attributed the elevated dioxin levels to e-waste recycling.

    The team also found that the dioxin concentrations in the air around Guiyu were 12–18 times higher than those in Chendian, a town 9 kilometers (km) from Guiyu, and 37–133 times higher than those in Guangzhou, which is 450 km from the e-waste site. The results suggest that dioxin pollution from e-waste recycling is spreading to nearby areas.

    When they calculated the exposure of adults to dioxins through inhalation, the researchers found that it (68.9 and 126 pg TEQ per kilogram per day in the summer and winter, respectively) was a whopping 15–56 times higher than the World Health Organization recommended maximum of 1–4 pg TEQ/kg/day.

  • Hogwash!!!

    Byoliveridley

    pigFrom the annals of “Make them Laugh”

    newsobserver.com | Local & State

    North Carolina has spent six years searching for systems to replace hog lagoons — the open air ponds used to treat waste at hog farms. But according a $17.3-million study’s final results, released today, researchers haven’t found workable alternatives. Mike Williams, a N.C. State University professor and the lead researcher, told legislators today that he has found at least five hog waste systems that are dramatically better for the environment. But they are all too expensive for use on existing hog farms.

    There better be more to this report that what’s in this article. I need to get my hands on the actual report. But this is ridiculous, those hog factories they very thoughtfully call farms are very lightly regulated. Read here for more information on the hog industry in NC, but  “they are all too expensive for use on existing hog farms” is, well, HOGWASH, and a little bit of a waste of 17 million bucks!

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    CMA condemns Asbestos

    Byoliveridley

    The Canadian Medical Association Journal is denouncing the federal government for what it expects will be Canada's continued efforts to block international controls on asbestos at UN-sponsored negotiations next week.

    A strongly worded editorial, appearing in tomorrow's issue of the journal, says the government "knows what it is doing is shameful and wrong" and compared Ottawa's moral stature in continuing to promote the use of the cancer-causing material to that of arms traders.

    The negotiations, known as the Rotterdam Convention, are to start Oct. 27 in Rome. The focus of the talks will be on whether to add the chrysotile variety of asbestos to the world's list of most dangerous substances. Once a substance is listed, countries must give prior informed consent that they know they are buying a highly dangerous material before being allowed to accept any imports.

    via globeandmail.com: Medical journal blasts Ottawa for promoting asbestos abroad

    Canada’s national shame, its export of a killer product not used by Canadians to developing countries where the safeguards it insists on for the ‘safe” use of this product can’t possibly be carried out or enforced. For god’s sake, it’s 700 jobs, and people who can be retrained to do something that does not kill people.