Imagine theres no … people | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist
Or as the grist puts it, “imagine there’s no people”!
This graphic they posted caught my eye
It is thought provoking. I am no believer in an human-primary view of the earth, but if there’s no one around to watch this happen, does it even matter? No, I must not be this utilitarian!
Hidden in the beginning of an article on a county heavily dependent on coal contemplating a switch to natural gas heating…
“Heritage should account for something,” said James J. Rhoades, a Republican state senator from Schuylkill County.
King Coal Country Debates a Sacrilege, Gas Heat – NYTimes.com
Of course, this argument can be made to defend any practice including child marriage, the caste system, widow burning, slavery, genocide (the list goes on…). Coal is in august company.
Some of the issues with anthracite:
But what makes this brittle and lustrous rock, often known as black diamond, so hard and pure is that it is often deeper and under greater pressure than other forms of coal, which also explains why it is expensive and dangerous to extract.
The anthracite mines in this area have seen more than 30,000 deaths since 1870.
The argument about local jobs being lost and local economies being damaged is a valid one and needs to be addressed. In theory, destructive practices cannot be continued in order to prop up local economies. But decisions are made locally and it takes a lot of political courage to shutdown a destructive economy and possibly doom a town to fast death. I guess the solution is to provide alternative modes of economy and employment growth during the transition, easier said than done. Problem with being a one horse town, you better hope your horse stays forever young!
Mercury is a trace element present in coal/oil that is emitted when coal is combusted for energy – Coal fired power plants account for 40% of all Mercury emissions in the USA.
Courtesy the North Carolina Conservation Network
They alerted me to this opinion piece in the News & Observer
North Carolina municipalities are demanding it. Other states are doing it. Now our state must impose maximum available control technology on all coal-burning power plants to reduce mercury emissions by 90 percent as quickly as possible.
Why? Because it is the best way to protect our most precious natural resource, the brainpower of our children.
Against the strong advice of the pediatric and public health communities, in 2005 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency passed a wimpy rule to reduce mercury emissions from coal-burning power plants 70 percent by 2018. The rule also allows a “cap and trade” process, which may produce local hotspots of mercury pollution.
Later…
Prenatal exposure at levels consistent with consumption of contaminated fish can lead to IQ loss, memory and attention problems, fine motor deficits and developmental delay. These changes are likely permanent.
Estimated costs to consumers are about $4-$10 per year.
This is a no-lose situation. Merury controls are easy to implement, cheap, and requires nothing other than the tweaking of already existing controls. The only reason not do this is knee jerk opposition to even sensible regulation on the part of powerful entities (check out the sweet astroturf on that website!) that have the ear of the federal government.
The NC Conservation Network is running a campaign to toughen the proposed NC law. Please comment if you live in NC.
Mercury regulation is a case where the EPA’s much maligned command and control regulation works better than cap and trade policies because mercury is in the unique position of being both a local and long range pollutant. Local pollutants have to be controlled at each source, so the Federal government’s proposed legislation is a bad idea and states are trying to do better.
Gene defense in lead paint case rankles – Yahoo! News
But one of the nation’s largest paint companies has another explanation — bad traits that were simply passed on in their genes. “Their argument is … they have a family history of poor performance. Basically, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” said Michael Casano, who is representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit that seeks unspecified damages
Well, take the Bell Curve, add dollops of greed and you can make a transparently racist argument that five families, all poor and black, of course, have some mysterious genetic defect that perfectly mimics the effects of lead poisoning on children.
If not detected early, children with high levels of lead in
their bodies can suffer from:
- Damage to the brain and nervous system
- Behavior and learning problems (such as hyperactivity)
- Slowed growth
- Hearing problems
- Headaches
Hmm, if all these symptoms were genetic in nature, I wonder if the lawyers that make this case would let their children ingest some lead paint everyday for a few years, I am sure their perfect genes will protect them? It would be a great control group, No?
Liquid transportation fuels derived from coal and natural gas could help the United States reduce its dependence on petroleum. The fuels could be produced domestically or imported from fossil fuel-rich countries. The goal of this paper is to determine the life-cycle GHG emissions of coal- and natural gas-based Fischer−Tropsch (FT) liquids, as well as to compare production costs. The results show that the use of coal- or natural gas-based FT liquids will likely lead to significant increases in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions compared to petroleum-based fuels. In a best-case scenario, coal- or natural gas-based FT-liquids have emissions only comparable to petroleum-based fuels. In addition, the economic advantages of gas-to-liquid (GTL) fuels are not obvious: there is a narrow range of petroleum and natural gas prices at which GTL fuels would be competitive with petroleum-based fuels. CTL fuels are generally cheaper than petroleum-based fuels. However, recent reports suggest there is uncertainty about the availability of economically viable coal resources in the United States. If the U.S. has a goal of increasing its energy security, and at the same time significantly reducing its GHG emissions, neither CTL nor GTL consumption seem a reasonable path to follow.
To summarize, no cost benefits, increased GHG emissions, a lot of uncertainty, let’s not follow this madness of trying to make coal into gasoline.
In the rush to build the next generation of hybrid or electric cars, a sobering fact confronts both automakers and governments seeking to lower their reliance on foreign oil: almost half of the world’s lithium, the mineral needed to power the vehicles, is found here in Bolivia — a country that may not be willing to surrender it so easily.
via In Bolivia, Untapped Bounty Meets Nationalism – NYTimes.com.
Dear American reporter:
Your country does not have God given rights to all the resources of the world. The fact that a country like Bolivia is not only wary of being exploited, but seems to have recently changed its constitution to ensure that its native people get a fair share of any resource exploitation is something to celebrate. I don’t think they should “surrender” their resources to your country, however much you lose your so called journalistic neutrality.
Yours Sincerely
The Olive Ridley Crawler
Dracula Lurks in Your Set-Top Box – NYTimes.com
Most Americans are guilty of a similar if less costly squandering of
energy when it comes to their cable or satellite TV boxes. A new study
released on Tuesday by the National Resources Defense Council shows that
set-top boxes in the United States consume nearly as much energy when
not in use as when they are on, costing a cumulative $2 billion a year.
Dear media, let’s break down the choices consumers have with regards to set top boxes:
Now, let’s see what would happen in a real, and properly regulated market.
So, let’s not blame the consumer here, shall we? If anyone is guilty, it is media and telecommunication oligopolies that don’t let us actually have free choice, while simultaneously claiming that any regulation is anti- free market.
Comments are closed.
What struck me about the timeline was the poluttants and bad effects on the earth’s ecosystem that would still be going stong after 500 years. That’s horrific, and what we should be working on controlling/ minimizing ASAP, I suppose.
and nuclear waste..! wow, freaky thing to look at after watching Dr.Strangelove last night.
That was beautiful. I would want to clean up the environment, but I’d want to be around to enjoy it too. Can I hang around as a ghost, please? I won’t make no trouble. Our crap remains after 50, 000 years even after mankind meets its deserved end? Awesome..er..awful.