Smoking bans in North Carolina?

The biodiesel boom has a high environmental cost, however. Critics say it’s contributing to global warming. Tropical forests help remove millions of tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year. Burning and clear-cutting not only eliminates one of the planet’s crucial air-filtration systems, the process also releases even more carbon dioxide into the air, in smoke or as gases released during the decomposition of forest waste. Annual clearing of Indonesia’s carbon-rich peatlands alone releases some 1.8 billion tons of greenhouse gases, according to a Greenpeace report. Indonesia is the world’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases behind the U.S. and China, says the World Bank. “We liken what’s going on [in Indonesia] to pouring petrol on a fire,” says Martin Baker, a Hong Kong–based communications officer for Greenpeace International. “It’s completely ridiculous to produce green fuels from places like this.”

When Biofuel is Bad for the Environment – TIME

This just makes we want to jit my head against the wall. Tropical forests are some of the most efficient sinks of carbon, and countries that hold these sinks should be paid as well as countries that are sources of carbon. Yes, this means setting a realistic carbon pricing scheme that can eliminate this perverse incentive to destroy tropical rain forests so Western nations can claim to be environmentally friendly.

This is not a bribe, or an incentive, it is recognition of the fact that carbon sinks have a monetary value.

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Tags: biofuels, environment

A new international ranking of environmental performance puts the United States at the bottom of the Group of 8 industrialized nations and 39th among the 149 countries on the list.European nations dominate the top places in the ranking, which evaluates sanitation, greenhouse gas emissions, agricultural policies, air pollution and 20 other measures to formulate an overall score, with 100 the best possible.The top 10 countries, with scores of 87 or better, were led by Switzerland, Sweden, Norway and Finland. The others at the top were Austria, France, Latvia, Costa Rica, Colombia and New Zealand, the leader in the 2006 version of the analysis, which is conducted by researchers at Yale and Columbia Universities.

U.S. Given Poor Marks on the Environment – New York Times

Gee, I wonder why??

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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.

Is $10 a Year Too Much?

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?