ED is not just Erectile Dysfunction.

Byoliveridley

The grist features a must read post on endocrine disruption (ED). Great first paragraph, BTW, but read the whole thing. Before Viagra, had any one other than doctors and the unfortunate masses suffering such dysfunction ever heard of erectile dysfunction? The effects of direct to consumer drug marketing of diseases and disorders is the subject of other posts, but this one’s about endocrine disruptors!

Side note, Erectile dysfunction has 2.3 million hits in google, Endocrine Disruption (or disruptors) has 1.7 million, so, at least google is catching up!

The ED you should really be worried about: Endocrine disruption | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist

What a crazy world we live in when almost everyone knows what the acronym ED stands for. Millions of dollars have been poured into creating awareness of ED, erectile dysfunction, because it is profitable. This 21st-century sales-pitch strategy — “disease mongering” — has proven to be good for the bottom line. The irony of all this is that there is another ED out there into which millions have also been poured — to keep it a secret. That ED is endocrine disruption, and if the public were to learn about it, bottom lines could shrink instead of grow.

Endocrine disruption should be right at the top of the list of most critical technological disasters facing the world today, up with climate change. With little notice, vast volumes and combinations of synthetic chemicals have settled in every environment in the world, including the womb environment. Synthetic chemicals at very low concentrations in the womb change how genes are programmed, cells develop, tissues form, and organs function, and thus undermine the potential and survival of developing animals, including humans. The chemicals threatening the integrity of future generations are derived from the processing of crude oil and natural gas, the same processes that are driving climate change. This is an integral part of the climate change story.

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    Byoliveridley

    At a time when this country faces major environmental challenges, including catching up with the rest of the developed world on global warming, the agency that would have to do the heavy lifting on environmental regulation ain’t getting the money to do diddley squat. A 25% cut in inflation adjusted terms over 4 years is huge, especially considering that the EPA was not a cushy agency even before that.

    ES&T Online News: Budget cuts increasingly damaging to EPA

    Support for research and development at EPA has declined by 25% in inflation-adjusted terms between the recent high point in 2004 and the proposed 2008 budget, according to figures from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

    “Morale has never been so low here since the days of Ann Gorsuch, and even then there was more money,” says one scientist, referring to the time during the early 1980s when former administrator Gorsuch, who resigned under a cloud, did her best to shrink the agency.

    But George Gray, assistant administrator for the agency’s Office of Research and Development (ORD), says he fully supports the proposed budget. “This budget fulfills every presidential environmental commitment and maintains the goals laid out in the EPA’s strategic plan, while spending less,” he says. The budget cuts come on the heels of EPA’s program to cut $2 million from the agency’s fund for specialized libraries.

    The scientists’ difficulties are likely to increase if the proposals in a June 2006 memo from Lyons Gray, EPA’s chief financial officer, are carried out. The memo, which was released by the advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) directs ORD to reduce laboratory physical infrastructure costs by a minimum of 10% by 2009 and another 10% by 2011. The memo suggests that this will require closing, relocating, and consolidating EPA’s laboratory and field locations, as well as reducing or relocating staff. ORD chief George Gray told Congress that EPA does not intend to shut down any labs or get rid of any scientists during the current administrator’s tenure.

    The U.S will pay the price for this deliberate destruction of government infrastructure. You won’t see it now, it will be a little more apparent in a few years.

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    Lead from toys not the real problem

    Byoliveridley

    Here’s what happens when you make a long verbal rant to someone about how the risk of lead exposure from water and air probably exceeds the risk from toys with lead paint, and then don’t blog about it because that means doing an hour or two of research and you don’t find the time… Someone else has the same notion, and actually writes about it AND gets published in a mainstream website!

    The lingering danger to children from lead. – By Darshak Sanghavi – Slate Magazine

    While tainted toys are in the news now, kids historically have gotten lead from two sources: the atmosphere and house paint. Roughly a quarter-million tons of lead compounds entered the atmosphere annually beginning in 1922, after a General Motors scientist developed a lead-based gasoline additive that prevented auto knocking. Lead’s chemical durability, recognized centuries ago, also made it an attractive paint additive. Toddlers are particularly susceptible to eating lead paint because it has a sugary taste; ancient Romans used lead powder to sweeten wine. By 1980, more than half a million American children—4 percent of all toddlers—had quite toxic blood lead levels from these sources.

    Lead is a serious problem in the US, and the bulk of exposure is from crumbling infrastructure, the inability (or unwillingness) to fix and replace decaying lead pipes, and the still ubiquitous presence of lead paint layers in older houses.

    The article doesn’t still give you exposure comparisons or numbers, so I guess I still have to do the work.

  • Turning CO2 into plastic?

    Byoliveridley

    Interesting stuff…

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    It was here that Dr. Coates discovered the catalyst needed to turn CO2 into a polymer.

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    Anthropogenic CO2 emissions = 7 Giga ton per year. So it will take a lot of plastics to take care of that. The promise of biopolymers is that they reduce the need for fossil fuels, and are biodegradable.

    Seems to be another case where some funding and regulatory nudging away from the petroleum plastics would really help.

  • EPA scales back rules on wetlands

    Byoliveridley

    Where for the n’th time, you get to use “EPA”, and “scales back rules” in one sentence.

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    This is the consequence of a tortured Supreme Court ruling from June of last year where Justice Kennedy could not make up his mind on what was a wetland and what was not, so he helped hand down a very confusing verdict open to all kinds of interpretation. At that time, here’s what I said…

    This will make things confusing for a while, and you all know who confusion favors!

    Well, I told ya!

  • Do Voluntary Environmental Programs Work?

    Byoliveridley

    Through the most excellent Environmental Valuation & Cost-Benefit News blog comes notice of a book that answers a question that’s been on my mind off and on.

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    Despite a growing theoretical literature trying to explain how and why voluntary programs might be effective, there is limited empirical evidence on their success or the situations most conducive to the approaches. Even less is known about their cost-effectiveness.

    The book’s called Reality Check (and long byline) and at $40 is too expensive for a look see! But here’s a teaser:

    The central goals of Reality Check are understanding outcomes and the relationship between outcomes and design. Most of the programs it studies have positive results, but they are small compared with business-as-usual trends and the impact of other forces–such as higher energy prices. Importantly, potential gains may be quickly exhausted as the “low-hanging fruit” is picked up by voluntary programs. By including in-depth analyses by experts from the U.S., Europe, and Japan, the book advances scholarship and provides practical information for the future design of voluntary programs to stakeholders and policymakers on all sides of the Atlantic and Pacific.

    So, the answer is no, I guess. Voluntary programs catch the bulk of changes that can be carried out easily anyway and may have been part of the company plans. They also make for good Company PR. The greater the threat of regulation and good enforcement, I guess, the more power you have to set up a good voluntary program. But if it is all carrot and no stick, who knows…

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    Friedman, India and Development

    Byoliveridley

    Where Thomas Friedman of the New York Times echoes a blog post of mine from a few months back about cheap cars, development models and India.

    We have no right to tell Indians what cars to make or drive. But we can urge them to think hard about following our model, without a real mass transit alternative in place. Cheap conventional four-wheel cars, which would encourage millions of Indians to give up their two-wheel motor scooters and three-wheel motorized rickshaws, could overwhelm India’s already strained road system, increase its dependence on imported oil and gridlock the country’s megacities.

    No, No, No, Don’t Follow Us – New York Times

    Here’s what I had to say…

    Is it necessary that India and China tread the same path as the U.S and Europe? Does India have to make and use cars that are built using technology developed prior to our knowledge of global warming? The same company that gets cautious praise from the Union of Concerned Scientists for its “leadership” role in global warming will turn around and build factories in India that carry the status quo forward for another 30 years. When you’re starting from the foundation, and you know that the plans provided to you will lead to your house crumbling in 20 years, would you use the plans anyway because your contractor provides you with no alternative? The logical answer seems to be no, but is this process logic driven, or enforced by the existing power structure?

    The answer should be “NO!!”. But Friedman goes ahead and offers some sensible suggestions via the very excellent Sunita Narain.

    Charge high prices for parking, charge a proper road tax for driving, deploy free air-conditioned buses that reach every corner of the city, expand the existing beautiful Delhi subway system, “and then let the market work,” she added.

    Good idea. Now, will Friedman turn around and offer the same prescription for the US? Apparently not. If the US cannot kick the car habit, or show other people how to, this kind of lecturing is pointless.

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