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Chemical Warfare

Byoliveridley

This story from a local Chicago TV station does an excellent job of documenting the chemical weapons dropped on Vietnam by the United States in the 1960s, the effects they still have on Vietnam, and the Americans who handled these so called “defoliants”.

cbs2chicago.com – Agent Orange: A View From Vietnam

During the eight years of the Vietnam War that the U.S. Military dusted the Vietnamese landscape with Agent Orange, it was only intended to kill vegetation. It was a combination of two herbicides 2,4D and 2,4,5T mixed together into the most potent plant killer ever made. It was spread over 3 1/2 million acres of forests and crops to kill the trees and vegetation so the United States troops could see the enemy. The Armed Forces were told it was harmless. But in March 1978, Bill Kurtis broke the story on CBS 2 that American veterans of Vietnam who had been exposed to Agent Orange were complaining of illnesses, birth defects among their children, skin rashes, cancer, nervous problems and respiratory problems.

orange3_small.jpgPeople tend to blame dioxins for all the health effects. But 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T, constituents of Agent Orange, are no spring chickens. Exposure during spraying, especially of the grossly excessive amounts that rained down upon Vietnam, can cause various health effects as well, not to mention long-term devastation of entire ecosystems.

Side note: New Zealand, in 2004, apologized to New Zealand’s “veterans” for their exposure to Agent Orange during the Vietnam war. Not a word to the Vietnamese, of course.

Side note 2: A US Federal court, in 2005, dismissed the first claims brought by Vietnamese plaintiffs against Dow Chemicals and Monsanto, here was the government’s  reasoning:

In a brief filed in January, it said opening the courts to cases brought by former enemies would be a dangerous threat to presidential powers to wage war.

Translation: We reserve the right to drop chemical weapons on our “enemies”, and doing anything to abrogate this right is “dangerous”.

Image courtesy of Reuters shows a Vietnamese child, one of many with birth defects associated with Agent Orange exposure.

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    Sri Lankan Government registers all Tamils

    Byoliveridley

    The Americans put all citizens of Japanese origin into camps for the duration of the World War. Did you know that?’She did not say anything.‘What if we place all Tamil citizens in camps for a period of one year,’ I asked. ‘We’d use that year to flush out and kill all the rebels hiding in the Wanni. You can’t blow up our cities when your bombers are not allowed free access to economic and civilian targets, pretending to be innocents.’‘That idea is barbaric. It is only a short step from there to the gas chambers,’ she said furiously and then brightened. ‘But I like the idea. When you start on it, the whole world will condemn you…. It will help our cause in other ways as well. We’ll have plenty of new recruits and funding from our expatriate community will increase immediately.’‘Oh, I understand that the idea is impractical but we don’t have many options.’”So goes the dialogue between Captain Wasantha Ratnayaka, the Sinhalese officer in the Sri Lanka Army, and Kamala Velaithan, a female cadre of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) who pretends to be an informer of the diabolical plans of the Tigers, in the much-acclaimed novel of the late Nihal de Silva titled The Road from Elephant Pass.On September 21, the Sri Lankan government almost made real this surreal scenario with its diktat that all citizens from the five districts of the LTTE-dominated North who have been living in and around Colombo (Western Province) for the past five years “re-register” themselves with the police.The professed logic of the government, or to be precise the Defence Ministry, was almost on the lines narrated by Captain Ratnayaka in the novel but with a twist. While the officer-character portrayed in the novel concurs with the illogic of its logic, the collective wisdom of the Sri Lankan establishment did not betray signs of any such reasoning. Even assuming it did, the drumbeats of war have numbed its senses to such an extent that Colombo has stopped bothering about the repercussions of its actions.The latest move by the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime is astonishing to say the least as just over a year ago the government was condemned from within and without for a similar action. Besides, it comes at a juncture when the armed forces have driven the LTTE into wilderness in its own heartland and the entire world is lined up behind the government in its war.

    Profiling problem

    More on the Sri Lankan government’s astonishingly appalling treatment of Tamils. Clearly, they do not view Tamils as equal citizens of Sri Lanka. The Sinhalese state bears equal responsibility for Sri Lanka’s problems. I do not know what this sudden increase in pressure from India will do. There is some indication that the Sri Lankan government is paying attention.

    A day after India officially communicated to Colombo the need for a peacefully negotiated political settlement to the Tamil issue in Sri Lanka, President Mahinda Rajapaksa telephoned Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday to give an assurance that all necessary measures were being taken to ensure the safety and welfare of Tamils in the island nation.

    Very empty and meaningless words. My question is, who will speak for the Tamils in a negotiated settlement. Are there any credible voices for peace on either side of the conflict?

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    The U.S Emperor's new edict on regulation

    Byoliveridley

    Wow, plutocracy-protectionary principle alert.

    Chemical & Engineering News: Latest News – Changing The Rules On Regulations

    A new directive from President George W. Bush to federal agencies adds layers of bureaucracy to the process of issuing regulations and gives the White House greater control over agencies’ rules. Critics say the directive, issued Jan. 18, will slow down regulation. They say it also shifts regulatory priorities, which were set by Congress in federal laws, away from protection of health and environment to economic rationales. Some industry groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, praise the directive. “It’s the first truly significant attempt by an Administration to hold federal bureaucrats to account and insist they act with discretion when imposing new and expensive burdens on businesses and consumers,” says William Kovacs, the chamber’s vice president of environment, energy, and regulatory affairs. Under the new directive, agencies can regulate only when they can demonstrate to the White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) that the free market is not producing the desired results of the rule, such as health protection. To show that a new rule is warranted, agencies must identify what economists call “market failures”—such as when an industrial sector with unfettered pollution sells its products more cheaply than it would have had it included the cost of pollution control into the price of its goods.

    Sounds reasonable, does it not! All the good buzzwords thrown in there, “Cost-Benefit Analysis”, “Market Failure”, etc. But note that the burden of proof is on the regulating body to come up with a clearcut “proof” before passing regulation.

    In addition, the directive requires each agency to have a presidentially appointed “regulatory policy officer.” The agency cannot begin work on a new rule—even one required by Congress through a law—until it gets a green light from its regulatory policy officer or unless the head of the agency gives approval.

    The Emperor gets to appoint a viceroy to police the agency to ensure that no such regulation will get passed.

    Note the modus operandi:

    1. Appoint lackey to head agency
    2. Appoint viceroy to oversee regulation
    3. Rewrite rules to increase power of executive over legislative
    4. Shift burden of proof away from the regulated to the regulators
    5. Slash budgets so regulating agencies cannot do the work adequately
    6. Hound competent employees out of the agency
    7. Routinely bash said agency as an example of “big government”. Repeat steps 4-7 as often as necessary to ensure “success”

    Banana republic, indeed.

  • Salmon linked to Larry Craig's downfall!

    Byoliveridley

    Well, if you believe that correlation = causation, that is! But jokes aside, every time an anti-environmental icon goes down, the salmon rejoice. Not that I know much about fisheries, but salmon and Larry Craig, that’s a great combination right there!

    Sen. Craig’s fall may benefit salmon – Yahoo! News

    The surprising fall of Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, removes a longtime obstacle to efforts by Democrats and environmentalists to promote salmon recovery on Northwest rivers.
    Craig, who was removed from leadership posts on the Senate Appropriations and Energy committees after a sex scandal, is known as one the most powerful voices in Congress on behalf of the timber and power industries. Environmentalists have fought him for years on issues from endangered salmon to public land grazing.

    At issue is the protection of salmon migration trails in Western rivers full of dams. The Bush administration in 2005, among other things, issued a salmon recovery plan that, among other things, counted farmed salmon in claiming that salmon populations were recovering (can’t even be bothered to argue against that!). Craig’s fall will let Harry Reid (Nevada) and Maria Cantwell (Washington) spearhead more sensible legislation.

  • Plugin Hybrids even closer

    Byoliveridley

    I tend to be a bad news blogger, so when some good news comes along, I really should mention it…  A plugin hybrid (PHEV) is a gasoline car with a battery that can be charged. So, you go 30 miles or so on battery power before switching to gasoline, and plug the cars in at night so that they will be ready to go again the next morning. The average American commute is 16 miles (one way), so the amount of gas used for work and back for me will be reduced from around 1.2 gallons (assuming about 28 mpg city for my current car) to around 0.1 gallons. Think about that!

    The good thing about these batteries is that they seem to be built with ruggedness (10 year, 150,000 miles) in mind.

    The Energy Blog: A123Systems Announces Li-ion Automotive Batteries

    A123Systems today introduced its 32-series Nanophosphate™ Lithium Ion cells, specifically designed for Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV) and Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) use. These batteries leverage the company’s existing low-cost, high-volume manufacturing techniques to offer the electric drive industry a new level of price-performance.

    Hope they work as advertised. My next car is definitely a PHEV.

    Meanwhile, America’s most experienced, most accomplished and most sensible presidential candidate gives a truly forward looking speech on energy policy, and nobody notices. I guess he’s just not good looking enough.

  • Benzene in soft drinks – Flavor of the Month?

    Byoliveridley

    Benzene Levels in Soft Drinks Above Limit – Yahoo! News

    WASHINGTON – Cancer-causing benzene has been found in soft drinks at levels above the limit considered safe for drinking water, the Food and Drug Administration acknowledged Wednesday.
    Even so, the FDA still believes there are no safety concerns about benzene in soft drinks, or sodas, said Laura Tarantino, the agency’s director of food additive safety.”We haven’t changed our view that right now, there is not a safety concern, not a public health concern,” she said. “But what we need to do is understand how benzene forms and to ensure the industry is doing everything to avoid those circumstances.”

    The admission contradicted statements last week, when officials said FDA found insignificant levels of benzene.

    In fact, a different study found benzene at four times the tap water limit, on average, in 19 of 24 samples of diet soda.

    The formation of benzene in soft drinks is from the reaction of ascorbic acid (aka Vitamin C) and benzoate salts, notably sodium benzoate which is used as a preservative. As the FDA letter states:

    We learned that elevated temperature and light can stimulate benzene formation in the presence of benzoate salts and vitamin C, while sugar and EDTA salts inhibit benzene formation.

    Is this a pressing concern? First of all, exposure modeling done by the EPA indicates that 93% of all benzene exposure is through inhalation (cigarette smoke, indoor offgassing, that wonderful refueling smell!), with 7% exposure through oral ingestion. So, potentially elevated levels in this 7% fraction are not likely to greatly increase exposure. In addition, the 5 parts per billion level for drinking water is set based on an assumed daily consumption of 2 liters per day (Source – USEPA), a safety factor up from the actual estimated 0.9-1.2 L per day measured consumption. Assuming the average amount of benzene in soda (mainly diet, mind you) is 4 times that of drinking water, a 500 ml dose of diet soda per day is required to equal the dose from drinking water, which mind you, only counts for 7% of the total bezene exposure. So in a sense, a person drinking 2 servings of diet soda per day would exceed the exposure from drinking water at the federally regulated level, and knock the socks off the California standard of 0.13 ppb in water. This will increase his/her known oral exposure. The total exposure to benzene of that individual, however, would not go up significantly because the overwhelming majority of the exposure still occurs through the nose, not through the mouth.

    The issue here, and benzene is just the symptom, is that consumers know much more about their drinking water than they do about their manufactured food products, and that is not good for the consumer or for the industry because in the absence of knowledge and full disclosure, both parties are vulnerable. Which is why attempts to limit consumer knowledge hurt everyone.

    Conclusion Please don’t stop drinking soda because of this, I am sure you can find plenty of other reasons to limit your soda consumption… Drink lots of filtered tap water, it’s the best!! And, I can assure you that most tap water is tested thoroughly, it’s zero calories and cheap!

  • Environmental Justice Protest in Scotland County, NC

    Byoliveridley


    Scotland County Of Tomorrow

    As some of you might know, it is a well known fact that race is a predominant factor in the siting of landfills (warning, pdf, but worth it!!). But the folks at the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network (NCEJN) and its member organizations do a wonderful job in organizing, protesting, and lobbying against this egregious practice. If you’re in the neighborhood (or in the mood for a road trip), please do consider joining the protest.