White House Refused to Open Pollutants E-Mail

Byoliveridley

The White House in December refused to accept the Environmental Protection Agency’s conclusion that greenhouse gases are pollutants that must be controlled, telling agency officials that an e-mail message containing the document would not be opened, senior E.P.A. officials said last week.

White House Refused to Open Pollutants E-Mail – NYTimes.com

No, this headline is not from the Onion, I repeat, this is an accurate account of the workings of the world’s most powerful government as it delays action on climate change!

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    Clothianidin and the Colony Collapse Disorder

    Byoliveridley

    Clothianidin is the pesticide at the center of controversy. It is used to coat corn, sugar beet and sorghum seeds and is part of a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids. The pesticide was blamed for bee deaths in France and Germany, which also is dealing with a colony collapse. Those two countries have suspended its use until further study. An EPA fact sheet from 2003 says clothianidin has the potential for toxic chronic exposure to honey bees, as well as other pollinators, through residues in nectar and pollen.

    Lawsuit seeks EPA pesticide data

    Interesting story. For more on the Colony Collapse Disorder...

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    Coffee Roasting and Popcorn Lung

    Byoliveridley

    Cross-posted from Interrobang

    Who among us coffee drinkers don’t love the smell of freshly roasted coffee? I am sure some of us imagine how much fun it would be to smell freshly roasting coffee more often. I don’t, because smell for me is an instant jolt of pleasure/pain followed by a rather rapid decline into the background.

    Caution, though. New measurements from the US Centres for Disease Control warn of high exposure to some pretty nasty chemicals that can cause your lungs to be destroyed irreversibly, the unfortunately named “popcorn lung” or bronchitis obliterans:

    Investigators with the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, a research arm of the CDC, spent several days at Madison-based Just Coffee in July. Investigators tested personal air space and took air samples to measure the concentration of the chemicals diacetyl and 2,3-pentanedione… NIOSH researchers found levels in three breathing-zone samples that exceeded the safety levels recommended by the CDC.

    Coffee Roasting Plants and Exposure

    The test results show a marginal exceedance in this case, but noted that ventilation is a big factor and these tests were done under well ventilated conditions on a warm and dry day when doors were open. So, exposure can be higher in other circumstances.

    Worker exposures are to higher levels, and are more sustained, so they deserve the most attention.

    So, local coffee roasters, it may make sense to confirm that your roasting environments are not exposing your workers to harmful, lung obliterating chemicals. Remember, organic, shade grown, fair pay, artisanal roasting aside, chemical exposures to workers don’t change. And, everything that smells good isn’t good for you.

    One of my frequent points of emphasis (rants, some might say) is on the relative risk vs. media attention to exposures of people to ambient, day to day concentrations of potential harmful chemicals vs. those faced by workers everywhere. The last time diacetyl and bronchitis obliterans were in the news, it was around the use of diacetyl to produce that buttery smell so beloved in microwave bag popcorn (I don’t like it myself, olive oil all the way!). Despite reports of many workers facing severe lung issues, it took the detection of the disease of one person eating multiple bags of microwave popcorn over many years to actually move government regulators into action on diacetyl. People who work in factories, in the fields, and make things are exposed to thousands of times higher concentrations of harmful chemicals for longer periods of time, but their concerns are often de-emphasized.

    This doesn’t mean ambient exposures in the general population are to be ignored, but worker exposures are to higher levels, and more sustained, so they deserve the most attention.

    16-May-2016 Update

    This US Centers for Disease Control page is a good collection of information and further readings. They recommend facility tests to measure diacetyl and its cousin 2,3-pentanedione, and better ventilation, worker safeguards and personal protective equipment as necessary. They also note that at least five workers in large scale coffee processing plants have been diagnosed with bronchitis obliterans.

    Coffee image By Ailura – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

  • Obama to regulate 'pollutant' CO2

    Byoliveridley

    The US government is to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, having decided that it and five other greenhouse gases may endanger human health and well-being. The Environmental Protection Agency EPA announced the move following a review of the scientific evidence.

    via BBC

    Not unexpected, was the long culmination of a series of events resulting from a 2007 Supreme Court verdict.

    Obama is playing the cards right here, using the EPA to ratchet pressure on congress to come up with a carbon pricing scheme, using the EPA as a cautionary tale. If there is anything anti-environmentalists hate more than carbon regulation, it is carbon regulation written by the EPA! Expect a whole lot of lobbying for a cap and trade bill to pass through congress. Aldo expect a lot of back room dealing about offsets, auctions, allowances, words you will be hearing and reading about a lot more.

    Meanwhile, in our great white North, the official silence is deafening. A recent report released by the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy speaks very seriously about the urgent need to get a federal Cap and Trade system in place before the US does it for us. Expect nothing to happen unless there is regime change. Even then, as the NY Times points out, provincial resistance to cede control will doom any deal. Ask an Albertan about the National Energy Program!

    In our provincial BC election, carbon pricing is front and centre and has captured quite a bit of attention even south of the border. A post on that will follow sometime this weekend, unless I get distracted, which happens more often than not!

  • EPA Accused of Flouting Supreme Court – washingtonpost.com

    Byoliveridley

    You may remember from a few weeks back when the supremes in a very rare unanimous decision ruled that the Duke Energy would have to install new pollution controls if it made modifications to its power plants that increased annual emissions without increasing hourly emissions. Well, never mind that, the EPA released a “rule” that “clarifies” this issue.

    EPA Accused of Flouting Supreme Court – washingtonpost.com

    The government proposed a pollution standard for power plants Wednesday that critics said flouts the spirit of a Supreme Court ruling on clean air enforcement.

    The proposal would make it easier for utilities to expand plant operations or make other changes to produce more electricity without installing new pollution controls.

    The proposal would allow the use of average hourly smokestack emissions when determining whether a plant’s expansion or efficiency improvements require additional pollution controls. The EPA hopes to make the proposal final before year’s end.

    Opponents of the hourly standard recently argued before the Supreme Court that this standard lets a plant put more smog-causing chemicals and other pollution into the air, even if hourly releases do not increase.

    Environmentalists long have contended the EPA should continue using annual emissions to determine whether new pollution controls are needed under the Clean Air Act.

    Let’s get this straight, “environmentalists contend”? There is nothing to contend here, it’s simple math. If you keep hourly rates the same and run your plant for longer, you will emit more pollution, which is not good. Less pollution good, more pollution bad, there is no point of contention here. Hourly standards and annual standards are used for two different things. The hourly standard sets a lower limit on the efficiency of the pollution control operation for the plant. The annual standard measures the plant’s overall impact. Both of them need to be regulated. It is only common sense that if you put out twice the amount of pollution in a year because you run 20 hours per day instead of 10, you need to control it. The Supremes rightly tagged this argument as dishonest, only to see the EPA very happily turn around and reissue it as an official rule.

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    Virus Implicated In Colony Collapse Disorder In Bees

    Byoliveridley

    This is a potentially important find, but as usual, I feel the need to stress that at this point in time, as the scientists did too, that they correlated the presence of this virus with the prevalence of Colony Collapse Disorder. It is likely that this virus, while being a contributing factor, is not the only cause. Other contributors may include stress, the fact that these bee hives are transported thousands of miles, etc.

    But, great detective work by this collaborative team of academics, American government scientists and one for-profit company.

    ScienceDaily: Virus Implicated In Colony Collapse Disorder In Bees

    A team led by scientists from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, Pennsylvania State University, the USDA Agricultural Research Service, University of Arizona, and 454 Life Sciences has found a significant connection between the Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV) and colony collapse disorder (CCD) in honey bees.

    The findings, an important step in addressing the disorder that is decimating bee colonies across the country, are published in the journal Science.

    In colony collapse disorder, honey bee colonies inexplicably lose all of their worker bees. CCD has resulted in a loss of 50-90% of colonies in beekeeping operations across the U.S.

    I was just thinking I should check on the progress of scientists towards finding a cause for this issue, seems like I did not have to!

  • 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!

One Comment

  1. It sounds like they were just trying to time it right, so that they could pass some new, more lenient standards without having to acknowledge the EPA’s report. Blatantly irrepsonsible.

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