NC Smoking ban now inevitable?

Interesting side note about the spinach E-Coli outbreak

Leafy Green Sewage – New York Times

Where does this particularly virulent strain come from? It’s not found in the intestinal tracts of cattle raised on their natural diet of grass, hay and other fibrous forage. No, O157 thrives in a new — that is, recent in the history of animal diets — biological niche: the unnaturally acidic stomachs of beef and dairy cattle fed on grain, the typical ration on most industrial farms. It’s the infected manure from these grain-fed cattle that contaminates the groundwater and spreads the bacteria to produce, like spinach, growing on neighboring farms.

Well, talk about unforeseen consequences, cows really should not eat grain. Go watch my favorite food cartoon ever, the Meatrix, and its most excellent sequel, The Meatrix 2: Revolting for more.

When cows were switched from a grain diet to hay for only five days, O157 declined 1,000-fold. This is good news. In a week, we could choke O157 from its favorite home — even if beef cattle were switched to a forage diet just seven days before slaughter, it would greatly reduce cross-contamination by manure of, say, hamburger in meat-packing plants.

Seems easy enough to implement, if impossible to enforce.

Update

A more nuanced look, if not a debunking of the above theory can be found on this scienceblogs page.

Priority and Toxic Chemical Reduction | Resource Conservation Challenge | US EPA

Priority and toxic chemicals make up a fairly limited volume, yet potentially hazardous portion of the nation’s waste stream. We are working to eliminate or reduce priority chemicals and other chemicals of national concern from commercial products, waste streams, and industrial releases through pollution prevention, waste minimization, and recycling/reuse.The 31 priority chemicals are federal priorities because they are persistent, bioaccumulative, and highly toxic. We’re focusing on reducing priority and toxic chemicals to better protect human health and the environment.

By substituting or eliminating certain chemicals in their manufacturing processes, companies produce less waste and thus lower their waste disposal costs. Our goal is to substantially reduce the volume and toxicity of priority chemicals in waste by asking companies to voluntarily:

• Substitute safer alternatives when they can;
• Minimize the amount of priority chemicals they use, if they can’t substitute for them;
• Maximize their recycling efforts;
• Practice cradle-to-cradle chemical management; and
• Design products to minimize exposure to, and release of, priority chemicals during manufacturing and use.

Sounds good, and Worldchanging has more:

But nowhere near the progress some companies are making on their own in cleaning up toxic emissions — not simply to be good guys, but to reduce their costs, liabilities, and exposure to activist and shareholder pressures. And, in some cases, to meet their customers’ growing demands for less-toxic or nontoxic alternatives to business as usual.

Read the whole post, which sounds ambivalent about the scheme. The idea is Environmental Good Sense 101, use less, or none at all, practice cradle to grave economics and minimize exposure. Simple stuff, huh. The biggest problem, however, is that by setting limits on a voluntary basis, you always run the risk of setting the bar too low, and then indulging in relentless and pointless self congratulation about how the “market” solved everything, and how rules are so, well, 1970s?

you need a good mix of

1. Regulation, which sets a minimum, health based bar
2. Flexibility to the business on how to achieve their targets
3. Market systems to trade emission credits, etc
4. Voluntary industry-government initiatives like the one above
5. Relentless citizen activism that forces governments/business to act
6. Community outreach and education so consumers can make informed choices
7. Costing mechanisms that actually reflect free market efficiencies (no stupid subsidies, accurate costing of “externalities”, etc. )

Yeah, this does not fit neatly into the Mano a Mano, you’re with us/you’re against us false dichotomy of choice that seems to beset almost every policy debate (environmental or otherwise). It seems that you never have to do one or the other, but a bit of both, or all of them at the same time.

In the meanwhile, the voluntary program will work, but only in areas in specific instances where it is to a company’s advantage.

BTW, I think that good old fashioned regulation in Europe – See Reach and many many more existing regulations, such as this one for PCBs and Dioxins which I know a little too much about, have a little more to do with American companies reducing POP levels that they care to admit!

As BC’s Carbon Tax enters the terrible twos, and is the subject of stupid headlines in the CBC trumpeting a 1.5c/L increase in gasoline price (smaller than the price difference between a pump in the Saanich Peninsula and outside), it is worthwhile to see what the rest of the province’s carbon strategy is, or isn’t doing.

Metro – B.C. looks to carbon capture to balance clean-air targets with energy revenues

Economic realities and environmental promises are creating an explosive mixture for the recession-fighting B.C. government as it juggles expansion in its oil and gas industry with the need to cut greenhouse gases.

Massive untapped gas fields in northeastern British Columbia hold billions in potential revenues, but environmentalists are watching to see if Premier Gordon Campbell will stick to his promise to fight global warming by cutting emissions by one-third by 2020.

This is one of the issues with relying solely on a carbon tax to reduce GHG emissions, it is inadequate. A carbon tax is a consumption tax levied at the point of sale, not at the point of production. The BC government has gotten a lot of positive press for the carbon tax, but it is reliant on natural gas and oil to bring in some revenue. After all, the lumber industry is dying with the US housing bust, and something needs to get the province out of deficit as the BC government will not countenance any tax increases whatsoever.

The weakness of the province’s carbon plan is best typified by quotes from a couple of fossil fuel executives/government officials:

“The question is, if I were to make this big investment, who’s going to pay me to do that so I can generate a return for my shareholders? Weilinger asks.

Horne agrees there is no business case for oil and gas companies to justify carbon capture projects to shareholders, but says industry needs to support greenhouse gas reductions.

The notion that industry will somehow support reductions is hilariously disingenuous. Carbon capture and storage is an untested and expensive technology even when it comes to sources where all the CO2 comes out of one tailpipe, like a power plant. The notion that it can be used in an activity as widespread and diffuse as oil/gas drilling is laughable. The best way for these companies can be forced to make their mining more GHG emission friendly is to price their actions according to their GHG production footprint, something a differently designed carbon price would do.

BC’s carbon tax, in my book, was a shrewdly designed political maneuver to undercut traditional environmentalist support for the opposition NDP, which very “smartly” took the bait and campaigned against it in a recent election earning howls of disgust from the mainstream environmental movement.

When it actually comes to cleaning up and taking actions that will actually reduce the province’s GHG footprint, the government is found wanting, as expected.