Sometimes, you have to read what you’ve written in order to keep writing. I have not felt like writing at all, except in 140 character snippets. There are lots of people saying lots of things all the time, so who really cares, right? But I came back and read a post or two I had written on this blog, they weren’t half bad.
Consider myself a little more encouraged, I shall write more, soon, no pressure 🙂
Gaping Reminders of Aging and Crumbling Pipes – New York Times
Local and state officials across the country say thousands of miles of century-old underground water and sewer lines are springing leaks, eroding and — in extreme cases — causing the ground above them to collapse. Though there is no master tally of sinkholes, there is consensus among civil engineers and water experts that things are getting worse.
The Environmental Protection Agency has projected that unless cities invest more to repair and replace their water and sewer systems, nearly half of the water system pipes in the United States will be in poor, very poor or “life elapsed” status by 2020.
Yes, sewers are unsexy, there’s no new fancy science involved. But water and sewer systems are the very basis of public health, and the biggest reason why Americans don’t die of sleeping sickness and dengue fever (or their subtropical equivalents) in large numbers evey year. People who want to cut taxes and limit government need to keep this in mind. There’s no money to be made out of building and maintaining sewers, it’s a dirty job and government has to do it, or else nobody will, and money is required. We produce the waste, we need to be taxed appropriately for it. It’s that simple.
I had a long rant brewing in my head all day about U.S intransigence at the Bali Climate talks, but hell, one massage and a Chimay later, I should just outsource to someone more qualified to lay down the law.
I am going to speak an inconvenient truth. My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali. We all know that. We all know that,” he said.
VOA News – Al Gore Blames US for Climate Change Deadlock in Bali
Here’s what pissed me off this morning…
U.S. Strategy Succeeds in Bali
Climate Talks Turn to Efforts Other Than Emissions TargetsBALI, Indonesia, Dec. 13 — U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon conceded Wednesday that the United States had succeeded in achieving one of its key objectives at the climate conference here, blocking a proposal that called on industrialized nations to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 25 to 40 percent by 2020.
Hmm, this is not even worth a rant. When the capital’s newspaper characterizes behavior that will no doubt result in untold human and material destruction as a “win”, what can be said?
Tags: climatechange, Gore
An act of quite some chutzpah, “outbidding” oil and gas companies in a public land auction. The land was going over for even more oil and gas exploration at a time when we should really be ramping down gas and oil usage.
More on contributing to his cause here. He needs 45,000 dollars in downpayment to the US government to keep the process going. He appears to be well on his way, but needs some more money to get over the top. It is more than likely that the Obama administration is going to cancel the land grab process anyway, so he will be off the hook soon enough.
Audacious, brilliant and brave.
One Utah » Blog Archive » Why I Disrupted A Fraudulent Auction.
Yesterday I decided that the crisis facing us requires more critical action than has been taken in the past. When faced with the opportunity to seriously disrupt the auction of some of our most beautiful lands in Utah to oil and gas developers, I could not ethically turn my back on that opportunity. By making bids for land that was supposed to be protected for the interests of all Americans, I tried to resist the Bush administration’s attempt to defraud the American people.
At this point it appears that I was successful in my attempts to disrupt this fraudulent auction. The federal officials who took me into custody said that I cost the oil companies in the room hundreds of thousands of dollars and prevented 22,500 acres of land from being sold for fossil fuel development. I had a very open conversation with the federal agents about my motivations and values. They were friendly, respectful, and somewhat sympathetic.
As I mentioned a couple of days back, Sciences International has some conflicts of interests in this bisphenol A issue. I am glad that NIEHS is taking note.
Chemical agency ties under review – Los Angeles Times
The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences has begun a review of ties between a federal health center that evaluates the risks of chemicals to reproductive health and a consulting firm funded by companies that produce chemicals linked to reproductive disorders.
The investigation follows a Times report on Sunday that Sciences International, an Alexandria, Va., firm funded by more than 50 industrial companies, helps manage the federal Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction.
Among the firms with financial ties to Sciences International are two that produce bisphenol A, a chemical in polycarbonate plastic bottles that has been linked in animal testing to prostate and breast cancer and reduced fertility.
Since 1998, Sciences International has helped manage the federal reproductive health center and prepared draft reports analyzing bisphenol A and 16 other chemicals. The company has a $5-million contract with the center.
The center’s scientific advisory panel was scheduled to decide today whether bisphenol A endangers reproductive health in humans.
But on Tuesday, director Michael Shelby announced that the panel, after two days of reviewing the 372-page report that Sciences International prepared on bisphenol A, known as BPA, still had too many unresolved questions and was postponing its decision for six weeks.
Good investigative journalism still makes a big difference.
As always, as I was writing this post, I noticed that the ever excellent folks at the pump handle read my mind and posted about it (2nd time in 3 days!), so I will stop writing (and thinking about Bisphenol A) and direct your attention to their post!
Nissan Shows Off Its Electric Car, the Leaf – NYTimes.com
What, no Canada? But still, an electric hatchback, hits all my buttons and dings all my dongs! I only hope to keep my current, explosion powered hatchback long enough to not buy one ever again. Price, of course, will be a consideration. The good news is that Nissan is considering leasing the battery instead of people having to buy it up front, a great idea, not as great as the battery instant replace model from Shai Agassi and Better Place, but one that lessens the battery buying burden.
The future is electric.
Buried in this abstract from the Environmental Science and Technology Journal is a little titbit about the origin and fate of 90% of all natural estrogens found in water bodies.
Fate, Transport, and Biodegradation of Natural Estrogens in the Environment and Engineered Systems
Another major source, which accounts for 90% of the estrogen load, is animal manure from concentrated animal-feeding operations (CAFOs). Manure is not required to be treated in the United States as long as it is not discharged directly into water bodies. Thus, there is an urgent need to study the fate of animal-borne estrogens from these facilities into the environment. A number of studies have reported the feminization of male aquatic species in water bodies receiving the effluents from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) or surface runoff from fields amended with livestock manure and municipal biosolids.
I am not a big fan of hog factories. Clean them up!