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Author Topic: Pollution  (Read 58205 times)

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AGelbert

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October 3, 2019

By Brian Kahn

John Davis’ grave-in-waiting filled with water after heavy rain and snow. Photo: Brian Kahn (Earther)

SNIPPET:

“It’s bizarre we’ve ended up in a place where we spend thousands of dollars pumping our loved ones full of chemicals and painting their faces and putting them in a titanium casket is normal and wrapping them in a shroud and burying them isn’t,” Michelle Acciavatti, Spirit Sanctuary’s “death doula,” told Earther.

It wasn’t always this way. In the U.S., 18th and 19th century burials involved at most, a pine casket and a plot in a cemetery or on your land. But embalming techniques pioneered during the Civil War so thousands of soldiers could be brought home helped spawn the modern funeral industry. The death of Abraham Lincoln and the public viewings of his embalmed body as it was brought from Washington, D.C. to its final resting in Springfield, Illinois likely also contributed to the shift in how Americans conceive of death.

“The reports we get from that era is he [Lincoln] looked pretty doggone good for being dead after being assassinated with a bullet to the head,” Bill Hoy, an end of life expert at Baylor University, told Earther. “That confirmed that [embalming] is especially helpful for two things: One, when our dead’s death occurs a few days from home, and two, when an injury or disease process was such that dead just look horrible, and people thought ‘I don’t want that to be my last picture.’”

But while the growth of arterial embalming fluid gave loved ones more time to say goodbye and create a last memory, the processes also cuts bodies off from what some would argue is their final purpose, of giving life the Earth.

Full article:

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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New Data Show Severity of Water Contamination in Poor Neighborhoods

DANIEL ROSS, TRUTHOUT

A new comprehensive report on tap water shows that low-income communities are more likely than their wealthier neighbors to be served drinking water that is of poorer quality, with higher levels of potentially toxic contaminants. Based on Environmental Protection Agency data from 2016-19, the report found that race, ethnicity, language spoken and access to transportation had the strongest relationship to ineffective enforcement of the Safe Drinking Water Act.


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He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Pollution
« Reply #812 on: October 23, 2019, 06:16:22 pm »


ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

By Yessenia Funes

October 22, 2019

• Filed to: DAMMIT


Air Pollution Is Increasing for the First Time in a Decade Under Trump

SNIPPET:

After a decade of improvements in air pollution, the U.S. is backsliding. And that means more people are dying prematurely, according to new research. The paper authors don’t point to a specific reason why the increase happened, but the numbers are clear that it occurred under the presidency of  Donald...

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He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Reuters

OCTOBER 31, 2019 / 6:47 AM / UPDATED AN HOUR AGO


Massive mining waste dams could pose deadly risks, say investors

Barbara Lewis, Ernest Scheyder
6 MIN READ

LONDON (Reuters) - A global inquiry into how mining companies store billions of tonnes of waste in huge dams, launched after a collapse in Brazil killed hundreds, shows about a tenth of the structures have had stability issues, investors said on Thursday.

The research was led by the Church of England (CoE) 😇    and 💵🎩 fund managers after the collapse of a Vale (VALE3.SA) dam in January unleashed an avalanche of mining waste on the Brazilian town of Brumadinho, killing an estimated 300 people.

The investor review, which found at least 166 dams have had stability issues in the past, relied on companies’ disclosures about their dams holding mining waste, known as tailings.

However less than half of the 726 companies contacted have responded, with most Chinese and Indian miners not providing information, leaving a significant hole in efforts to create a global picture of safety risks posed by these dams and avoid another disaster.

“Tailings dams are amongst some of the largest engineered structures in the world and we have seen the catastrophic consequences earlier this year in Brazil when they collapse,” said Adam Matthews, ethics director at the CoE Pensions Board, a global investor with assets worth more than $3 billion.

“We note that many companies already operate to a very high standard as evidenced by some of the disclosures, but this is not universal across the sector and dams are continuing to fail, putting lives and the environment at risk.”

Tailings dams are the most common waste disposal methods for mining companies, whether they’re extracting iron ore, gold or copper. Some tower dozens of meters high and stretch for several kilometers.

There are no established global mining industry standards defining what a tailings dam is, how to build one and how to care for it after it is decommissioned.

The major investors, who manage assets worth a combined $13.5 trillion across a range of industries, wrote to mining companies in April asking for information about tailings dams to be disclosed about every mine they control.

They warned they might have to divest their shares unless they had clear information on potential risks, in what has become one of the largest shareholder mobilizations in history in reaction to a single event.

The CoE and the some other funds sold their Vale shares after the Brumadinho dam collapse, and the Brazilian miner lost a quarter of its market value immediately after the disaster.

‘MORAL IMPERATIVE’

Of the 726 companies contacted by investors, 43% responded. All the major listed miners, including Vale, were among those who replied, according to the investors, jointly led by the CoE Pensions Board and the Swedish AP Funds Council of Ethics.

Initial analysis of company disclosures found tailings ☠️ dams across the globe hold more than 44 billion square meters of waste.

The disclosures so far showed 166 out of 1,635 of tailings dams have had stability issues in their history, although it was unclear how severe those issues had been and the miners said the problems had been addressed, the investors said.

The investors aim to complete a global database of risks posed by dams by the first anniversary of the Brazilian disaster on Jan. 25, and ultimately create global safety standards. Many dams will have to be forcibly closed, investors told Reuters.

Slideshow (3 Images)
John Howchin, secretary general of the Council on Ethics of the Swedish National Pension Funds, said the investors would redouble efforts to secure the missing disclosures.

“There is simply no excuse to not disclose on a material risk, that as owners of these companies, we need to urgently understand. It is clear that investors’ patience with non-disclosing companies will not remain for much longer,” he said. ::)

Anglo American (AAL.L) CEO Mark Cutifani said the sector faced a “clear ethical and moral imperative” to use new technologies to ensure the highest safety standards for tailings.

“Rather than simply scaling up mining’s processes to meet demand, the industry will need to find new, more efficient and more sustainable ways of working,” he told a meeting of executives in London. 

INDIA AND CHINA

While the Americas are home to most of the world’s tailings dams, India and China also store vast amounts of waste in these structures, including the Weikuang dam in northern China which is about 11 km long.

The Weikuang dam is owned by Baotou Iron & Steel Group [IMARGC.UL], which did not respond to the investors’ request for data or a Reuters request for comment.

Coal India Ltd (COAL.NS) and Metallurgical Corp Of China Ltd (601618.SS), two of the world’s largest coal miners, said they were not aware of the investor initiative and never received the request. Both companies are controlled by their respective governments.

The CoE said it aimed to work with Chinese and Indian miners over time to compile a truly global database.

“There is, we hope, a cumulative effect where bit by bit in personal relationship with these countries, we hope there’ll be a tipping point,” said David Urquhart, the CoE’s Bishop of Birmingham and a former 🦖 BP (BP.L) executive.


The eventual aim of the initiative is to set the global standards for tailings dams, together with the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) industry group. The ICMM said in March it was working on new standards with the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) and the ethical investors.

Reporting by Barbara Lewis and Ernest Scheyder; Additional reporting by Tom Daly, Sudarshan Varadhan, Min Zhang, Moira Warburton, Helen Reid, Suzanne Barlyn and Jeff Lewis; Editing by Pravin Char

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mining-tailings/massive-mining-waste-dams-could-pose-deadly-risks-say-investors-idUSKBN1XA1CS

Agelbert NOTE: "Ethical Investors" is an oxymoron. It's the 😈 CAPITALISM, stupid!



He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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by Tibi Puiu October 31, 2019 in Animals, Environmental Issues, News


🦋🐛🐜🐝🐞🦗 Insects in Germany have declined by up to two-thirds in ten years

This not just happening only in Germany, but all over the world. 😱

In 2017, researchers sounded the alarm when they found that the number of flying insects had dramatically fallen in recent times in Germany. A new study that analyzed a broad range of species in three protected German areas confirmed these fears, finding that some populations had declined by up to two-thirds in the last decade.

Two years ago, an international team of researchers reported that over the last 27 years, flying insect biomass has plummeted by 75 percent in Germany. Land use or changes in weather could not alone explain this dramatic drop in insect biomass.

Insects, be they land-loving or wind trailing, are essential to ecosystem functioning and health. They’re responsible for pollinating 80 percent of wild plants and provide food for a wide range of species, including 60 percent of all 🐦🐧🕊🦅🦆🦉 birds.

In a new study, researchers led by Sebastian Seibold and Wolfgang Weisse, both professors of terrestrial ecology at the Technical University of Munich, analyzed data on flying insects from 290 sites within forest and grassland habitats. The sites were surveyed by biologists between 2008 and 2017, who counted flying insects, as well as arthropods like 🕸 spiders and millipedes, using nets and traps.

The results suggest that both in meadows and in forests, the number of species decreased by about a third during the study period. Their biomass, which indicates population size, decreased by 67% in grasslands and 40% in forests.

Among the factors that may be responsible for the decline, the researchers have identified deforestation, invasive species, urbanization, global heating, wetland and river alterations, and agriculture. The latter is believed to be responsible for roughly half of the impact.

The German researchers found that insect decline was particularly enhanced in grasslands surrounded by arable land. Species that did not cover long distances shrank the most in such areas. Meanwhile, in forests, it was mainly species that traveled long distances that suffered the most, possibly because they come into contact with agriculture during their migration.

“The decline affected rare and abundant species, and trends differed across trophic levels. Our results show that there are widespread declines in arthropod biomass, abundance and the number of species across trophic levels. Arthropod declines in forests demonstrate that loss is not restricted to open habitats,” the authors wrote in the journal Nature.

These frightening findings suggest that insect decline is very much real and just as bad as previously reported by other studies. And, this certainly isn’t happening just in Germany.

Earlier this year, a metastudy found that half of all the world’s insect species are in decline and a third are already endangered. The orders Lepidoptera, Hymenoptera, and Coleoptera (butterflies, bees, and beetles, respectively), are the worst-hit groups. One of the studies included in the analysis shows that the number of widespread butterfly species on farmed land in the UK fell by 58% between 2000 and 2009. Bees are also struggling: Oklahoma lost half of its bumblebee species between 1949 and 2013. The number of honeybee colonies in the US was 6 million in 1947, but 3.5 million have been lost since. Beetle species are also declining, especially dung beetles, according to this meta-analysis.

“Our results suggest that major drivers of arthropod decline act at larger spatial scales, and are (at least for grasslands) associated with agriculture at the landscape level. This implies that policies need to address the landscape scale to mitigate the negative effects of land-use practices,” the German researchers wrote.

Since agriculture is the main driver of this decline, policymakers, farmers, and conservation efforts have to work in sync in order to coordinate a reversal of this dire trend. There is some progress in this respect. This year, Germany’s Farmers’ Association voluntarily ceded arable land back to nature, creating a 230,000 km-long and 5-meter-wide flower strip corridor. Insecticides such as neonicotinoids ☠️ and the herbicide glyphosate ☠️ (Roundup) have also come into scrutiny for their potential ill effects on biodiversity. Measures that restrict their use may also play a major role in reviving insect populations.

https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/insect-decline-germany-04235/

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Pollution
« Reply #815 on: October 31, 2019, 05:49:20 pm »
 
Wild, Incisive, Fearless.

Essays

October 30, 2019 - by H. Christopher Frey

H. Christopher Frey is the Glenn E. Futrell Distinguished University Professor of Environmental Engineering in the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering at NC State. From 2012 to 2015, he chaired the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.


EPA Disbanded a Clean Air Science Panel. We Met Anyway – And Here’s What We Found

The nongovernmental panel of experts found that particle pollution regulations aren’t protecting public health, but that's not the only worrying trend at 🐉🦕🦖😈 EPA.

Since 1980, emissions of six common air pollutants have decreased by 67 percent, thanks largely to government regulation. At the same time, U.S. gross domestic product has increased by 165 percent. While some assert that regulation acts as a drag on the economy, this record indicates that environmental protection does not have to undercut economic growth.

I have studied air pollution and air quality for over 30 years, and have been directly involved for a decade with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s reviews of scientific findings on air pollution. This includes seven years of service on the agency’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee and stints on 10 specialized panels focused on individual pollutants.

The Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee is currently reviewing the national standard for regulating particulate matter — tiny solid particles and droplets that measure a fraction of the width of a human hair and penetrate deeply into the lungs when inhaled. Health effects of exposure to fine particulate air pollution include respiratory, cardiovascular and other diseases and premature death.

But on Oct. 10, 2018, I and other scientists on a panel that advised the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee on this issue learned that the EPA abruptly disbanded our panel. Now the particulate matter review is moving forward without the scientific expertise and experience that it needs.

To help fill this gap, we reconvened ourselves independently, and have met over the past year to produce scientific advice for EPA aimed at protecting public health. The Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit group that advocates for the use of rigorous, independent science to solve global problems, hosted our most recent meeting on Oct. 10 and Oct. 11. We reported our conclusions directly to the EPA, and panel members donated their time and expertise.

In contrast, the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee has been restructured over the past several years with new appointees who appear to be developing advice aimed at pleasing the EPA administrator.


A Serious Threat to Public Health

Fine particle air pollution comes from many sources, including burning fossil fuels. Today more than 20 million Americans live in areas with high levels of fine particles.

Average annual fine particulate levels in the U.S. fell by nearly 25 percent between 2009 and 2016, but this trend may be reversing. Increasingly frequent and severe wildfires, such as those currently raging in California, are one likely source.

A recent study found that fine particle levels rose 5.5 percent between 2016 and 2018 and estimated that this increase was associated with some 9,700 premature deaths in 2018 that would not have occurred otherwise. Our panel noted the recent uptick in fine particle levels in our latest report, released last week.


Science-based Standards

The Clean Air Act requires the EPA to conduct regular reviews of national air quality standards. The Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee’s job is to review the “latest scientific knowledge” underpinning regulations for major air pollutants. If the science indicates that existing standards are not adequately protecting public health, the agency must revise them.

National fine particulate matter concentrations for 2015 to 2017 (annual average, left, and daily average, right). Readings coded yellow approach current standards; those coded red exceed them. Source: EPA

The committee has seven members, appointed by the EPA administrator. But air pollution standards draw on many scientific disciplines, including air quality, epidemiology, toxicology, medicine, biostatistics, ecology, climate and risk assessment. For decades, EPA has organized panels of additional experts to help the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee review the latest research — until now.

Our nongovernmental panel has multiple experts in epidemiology, toxicology, medicine, exposure assessment, risk assessment, statistics, air quality measurement and modeling. The Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee doesn’t have an epidemiologist, although epidemiology is a central discipline in analyzing health effects from exposure to fine particle pollution.

In fact, the committee admitted this, and asked the EPA in April 2019 to reinstate our panel. EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler refused. Instead he appointed a smaller group that is not allowed to deliberate with the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee.


Breaking the Review Process

EPA officials began undermining the scientific review process in 2017, when then-Administrator 🦕😈 Scott Pruitt wrote a memorandum that bars scholars who hold EPA research grants from serving on the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee. But often these are precisely the highly respected scientific leaders that the committee needs.

The federal government has long recognized that holding a research grant does not infringe on a scientist’s “ability to offer independent scientific advice.” In contrast, Pruitt allowed people who received funding from regulated industries to serve on the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee.

On Oct. 10, 2018, Pruitt’s successor, 🐍 Andrew Wheeler, replaced five Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee members. The committee now includes one researcher, staff from one federal and four state agencies and an industry  consultant. Wheeler has also shortened the science review schedule and dropped key assessment documents from the review.



Ignoring the Science

Past Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee reviews of national air quality standards took three years on average. They focused on three major EPA staff reports that 1) summarized scientific findings on health effects, 2) established the scientific basis for quantifying health risk and 3) identified potential options for retaining, revising or rescinding current standards or setting a new ones. These steps were carefully designed to clearly establish the science before making judgments about policy.

Now, however, the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee’s Integrated Science Assessment on particulate air pollution — the first step in the three-stage sequence — is still in draft form, and EPA is introducing policy issues before the science is settled. We expect that the agency will be sued for this and other procedural irregularities.

Our panel met publicly to carry out a scientific review of EPA’s policy assessment. We concluded that existing annual and 24-hour standards for fine particle air pollution are not protective of public health.

Currently, federal regulations set an annual standard of 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air, or ug/m3. We recommend lowering this standard to a range of 8-10 ug/m3. Similarly, we recommend revising the existing 24-hour standard — which applies to short-term pollution spikes — from 35 ug/m3 to 25-30 ug/m3.

These scientific findings are based on consistent epidemiological evidence from multiple studies, at ambient concentrations below the levels of the current standards. The epidemiologic results are supported by results from toxicological and controlled human studies.

In contrast, when the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee met on Oct. 24 and Oct. 25, two of its six members supported tightening the relevant standards, but the other four concluded that existing standards are good enough. This view ignores compelling new evidence, including the largest-ever U.S. epidemiologic study for fine particles, published in 2017. This study and others clearly show adverse health effects — including premature death — at exposure levels below current U.S. standards.

We believe the EPA should follow the law , which requires a thorough review of the science underpinning air pollution standards. A first step would be reappointing our panel to provide the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee with the expertise on particulate matter that it needs.

The opinions expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Revelator, the Center for Biological Diversity or their employees.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

Tags: EPA | Human Health | Pollution | Science | Trump Administration

https://therevelator.org/epa-clean-air-panel/

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Quote
“This study highlights cascading harms to aquatic life from neonicotinoids that our 🐉🦕🦖 EPA has known about but shrugged off,” said Donley.


Research Links Pesticide Harmful to 🐝 Bees With Collapse of 🐟 Fisheries

ANDREA GERMANOS, COMMON DREAMS

A new study provides further evidence of harm caused by a class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids, which have been linked to declines in bees, other insects, birds and other animal populations. Researchers linked use of the chemicals on fields of rice paddies nearby Lake Shinji in Japan with impacts to an entire food web that resulted in the collapse of two fisheries.

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He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

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Toxic Chemicals Found In Nearly Everyone's Blood (w/ Dr. David Andrews)😟
1,931 views•Nov 12, 2019


Thom Hartmann Program
193K subscribers

How toxic is your blood? Toxic "Forever" chemicals that don't break down are being found in almost everyone's blood.
 
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Dr. David Andrews from the Environmental Working Group joined Thom to discuss new research published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

The report finds running - any amount at all - is associated with a significantly reduced chance of dying from any cause. Yes, you heard me - Even Small Amount of Running Decreases Risk of Death by Nearly 30% - so - get out your sneakers folks.

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He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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PFAS Contamination in the U.S.
« Reply #819 on: November 13, 2019, 07:30:47 pm »
Quote
Hundreds of everyday products are made with highly toxic ☠️ fluorinated chemicals called PFAS. They build up in our bodies and never break down in the environment. Very small doses of PFAS have been linked to cancer, reproductive and immune system harm, and other diseases.

For decades, chemical companies covered up evidence of PFAS’ health hazards. Today nearly all Americans, including newborn babies, have PFAS in their blood, and up to 110 million people may be drinking PFAS-tainted water. What began as a “miracle of modern chemistry” is now a national crisis.

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

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EcoWatch

By Olivia RosaneNov. 18, 2019 08:43AM EST

Pipeline 💥 Explosion Kills 7, Injures 25 in Bangladesh 😟


SNIPPET:

Boshak told Anadolu Agency that the seven who died were rushed to the hospital, where they were pronounced dead on arrival.

Among the injured, one suffered burns, and the rest were wounded when the walls collapsed, according to reports from local channel Shomoy TV shared by Anadolu Agency. Boshak said the death toll could rise, since some of the people admitted to the hospital were in critical condition.

The gate of a nearby building and a minibus in its garage were also damaged by the blast.

Fire service official Amir Hossain told Reuters that the cause of the explosion was not yet known, but was being investigated.

"We primarily came to know that due to the gas pipeline blast, a part of a building collapsed," Boshak told Anadolu Agency.

The explosion comes one month after seven children died when a gas cylinder used for inflating balloons exploded in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka, Reuters noted.

The news agency further pointed out that poorly monitored gas pipelines and cylinders are a frequent cause of accidents in Bangladesh.

Pipeline explosions aren't the only danger that fossil fuels pose to the low-lying country, however.

Bangladesh faced the third-most risk from hazards related to the climate crisisof any country in the world 😨, according to the 2019 Global Peace Index.

Full article:

https://www.ecowatch.com/bangladesh-pipeline-explosion-2641379031.html
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

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How Europe is wrecking US carbon reductions
« Reply #821 on: November 24, 2019, 10:39:37 pm »
How Europe is wrecking US carbon reductions   
4,983 views•Nov 24, 2019


Just Have a Think
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Mr Beast, otherwise known as Jimmy Donaldson, is a 21 year old American YouTuber and philanthropist who, back in May 2019, set in motion a global online initiative which has so far resulted in 16 million new trees being planted. Team Trees' target is to get 20 million new saplings in the ground by January 1st 2020. And it's just as well, because the European Union  (including the United Kingdom!) is busy destroying millions of trees across the south-eastern United States as a result of it's rapacious desire for the deceptively marketed 'sustainable' fuel source that we all know as wood pellets. This week we investigate what's going on.

You can help support the channel AND become a key influencer in how the channel and wider Just Have a Think project grows into the future by visiting
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Research links -

https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2019/10...

https://thefern.org/2019/04/the-looph...

https://news.mongabay.com/2019/09/un-...

https://easac.eu/fileadmin/user_uploa...

https://ec.europa.eu/environment/acti...

https://www.leonardodicaprio.org/auth...

https://teamtrees.org/
 
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

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What 🦀 Trump's 🐉🦕🦖 EPA Really Wants
« Reply #822 on: December 04, 2019, 02:50:33 pm »

The EPA Says It Wants “Scientific Transparency.” What It Really Wants Is 😈 Control Over Research.

A newly proposed rule would let 🦕 Andrew Wheeler decide what kind of science is—and isn’t—allowed to inform our country’s public health protections.


Kena Betancur/VIEWpress via Getty Images

NRDC

November 15, 2019 by Jeff Turrentine

It’s no secret that under the Trump administration, a politicized U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been doing all that it can to make life easier for polluting industries—first under disgraced former administrator Scott Pruitt and now under his successor, Andrew Wheeler. Rollbacks of our country’s environmental regulations have been streaming out of the agency since 2017.

Even so, it’s difficult to weaken pollution laws when decades of peer-reviewed scientific research holds that doing so would sicken and kill Americans. Now it appears that Wheeler has latched onto a plan to seed doubt into the validity of that science—and, ultimately, to discount it altogether.

First proposed in April 2018, the Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science rule—an aptly Orwellian name, in keeping with this administration’s dystopian leanings—would allow the agency to disregard any research containing data that are not made available to the public. In Wheeler’s words, the rule is intended to promote “the highest-quality science.” But notably, if any research relied on anonymous patient data culled from confidential medical records—as much of it does, by law and by necessity—the EPA could then claim that it didn’t meet the rule’s transparency threshold and reject any proposed regulation based on the conclusions of that research.

This plan to undermine science—and ultimately public health— shouldn’t work, and it likely won’t, unless America under Trump has gone completely through the legal looking glass. But the fact that a rule like this is being floated at all points to Wheeler’s (coal-) burning desire to reinvent the EPA as the official policymaking arm of corporate polluters.

There’s more. A recent update to the rule would grant the EPA authority to apply it retroactively. That tiny tweak gives birth to a scary scenario that places both past and future protections in jeopardy. As John Walke, the director of NRDC’s Clean Air program, puts it, the new rule “would let the EPA reopen and weaken existing safeguards for air, water, and public health, or sabotage these protections whenever they come up for renewal.” Among the existing safeguards that could fall under the new rule’s purview are key components of the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act.

Walke says the administrator’s real goal “is to prevent the EPA from adopting safeguards against air and water pollution, dangerous climate change, and toxic chemicals and pesticides.” In other words, Andrew Wheeler may very well want scientists to continue using confidential medical data in their studies showing how air and water pollution pose a risk to human health—so he can have a pretext for rejecting those same studies and keeping that kind of science out of the policymaking equation altogether.

On Wednesday, as much of the country was following the televised hearings on impeachment before the House Intelligence Committee, members of the House Science Committee were posing questions to—but getting very few substantive answers out of—the sole representative sent by the EPA to defend its new rule. Dr. Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta, a career scientist whose tenure at the agency stretches back nearly 40 years, appeared supremely uncomfortable as she tried to put the best face on this demonstrably bad idea. (Much of the hearing was captured, in all of its cringeworthy glory, as an epic 68-tweet thread in Walke’s Twitter feed; read it for a valuable lesson in how to avoid answering congressmembers’ pointed questions without permanently damaging your own professional credibility.)

The hearing didn’t go very well for the EPA. Serious questions were raised as to whether the agency even had the legal authority to do what it wants to do. At one point, the EPA’s stone-faced witness was invited by a cheeky congressmember to rebel against her employer and publicly refute the new rule, an invitation that she didn’t accept—but, interestingly, didn’t decline either.

But perhaps the most damning indicator of the rule’s vacuity came during the expert-witness portion of the hearing. Of the various scientific and public-health experts who appeared before the committee to discuss the rule—individuals who had been invited to testify by members of both political parties, mind you—not a single one endorsed it. Next time Andrew Wheeler needs to drum up congressional support for a phony scientific-transparency rule, he should send a chemical company CEO, or perhaps a coal baron. They would undoubtedly have something nice to say about such a horrible policy.

https://www.nrdc.org/onearth/epa-says-it-wants-scientific-transparency-what-it-really-wants-control-over-research

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Pollution
« Reply #823 on: December 04, 2019, 04:50:56 pm »

IN 2014, THE DAN RIVER STEAM STATION IN EDEN, NORTH CAROLINA, RELEASED 39,000 TONS OF COAL ASH INTO THE DAN RIVER. DUKE ENERGY AGREED TO PAY $3 MILLION FOR THE COST OF CLEANUP, WHICH POLLUTED 70 MILES OF THE RIVER WITH ARSENIC, LEAD, AND MERCURY. WITH THE NEW ROLLBACKS FROM THE EPA, DUKE MAY BE ABLE TO TRANSFER FUTURE COSTS ONTO NEARBY COMMUNITIES. | PHOTO BY AP PHOTO/GERRY BROOME

Coal Ash Comeback

Last month, Trump’s EPA rolled back Obama-era regulations that limited contamination from the 737 toxic coal-ash sites in the US. In justifying the move, EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler said the old rule placed “heavy burdens on electricity producers” and the revisions would “protect public health and the environment.”

Coal-ash experts say Wheeler’s claims are phony and the EPA “should be ashamed.”

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

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December 16, 2019



New Study Links Half of Ocean Acidification To 🦕😈🐍👹🦖 88 Polluters

Last week was not a great one for climate litigation, with New York losing its case against Exxon for securities fraud. But while the fossil fuel industry is trumpeting that ruling as the end of such suits, the fact that the case was narrowly defined as a financial fraud case means it’s not as relevant to the other ongoing suits as the industry might want you to think.

And there may still be more to come, particularly as the science linking polluters with impacts continues to sharpen.

On that front, a new study published last week in Environmental Research Letters attributes half of the observed ocean acidification to 88 major emitters from the gas, oil, coal and cement industries. As coverage at ClimateLiability mentions, several of those crazy 88 are already facing lawsuits related to climate change, including Exxon, Chevron, BP, Shell, ConocoPhillips and Total.

With this line of research, “scientists can now quantify how much more acidic the ocean has become as a result of each fossil fuel company’s products,” lead author Rachel Licker said.

To do this, researchers used the Climate Accountability Institute’s dataset of pollution from those 88 largest emitters, and then applied the methodology they used for a 2017 study linking emissions to warming temperatures.

But because acidification happens at different rates in different places, depending on local conditions, researchers had to get a little more precise. They used 3-D models to explore the differences in acidification, and focused on five regions where acidification and rising temperatures are impacting the coastal communities whose economic well-being depends on a thriving ocean.

In the end, the research found that not only are those 88 companies responsible for half the acidification, but nearly a quarter of the 25% increase in acidification observed can be blamed on the 20 biggest investor-owned or state-owned companies, including ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron and Shell.

And in case you were wondering, acidification is just as nasty as it sounds. As Scott Doney, the study’s co-author, explained, acidification “makes it more difficult for many marine organisms to construct their shells and skeletons.”

This means big trouble for some very delicious, and economically important, sea life. As Doney describes, the species at risk “form the foundation of the marine ecosystem food chain- including some types of plankton, algae, shellfish, and coral that may struggle to grow and survive in a future warmer, more acidic ocean.”

So while 🦕😈🦖 ExxonMobil et al are no doubt celebrating their New York win , they still have plenty to worry about. Although the shells of clams and oysters and shrimp are growing weaker, the case against polluters is only getting stronger.

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He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

 

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