+- +-

+-User

Welcome, Guest.
Please login or register.
 
 
 

Login with your social network

Forgot your password?

+-Stats ezBlock

Members
Total Members: 48
Latest: watcher
New This Month: 0
New This Week: 0
New Today: 0
Stats
Total Posts: 16867
Total Topics: 271
Most Online Today: 1186
Most Online Ever: 1186
(March 28, 2024, 06:27:38 am)
Users Online
Members: 0
Guests: 1056
Total: 1056

Author Topic: Pollution  (Read 59206 times)

0 Members and 5 Guests are viewing this topic.

AGelbert

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 36274
  • Location: Colchester, Vermont
    • Renwable Revolution
Re: Pollution
« Reply #225 on: July 17, 2015, 02:32:27 pm »
Quote
Carbon Tracker: $283 billion in LNG plants unneeded

More than a quarter-trillion dollars in planned liquefied natural gas projects will be unnecessary if the world is to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius, according to a new analysis by the Carbon Tracker Initiative. The high cost of LNG projects makes those the projects more likely to be economically stranded than conventional gas. Meanwhile, peer-reviewed research sponsored by the Environmental Defense Fund demonstrates that natural gas operations release 50 percent more methane—a potent greenhouse gas—than previously reported. By tracking levels of ethane, emitted by drilled gas but not landfills, the studies were able to pin over 70 percent of the methane on fossil fuels.

Dossier shows how oil firms sowed climate doubt

Top oil companies accepted the realities of climate science in their internal deliberations decades ago, even while outwardly denying the link between carbon pollution and global warming, according to a dossier released last week by the Union of Concerned Scientists. Their refusal to concede that the use of their product endangers the public reminds Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) of the tobacco executives of yesteryear who denied the relationship between smoking and lung disease. Although most Republicans toe that line, one GOP senator’s embrace of clean energy as a way to solve the climate challenge has earned her hefty contributions from a North Carolina entrepreneur.

- See more at: http://climatesolutions.org/article/1436890756-community-solar-gets-boost-electric-jet-crosses-channel#sthash.phdmr24f.dpuf[/size]





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

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 36274
  • Location: Colchester, Vermont
    • Renwable Revolution
Re: Pollution
« Reply #226 on: July 19, 2015, 03:57:41 pm »
New Study Shows Glaring Differences Between GMO and Non-GMO Foods
http://ecowatch.com/2014/02/20/study-differences-gmo-non-gmo-foods/#comment-2145308099

INTERESTING COMMENTS    ;D


David Keech

I went looking and I'm fairly certain this is the El-Sayed Shaltout paper:
http://www.scirp.org/journal/P...
And this is the more recent Bøhn study: http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...
They are both open access so you can read through them, which I did.
The corn/rat study only had 6 rats per group for a total of 36 rats. The comparisons were done by gender (as they must be), meaning only 3 rats were compared to 3 other rats in any comparison. This is far less than the Séralini study which was criticised for not having enough rats and eventually retracted. Most of the differences shown in the results table are marked as being not statistically significant. In those that are statistically significant, there is no pattern as to which pair of groups (control, non-GM and GM) will show the difference. This suggests that natural variation is greater than the effect size and the few cases of statistical significance they found are spurious.
While the soybean study cites many other papers on glyphosate and genetic modification, they don't cite any on studies of soybeans in the US. If they had bothered to look, they would have found this study: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10... which shows that soybeans vary more greatly in fat, fibre and protein content depending on where they are grown and how they are processed than they do in this study.
The differences they found between GM and non-GM soybeans are less than the differences found between soybeans of the same type grown using the same methods, which makes of of their statistically significant results meaningless. The only significant remaining result in the paper is that glyphosate is detectable on soybeans sprayed with glyphosate, which is hardly a surprise.
Tellingly, both papers cite the now retracted Séralini study. It was retracted a month before the Bøhn study was submitted for review but it was notorious for a year before that.
Open-Access is a double-edged sword. While it's good to ease the dissemination of knowledge, the Author-pays model leads to the existence of publishers that will publish anything, regardless of its merit. Scientific Research Publishing is one of those: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

I suspect both papers were written with two purposes in mind:

1. To seed sensational reporting of "nothing" results, such as this article.

2. Increasing citation counts of their buddies.

They certainly weren't trying to increase the sum of human knowledge.

agelbert reply to David Keech


I suspect the precautionary principle has left your mind and your vocabulary. That is, if that time tested principle of the scientific approach to innovation was ever part of your profit over planet mindset.

We have FOOD that got to be the way it is BECAUSE of many reasons that our science STILL DOES NOT UNDERSTAND!

WE are the product of that food. Fuc king around with the genome of life forms REQUIRES generational studies! We HAVE NOT done that with GMO. You know that and you DON'T CARE because you and people like you have shi t canned the PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE in blatant disregard for the scientific method.

In a single tomato, there are THOUSANDS of enzymes that we STILL haven't discovered the biochemical pathways of. It is hubris, and extremely dangerous hubris at that, to believe we have the nutritional package of our food "all figured out".

Your analysis is criminally and irresponsibly flawed. I will trust nature's hundreds of thousands of years of engineering for LIFE before I will trust Monsanto's few decades of engineering for PROFIT!

Will reply to agelbert


You said "In a single tomato, there are THOUSANDS of enzymes that we STILL haven't discovered the biochemical pathways of."

That is true.

The reason you are going to have trouble convincing a biologist that GMOs are inherently dangerous, or more dangerous than traditionally modified plants (through selective breeding) is the fact that every organism is made up of hundreds of thousands of different proteins, most of which we don't fully understand.
Think about this, when an organic farmer creates a new variety of a crop, what has happened is they have engineered the plant's DNA to express certain proteins differently that the original plant, so, out of the hundreds of thousand of proteins and unknown number of those proteins have been altered in mostly unknown way. It is always possible that some of those new, randomly generated proteins will have a negative effect on human health. Breeders don't really think about that because after thousands of years of randomly altering a plants DNA through selective breeding, people aren't showing up sick because of it. Most of our modern crops were created using this random process.

Contrast a traditionally altered plant with a plant that was altered in a lab and you will begin to see why it is so difficult to convince a biologist that GMOs (in general) are more dangerous than traditionally modified plants.

A GMO plant is a plant where, out of the hundreds of thousand of proteins, no more than a few protein in that plant have been engineered into the plant by people who already have a better understanding of those proteins than an organic farmer has of the dozens of new proteins that show up in a new traditionally bred variety of plant.

By the logic you are using every single new variety of seed (whether organic or GMO) should be put through the same gauntlet of tests that we put new drugs through.

Should we be concerned about ALL new varieties of crops? Should we make a label to signify "this is a new variety of plant, and contains proteins (chemicals) that have not been thoroughly studied."for every single new variety of plant?

agelbert reply to Will


The logic I am using is the precautionary principle. You want to dance around it by citing the complexity of cellular mechanisms in biota. You wish to ignore the facts about how what we eat is governed more by short term profits, pseudo scientific nutrition marketing hype and outright labeling falsehoods on behalf of corporate profit.

Let's stick to our history of degrading the nutrition in the human food supply by using mechanistic reductionist "scientific" stupidity like fossil fuel based fertilizers and pesticides. The fertilizers themselves, though they produce larger plant products, actually have LESS nutrition due the FACT, as established by several U.N. studies, that essential trace minerals are lacking in them.

Plants need a LOT MORE than a chemical co cktail of  nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium (NPK), as any plant biologist not working for big Ag (or/and Monsanto) is keenly aware of.

The Empathy Deficit Disordered segment of our scientists (thank God there ARE scientists who actually do care about human nutrition) did ZERO to request a detailed study of the ACTUAL nutritive value of the "higher yield" crops produced by monoculture, high pesticide, high chemical fertilizer, high fossil fuel, soil degrading industrial "modern" farming.

And then it got worse. Those same scientists who couldn't seem to measure anything but the APPEARANCE and the WEIGHT of the crops, decided to GMO the life forms so they would produce their own pesticide/herbicide. Yes, in nature there are several plant varieties that use certain chemical defense mechanisms to compete for space and nutrition with other plants as well as produce certain toxins to ward off animals. But that is NOT what the Monsanto scientists were mimicking, regardless of what their feverish, profit orientated and empirical data challenged minds believed.

They were VERY SPECIFIC in the GMO product. They were so SPECIFIC, that they patented it. That flies totally in the face of your "logic" that claims that we can't test for "everything". Sorry, we not only CAN test a patented product, we MUST test it.

In fact, Monsanto DOES TEST THEIR GMOs THOROUGHLY. They just keep the results secret. Monsanto had no difficulty whatsoever testing hither and yon to find out if somebody is growing "their" (wind blown seeds and whatnot) product in order to sue a farmer. Monsanto had no difficulty extensively testing the short term effects on life forms that ate the GMO and deep sixing all the "negative" data about  carcinogenic effects. You don't want to go there. That is dissembling. Shame on you.

But, just for the hell of it, let us say that you have a valid point and we just "can't afford" (that's what it's all about to you, isn't it?) to spend money on testing all the many and varied genetic changes in plant products that we eat.

WHY then, do we ONLY have a small sample of the over 250 excellent and highly nutritious (for thousands of years!) vegetable and fruit products routinely eaten by humans reach our food markets?

Because of the "magic" of the marketplace? NOPE. It's because of an INTENSIVE STUDY by the food marketing industry to find the hardiest fruit and vegetables that could be harvested and shipped with low spoilage. This occurred mostly at the beginning of the 20th century. They didn't give a good God Damn how nutritious they were. They just looked for human eye appeal, general taste appeal and ease of shipping, PERIOD.

Advertising and hype took care of the rest. Then, AND ONLY THEN (not before the product was selected, as should have been the case in a sane world that relies on science for nutrition facts) were the scientists brought in to tell us all about the potassium in bananas, the vitamin C in oranges and so on. NEVER MIND that there are fruit MUCH HIGHER in potassium than bananas. NEVER MIND that there are fruit with FAR MORE vitamin C than oranges,

The end result of this poverty of plant products in our markets is monoculture plaguing the biosphere and conscience free scientists out to make said plant species into drought tolerant, pesticide resistant super plants with no care WHATSOEVER about the long term effects on human health and nutrition, never mind the deleterious effects of massive monoculture on the biosphere.

For example, virtually all HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) is made from DENT CORN. Dent corn is NOT edible.

Did you know that? Did you know we grow more Dent corn than the "sweet" corn edible types by several orders of magnitude? Did you know that ALL Dent corn is GMOed corn? Did you know that it is impossible to rid HFCS of all the DNA from the plant it was derived from? Did you know that over two THOUSAND processed foods in our supermarkets have HFCS made from DENT CORN in them? Do you think that's A-fuc king-OKAY?

Yeah, you probably do. It's just fine to run an uncontrolled experiment on humans but it's "too hard" and "too complicated" to go back to the over 250 vegetable and fruit products found in nature that could enhance human health, nutrition and vitality.

I don't think you have absolutely any basis for your reasoning except short term profit. That is not science; that is conscience free greed.

« Last Edit: July 29, 2015, 06:03:47 pm by AGelbert »
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

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 36274
  • Location: Colchester, Vermont
    • Renwable Revolution
Re: Pollution
« Reply #227 on: July 20, 2015, 02:30:46 pm »
13 Arrested Blockading Crestwood Gate With Giant Replica of Pope Francis’ Encyclical

We Are Seneca Lake | July 20, 2015 12:50 pm

In an act of civil disobedience against gas storage in Seneca Lake salt caverns, 13 Finger Lakes residents, led by local members of the Ithaca Catholic Worker Movement, formed a human blockade shortly after sunrise this morning at the north entrance of Crestwood Midstream on Route 14. 


Schuyler County deputies arrested the 13 people blockading Crestwood’s gate shortly after 9:30 a.m. today as they sang and read from the Pontifical document. Photo credit: We Are Seneca Lake


 
http://ecowatch.com/2015/07/20/crestwood-pope-francis-encyclical/
« Last Edit: July 24, 2015, 07:11:18 pm by AGelbert »
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

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 36274
  • Location: Colchester, Vermont
    • Renwable Revolution
Re: Pollution
« Reply #228 on: July 24, 2015, 07:04:42 pm »
House passes bill to stop states from requiring GMO labels   

SNIPPET:

Quote
Gov. Peter Shumlin, who signed Vermont’s GMO law, said the fight by lobbyists in Washington would galvanize consumers in favor of such mandates. His office called Vermont “ground zero” in the fight to institute GMO labeling.

“Monsanto and their corporate food allies have millions of dollars to dedicate to this fight, and today’s vote shows that they are quite skilled in using those vast resources to buy votes in Congress,” Shumlin said in a statement.

What the corporation couldn’t do, he said, was win the war.

“Millions of Americans are demanding the right to know what is in their food. And every time Monsanto fights tooth and nail to deny people that right, all they do is grow the ranks of ordinary Americans,” Shumlin said. “So this message is for Monsanto: Bring it on.”

http://vtdigger.org/2015/07/23/house-passes-bill-to-stop-states-from-requiring-gmo-labels/

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

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 36274
  • Location: Colchester, Vermont
    • Renwable Revolution
Re: Pollution
« Reply #229 on: July 25, 2015, 05:33:08 pm »
Vandana Shiva: ‘We Must End Monsanto’s Colonization, It’s Enslavement of Farmers’  


Dr. Vandana Shiva | July 25, 2015 10:39 am

 
Excellent and detailed article PLUS Monsanto Trolls get their asses handed to them in the comments section.  ;D

http://ecowatch.com/2015/07/25/vandana-shiva-end-monsanto/



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

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 36274
  • Location: Colchester, Vermont
    • Renwable Revolution
Re: Pollution
« Reply #230 on: July 29, 2015, 06:01:21 pm »
9 Ways Climate Change Is Making Us Sick

Yes, climate change is causing hurricanes, droughts and making sea level rise. But it’s also making us sick. Illnesses related to a warming planet are on the rise. Here are nine specific maladies related to climate change that could be affecting you or those you love and five ways for dealing with them.

http://ecowatch.com/2015/07/29/climate-change-making-us-sick/
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

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 36274
  • Location: Colchester, Vermont
    • Renwable Revolution
Re: Pollution
« Reply #231 on: July 30, 2015, 06:43:32 pm »
THURSDAY, July 30, 2015     

MAKING WAVES IN THE SHIPPING INDUSTRY


Maritime shipping produces some 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon War Room's Shipping Efficiency operation and its A to G GHG Emissions Rating are changing that. 

Quote
They noted that one ship — often worth tens of millions of dollars — is the equivalent of a power station on the water, with some of the world’s largest vessels emitting as much SOx, for example, as one million cars.  :o  :( Improve ships, and you could flip a significant amount of carbon and other emissions.


If the maritime shipping industry were a country it would be among the top ten producers of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions globally.




https://medium.com/solutions-journal-summer-2015/making-waves-in-the-shipping-industry-8fc692432ff





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

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 36274
  • Location: Colchester, Vermont
    • Renwable Revolution
Re: Pollution
« Reply #232 on: July 31, 2015, 08:30:49 pm »


How Much Salt Is Used to Treat Roads in the US?

Over 40 million tons of salt is used in the US each year in a variety of applications. Roughly 30% of that salt, or around 12 million tons, is used in the process of de-icing roads.

Salt can assist snow-fighters in clearing roads, as it lowers the temperature at which water can freeze. Using salt on roads was a method first adopted state-wide by New Hampshire in the early 1940s and rapidly spread throughout the United States over the 50s and 60s.

While using salt is currently the cheapest method of de-icing highways and is considered very effective at reducing accident rates, it does have drawbacks. Primarily, the introduction of so much salt into waterways each year can disrupt ecosystems and lead to contamination of drinking water supplies. 

More about salt:

•The US produces the majority of the salt it consumes, through mining, solar evaporation and vacuum evaporation.

•The salt mine underneath Detroit was started in 1906 and is currently around 1160 feet deep, covering an area of over 1500 acres.  :o


•Ancient Roman legionnaires were paid in salt, and this is thought to be the origin of the word "salary".



http://www.wisegeek.com/how-much-salt-is-used-to-treat-roads-in-the-us.htm

SALT, like Carbon Dioxide, is THERE for a GOOD reason. We just need to know how much is too much.



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

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 36274
  • Location: Colchester, Vermont
    • Renwable Revolution
Re: Pollution
« Reply #233 on: August 05, 2015, 06:49:53 pm »
Quote
"Slide 8 Population growth, consumption and production patterns
It is important to highlight that it is not population levels per se that are the main cause of environmental degradation, but rather the associated consumption and production patterns. An important challenge in terms of environmental management is to find an appropriate balance in terms of inter and intra-generation equity: how to meet the basic needs of the existing population (such as food, shelter, health, education, and clothing), without unduly impacting on the capacity of future generations to meet their own needs.

As is highlighted in some of the following slides, finding this balance will require significant innovation in terms of our current production and consumption patterns."   


  Module 2: The business case for the Global Compact Environmental Principles (PDF - 305 KB)  Slide 9 The 20% of the world’s population living in the highest income countries are responsible for 86% of total private consumption compared with the poorest 20%, who account for only 1.3%.

Here's the Power Point slide show. You need power point software to view it.

The Global Compact Environmental Principles Training Package - Complete set of training modules, case studies, sources for further information and PowerPoint slides related to each of the module sessions (M2 (Module 2) Session 1: has the slide you are looking for).   

Please pass it on.  Too many people are woefully misinformed. Consequently, they are scapegoating the poor masses of the planet, to the joy of the main polluters.   


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

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 36274
  • Location: Colchester, Vermont
    • Renwable Revolution
Re: Pollution
« Reply #234 on: August 07, 2015, 11:50:28 pm »


The fossil fuel government has the fossil fuel (welfare queen) industry's back!  And OUR our wallet!   


Quote
Did you know you could get billions of dollars from the US government to be in the oil business? Or the coal industry? Or fracking? In this satirical infomercial, famous American government grant guru Matthew Lesko shows how you too can get billions of dollars from the government to destroy the environment!

• Seriously, fossil fuel companies are racking in billions from subsidies. Learn more here.


• This is part of our comedy series, Climate change: too hot to handle

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/video/2015/aug/07/fossil-fuels-govenment-subsidies-satire-video
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

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 36274
  • Location: Colchester, Vermont
    • Renwable Revolution
Re: Pollution
« Reply #235 on: August 11, 2015, 06:49:50 pm »
Divestment Goes Global

The student movement to defund the fossil fuel industry graduates and goes to work.

By Rosie Spinks

http://sierraclub.org/sierra/2015-5-september-october/feature/divestment-goes-global
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

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 36274
  • Location: Colchester, Vermont
    • Renwable Revolution
Re: Pollution
« Reply #236 on: August 12, 2015, 06:45:04 pm »
08/11/2015 03:46 PM     
New Zealand Waves Goodbye to Coal 

SustainableBusiness.com News

New Zealand made a big announcement: the era of coal is about to end.


 In late 2018, the last two coal-fired power plants will shut down.

"Historically coal has played an important role in ensuring the security of New Zealand's electricity supply, particularly in dry years where our hydro-lake levels are low. But significant market investment in other forms of renewable energy in recent years, particularly in geothermal, means that a coal backstop is becoming less of a requirement," explains Simon Bridges, Minister of Energy and Resources.

The utility, Genesis Energy, decided to close the plants because of the "development of lower cost renewable generation, principally wind and geothermal, investment in the HVDC link, and relatively flat growth in consumer and industrial demand for electricity," says CEO Albert Brantley.

Coal Emissions

 "Advance notice of the unit closures will give the energy industry time to consider further investment in renewables," says Bridges, noting that significant geothermal projects have been approved and are waiting for development.

Hydro is the main source of electricity, and combined with geothermal (about 14%), supplied 80% of power last year. Geothermal is growing rapidly, surpassing natural gas for the first time in 2014. The goal is to run on 90% renewable electricity by 2025.

 New Zealand greatly lags developed nations for solar with just 13 megawatts because of the lack of any policy support. The industry is expected to begin growing anyway now prices are so low  ;D, but right now a mere 13 MW is installed, according to Renewable Energy World. 

 Last month, New Zealand submitted a fairly weak climate target to the UN - emission cuts of 30% by 2030 from 2005 levels. 46% of emissions come from agriculture (even though it leads on organic acreage), in contrast to 11% in most developed countries, according to the Ministry for the Environment. The country has been running a cap-and-trade system since 2010, but it doesn't include agriculture.

http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/26404
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

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 36274
  • Location: Colchester, Vermont
    • Renwable Revolution
Re: Pollution
« Reply #237 on: August 13, 2015, 07:40:07 pm »
If I gave you that impression AG, then you misconstrued what I was trying to say. I view your comments as extremely valuable, and I always listen to them.

Eddie,
I guess I misconstrued your comments. My point is that the status quo is corrupt. It appeared that you were concerned that eroding the authority and legitimacy of the EPA was a bad thing. If they weren't corrupted by profit over planet polluting bastards, that would be the case. It's not. They have a revolving door in the EPA too, you know. I can prove it. To state that "they are a Federal Agency" is true. But to state that while not adding that they are now a kowtowing tool of polluter corporations ignores their 24/7 role in socializing environmental costs and privatizing profits for MKing's pals.

In its early days, the EPA did some good. They cleaned up a lot of rivers, cleaned up sites like Love Canal and St. Joe Mining. Somewhere along the road to Reaganomics, it seems to have turned into what you describe.

Two things desperately need to happen.

(a) the people must be informed about what has happened to the EPA. 


(b) we need to transform it or eliminate it.   


Item (a) is just a means to accomplish (b), and if we choose to eliminate it,  we should then replace it with something that works to protect people and planet.

Rise Up!!

JRM,
A good place to start is Josh Fox, maker of Gasland one and two.. If you didn't see Gasland, please do. It predicted the kind of environmental poison sandwich we are experiencing, as well as documenting the fracking poison sandwich that MKing never stops defending.

Quote

Leading Environmentalist: EPA an Oil Industry Mouthpiece
 
'Gasland' director Josh Fox calls fracking study ‘proof of the widespread, systemic contamination of our regulatory bodies’

BY:  Lachlan Markay   
June 8, 2015 5:00 am

Anti-energy activist and documentarian Josh Fox believes the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency is shilling for fossil fuel companies.

“They will stick with the industry till all our water is contaminated, our air polluted and climate change has made our planet unlivable,” the filmmaker director said on Friday following the release of a widely anticipated EPA study on the environmental impacts of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

The innovative oil and gas extraction technique has no “widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water,” the agency found. There were isolated incidents of water contamination among the wells tested, but “the number of identified cases … was small compared to the number of hydraulically fractured wells.”

Fox dismissed the findings in a column on the website EcoWatch.

“What the EPA presented to the public yesterday was PR, not science and proof of the widespread, systemic contamination of our regulatory bodies by the oil and gas industry,” Fox wrote.

“It is clear that EPA is a political agency not a scientific one,” he wrote on Twitter.

Fox is one of the country’s most high-profile anti-fracking activists. His 2011 documentary Gasland was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary and won a number of other awards.

The film claimed that fracked natural gas wells had contaminated nearby drinking water supplies. It gained broad attention for footage of a Colorado resident igniting the water coming from his kitchen faucet.

The Colorado town where the scene was filmed had reported naturally occurring methane in its drinking water for decades, before any wells in the area were hydraulically fractured. Fox later said he was aware of that fact, but didn’t include it in the film because “it’s not relevant.”

EPA’s study directly undercuts Fox’s case for water contamination. Gas from fractured shale formations is “unlikely to extend upward from these deep formations into shallow drinking water aquifers,” the study found.

Fox accused EPA of “burying the science with a misleading headline that supports the Obama Administration’s pro-fracking policies rather than reveal the true dangers of fracking.”

He has previously said that rolling electricity blackouts would be preferable to the use of hydraulic fracturing for energy extraction.

http://freebeacon.com/issues/leading-environmentalist-epa-an-oil-industry-mouthpiece/

The EPA is THOROUGHLY infiltrated (as in COOPTED) by the polluting corporations, be they fossil fuel, nuclear power, mining, chemical or pharmaceutical industries. Predatory Capitalism is the cause, NOT "inefficient" gooberment.
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

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 36274
  • Location: Colchester, Vermont
    • Renwable Revolution
Re: Pollution
« Reply #238 on: August 16, 2015, 04:23:37 pm »
Agelbert NOTE: Remember the old "but, but we LIVE LONGER. That's why we get more diseases  " EXCUSE the profit over planet polluters have always given? An objective scientific study confirms IT'S NOT TRUE!

The Reason Brain Diseases Have Quadrupled in 21 Years

Given the power of modern medicine, why have brain diseases increased by four times?

Rates of brain diseases are increasing at almost epidemic rates, especially in the US, a new study reports.

Researchers have compared figures for neurological disease from 1989 with those from 2010 across 21 Western countries.

They found that dementia is starting, on average, a decade earlier in 2010 than it was in 1989.

In the US, the figures are particularly worrying.

Women over 75 are suffering five times as many neurological deaths as they were two decades ago.

The same comparison for men over 75 shows a three-fold increase in neurological deaths.

Professor Colin Pritchard, who led the study, said: “The rate of increase in such a short time suggests a silent or even a ‘hidden’ epidemic, in which environmental factors must play a major part, not just aging.

Modern living produces multi-interactional environmental pollution but the changes in human morbidity, including neurological disease is remarkable and points to environmental influences.”

Professor Pritchard continued: “In part, some of the results are explained by more effective treatments for cancer and heart disease, with advances in medicine making such physical illnesses easier to treat, whilst there have been less advances in the treatment of neurological conditions.

Crucially it is not just because people are living longer to get diseases  they previously would not have lived long enough to develop  but older people are developing neurological disease more than ever before.

The environmental changes in the last 20 years have seen increases in the human environment of petro-chemicals — air transport- quadrupling of motor vehicles, insecticides and rises in background electro-magnetic-field, and so on.

These results will not be welcome news as there are many with short-term vested interests that will want to ignore them.


It is not that we want to stop the modern world but rather make it safer.

Essentially, it is time for us to wake up and realize that a major problem we now face is unprecedented levels of neurological disease, not just the earlier dementias and thinking of the USA — `when America sneezes, Europe gets cold a decade later.” The study was published in the journal Surgical Neurology International (Pritchard & Rosenorn-Lanng, 2015).

http://www.spring.org.uk/2015/08/the-reason-brain-diseases-have-quadrupled-in-21-years.php

Quote
"The core responsibility assigned to governments in democracies is the public welfare, protecting the human birthright to basic needs: clean air, water, land, and a place to live, under equitable rules of access to all common property resources.

It is astonishing to discover that major political efforts in democracies can be turned to undermining the core purpose of government, destroying the factual basis for fair and effective protection of essential common property resources of all to feed the financial interests of a few.

These efforts, limiting scientific research on environment, denying the validity of settled facts and natural laws, are a shameful dance, far below acceptable or reputable political behavior. It can be treated not as a reasoned alternative, but scorned for what it is – simple thievery." —George M. Woodwell, Woods Hole Research Center founder


Agelbert NOTE: Now, to the LONG LIST of the "EXTERNALIZED" costs gifted us by the Empathy Deficit Disordered "greed is good" crowd, we must add a three to five fold increase in neurological diseases. 


The Fossil Fuelers   DID THE Climate Trashing, human health depleteing CRIME,   but since they have ALWAYS BEEN liars and conscience free crooks, they are trying to AVOID   DOING THE TIME or     PAYING THE FINE!     Don't let them get away with it! Pass it on!
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

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 36274
  • Location: Colchester, Vermont
    • Renwable Revolution
Re: Pollution
« Reply #239 on: August 16, 2015, 07:28:05 pm »
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

 

+-Recent Topics

Future Earth by AGelbert
March 30, 2022, 12:39:42 pm

Key Historical Events ...THAT YOU MAY HAVE NEVER HEARD OF by AGelbert
March 29, 2022, 08:20:56 pm

The Big Picture of Renewable Energy Growth by AGelbert
March 28, 2022, 01:12:42 pm

Electric Vehicles by AGelbert
March 27, 2022, 02:27:28 pm

Heat Pumps by AGelbert
March 26, 2022, 03:54:43 pm

Defending Wildlife by AGelbert
March 25, 2022, 02:04:23 pm

The Koch Brothers Exposed! by AGelbert
March 25, 2022, 01:26:11 pm

Corruption in Government by AGelbert
March 25, 2022, 12:46:08 pm

Books and Audio Books that may interest you 🧐 by AGelbert
March 24, 2022, 04:28:56 pm

COVID-19 🏴☠️ Pandemic by AGelbert
March 23, 2022, 12:14:36 pm