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Author Topic: Pollution  (Read 58247 times)

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AGelbert

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Re: Pollution
« Reply #585 on: September 08, 2017, 06:41:05 pm »
 


Harvey: Refineries Spewed 1 Million Lbs. of Seven Air Toxics

Amid Harvey's devastation the Center for Biological Diversity analyzed industry data. We found that south Texas refineries and petrochemical plants released nearly 1 million pounds of seven dangerous air pollutants through flaring and spills during storm flooding.

A staggering 951,000 pounds of pollutants known to seriously harm people — including by causing cancer — were emitted by Aug. 31 from oil and gas facilities. The pollutants are benzene, 1,3-butadiene, hexane, hydrogen sulfide, sulfur dioxide, toluene and xylene.

"Oil-industry facilities spewed tons of truly dangerous chemicals into defenseless communities, despite ample warnings about hurricane risk," said Shaye Wolf, the Center scientist who compiled the analysis. "The petroleum industry seems unwilling to take responsibility for operating safely, even as climate change makes storms like Harvey more destructive."

Full article:
http://www.salon.com/2017/09/07/bigger-stronger-storms-will-mean-more-post-hurricane-pollution-does-trump-even-care/

Agelbert NOTE: Please remember that there is NO ZONING in Houston. So when you look at the following pictures, do not be lulled into thinking that the waters and the air and the ground in those fancy neighborhoods is not being subject to toxic chemicals after the flood, even if the polltion went mostly to the poor and middle class before.


Quote
"We've seen the future and it looks a lot like Houston."  Rhea Suh President, NRDC

The irony for the fossil fuel and chemical industry polluters that set up this toxic profit over people and planet "business friendly" MESS in Houston is that after this storm, all those privileged zip codes (that had a much higher life expentancy than the poorer neighborhoods near the refineries and chemical plants) will NOW be visited with silent, but deadly, attacks on the immune system of the people living there.


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 #586 on: September 09, 2017, 01:31:38 pm »

Study: Ship Emissions Make Thunderstorms More Intense

September 8, 2017 by gCaptain
Photo: Nexus J / Shutterstock

Thunderstorms directly above two of the world’s busiest shipping lanes are significantly more powerful than storms in areas of the ocean where ships don’t travel, according to new University of Washington research.

A new study mapping lightning around the globe finds lightning strokes occur nearly twice as often directly above heavily-trafficked shipping lanes in the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea than they do in areas of the ocean adjacent to shipping lanes that have similar climates.

The difference in lightning activity can’t be explained by changes in the weather, according to the study’s authors, who conclude that aerosol particles emitted in ship exhaust are changing how storm clouds form over the ocean.



The study published Sept. 7 in Geophysical Research Letters is the first to show ship exhaust can alter thunderstorm intensity. The researchers conclude that particles from ship exhaust make cloud droplets smaller, lifting them higher in the atmosphere. This creates more ice particles and leads to more lightning.

The results provide some of the first evidence that humans are changing cloud formation on a nearly continual basis, rather than after a specific incident like a wildfire, according to the authors. Cloud formation can affect rainfall patterns and alter climate by changing how much sunlight clouds reflect to space.

“It’s one of the clearest examples of how humans are actually changing the intensity of storm processes on Earth through the emission of particulates from combustion,” said lead author Joel Thornton, a UW professor of atmospheric sciences.

All combustion engines emit exhaust, which contains microscopic particles of soot and compounds of nitrogen and sulfur. These particles, known as aerosols, form the smog and haze typical of large cities. They also act as cloud condensation nuclei – the seeds on which clouds form. Water vapor condenses around aerosols in the atmosphere, creating droplets that make up clouds.

Cargo ships crossing oceans emit exhaust continuously and scientists can use ship exhaust to better understand how aerosols affect cloud formation.

Co-author Katrina Virts, a former UW postdoctoral researcher who is now an atmospheric scientist at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, was analyzing data from the World Wide Lightning Location Network, a UW-based network of sensors that locates lightning strokes all over the globe, when she noticed a nearly straight line of lightning strokes across the Indian Ocean.

Virts and her colleagues compared the lightning location data to maps of ships’ exhaust plumes from a global database of ship emissions. Looking at the locations of 1.5 billion lightning strokes from 2005 to 2016, the team found nearly twice as many lightning strokes on average over major routes ships take across the northern Indian Ocean, through the Strait of Malacca and into the South China Sea, compared to adjacent areas of the ocean that have similar climates.

“All we had to do was make a map of where the lightning was enhanced and a map of where the ships are traveling and it was pretty obvious just from the co-location of both of those that the ships were somehow involved in enhancing lightning,” Thornton said.

Water molecules need aerosols to condense into clouds. Where the atmosphere has few aerosol particles – over the ocean, for instance – water molecules have fewer particles to condense around, so cloud droplets are large.

When more aerosols are added to the air, like from ship exhaust, water molecules have more particles to collect around. More cloud droplets form, but they are smaller. Being lighter, these smaller droplets travel higher into the atmosphere and more of them reach the freezing line, creating more ice, which creates more lightning. Storm clouds become electrified when ice particles collide with each other and with unfrozen droplets in the cloud. Lightning is the atmosphere’s way of neutralizing that built-up electric charge.


Quote
Ships burn dirtier fuels in the open ocean away from port, spewing more aerosols and creating even more lightning, Thornton said.

“It is the first time we have, literally, a smoking gun, showing over pristine ocean areas that the lightning amount is more than doubling,” said Daniel Rosenfeld, an atmospheric scientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who was not connected to the study. “The study shows, highly unambiguously, the relationship between anthropogenic emissions – in this case, from diesel engines on deep convective clouds.” 


Other co-authors are Robert Holzworth, a UW professor of Earth and space sciences who directs lightning network, and Todd Mitchell, a research meteorologist at the UW’s Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean.

This was originally posted as a press release by the American Geophysical Union.

http://gcaptain.com/study-ship-exhaust-makes-thunderstorms-more-intense/

STOP subsidizing POLLUTION!

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 #587 on: September 12, 2017, 03:01:37 pm »

 

Death of a dynasty: west North America lost over 95% of its monarch butterflies in 35 years

LAST UPDATED ON SEPTEMBER 11TH, 2017 AT 8:45 PM BY ALEXANDRU MICU

SNIPPET:

Quote
“In the 1980s, 10 million monarchs spent the winter in coastal California,” says lead researcher Cheryl Schultz from Washington State University Vancouver. “Today there are barely 300,000.”

“This study doesn’t just show that there are fewer monarchs now than 35 years ago. It also tells us that, if things stay the same, western monarchs probably won’t be around as we know them in another 35 years,” says Schultz.

Full article:

http://www.zmescience.com/science/monarch-butterflies-death-america/

Agelbert NOTE: Big Agriculture in general, and Monsanto in particuar, are DIRECTLY responsible for this wanton destruction of a precious life form. As usual with these scientific articles that do not want to offend the bought and paid for corporate scientists, they claim that "more research is needed to determine the cause".


Monsanto is GUILTY of  directly causing Monarch butterfly habitat loss. HOW? By wreaking herbicide havoc on the Monarch Butterfly life cycle through a decline of the summer milkweed which Monarchs use to reproduce, along with producing the pesticides that kill them outright.
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 #588 on: September 12, 2017, 04:36:19 pm »


This Is Why More Companies Aren’t Disclosing Their Environmental Strategies

September 12, 2017

By Jennifer Delony Associate Editor

       
HSBC today said that 53 percent of companies now have an environmental strategy in place, but only 43 percent actively disclose it. Why is that number so low?   




http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2017/09/this-is-why-more-companies-aren-t-disclosing-their-environmental-strategies.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

AGelbert

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Re: Pollution
« Reply #589 on: September 13, 2017, 01:54:45 pm »
EcoWatch September 13, 2017


Hurricanes Irma and Harvey Cast Spotlight on Toxic Sites In Our Midst
By Diane Carman

SNIPPET:

Our country has just witnessed two of the worst hurricanes in our history and the work of rebuilding shattered lives in Texas, Florida, and elsewhere has barely begun. Toxic cleanup will be a part of the work ahead.

This is an area dotted with oil refineries, chemical plants, Superfund sites and coal-fired power plants. All of these structures represent toxic waste and contamination threats during the best of weather times; with storms, these issues become even more dire.

Full article:

https://www.ecowatch.com/irma-harvey-toxic-sites-2484405562.html


U.S. Air Force Is Spraying 6 Million Acres With Chemicals in Response to Harvey
By Whitney Webb

SNIPPET:

Naled's Toxicity Not Confined to Mosquitoes

While the Pentagon has framed its efforts to "assist" as seeking to eliminate a potential human health risk, the particular chemical it is using to control insect populations is likely to do more harm than good. According to the Air Force, the mosquito control protocol involves spraying the "Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved and regulated material, Naled," which the Air Force insists will not be used in amounts large enough to "cause any concern for human health."

However, the insecticide Naled, manufactured and sold by a strategic partner of Monsanto, is currently banned in the European Union due to the "unacceptable risk" it presents to human health.

Naled is a known neurotoxin in animals and humans, as it inhibits acetylcholinesterase—an enzyme essential to nerve function and communication—and has even been known to have caused paralysis. Mounting scientific evidence, including a recent Harvard study, has also pointed to Naled's responsibility for the mass die-off of North American bees. Just one day of Naled spraying in South Carolina killed more than 2.5 million bees last year.

Full article:

https://www.ecowatch.com/harvey-pesticide-naled-2484385387.html


EPA Grants Florida Utilities Blanket Pollution Waiver After Irma

by Lorraine Chow

SNIPPET:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) granted all Florida power plants a "no action assurance" on Monday as the state tries to turn the lights back on post-Hurricane Irma.

The waiver, given at the request of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and effective through Sept. 26, allows the utilities "to operate without meeting all pollution controls in order to maintain the supply of electricity to customers and critical facilities across the state as a result of Hurricane Irma," EPA said.

But as the Associated Press noted in a report, the waiver basically means that electric companies can get away with violating clean air and water standards without penalty for the next two weeks.

Full article:

https://www.ecowatch.com/epa-irma-2484439400.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

AGelbert

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Re: Pollution
« Reply #590 on: September 14, 2017, 02:55:46 pm »
 


Follow the last 30 years of humanity shaping the planet through the eyes of Google’s Timelapse
LAST UPDATED ON SEPTEMBER 14TH, 2017 AT 7:04 PM BY ALEXANDRU MICU 


SNIPPET:

Timelapse of Miami, Florida. You can see some of the islands disappearing in the lower right.

The drying of the Aral sea, which is regarded as one of the worst environmental disasters in modern history. Originally one of the largest inland seas/lakes in the world, with an area of 68,000 sq km (26,300 sq miles,) by 2014 it had largely dried up. Its eastern basin is now known as the Aralkum Desert.

Colombia Glacier, in Alaska, becoming Colombia Water as average temperatures increase.

It’s an awesome testament to how far we’ve come as a species — but also a terrible sight of how much damage we can unintentionally wreak upon the world around us.    

Full article with graphics referred to above:

http://www.zmescience.com/science/google-timelapse-humanity-earth/
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 #591 on: September 14, 2017, 03:34:47 pm »

Large Oil Spill Washes Ashore in Greece After Tanker Sinks
September 13, 2017 by gCaptain



http://gcaptain.com/oil-slick-washes-ashore-on-greek-island-after-tanker-sinks/

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 #592 on: September 18, 2017, 11:12:18 pm »




Harvey Spilled 22,000 Barrels of Oil and Chemicals , Says Coast Guard

September 16, 2017 by Reuters


http://gcaptain.com/harvey-spilled-22000-barrels-oil-say-coast-guard/







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 #593 on: September 20, 2017, 05:15:43 pm »



Profit Over People and Planet Pollution Sources next to Houston Ship Channel 

Analyzing the 5.5 Million Pounds of Air Pollutants Released in Texas After Harvey
Wednesday, September 20, 2017

By Janine Jackson, FAIR | Interview

SNIPPET:

Janine Jackson: The story of devastating weather events like hurricanes is many stories, really. There's no need to compete; they're all critical. But there is something about the oil industry spurring climate disruption, lobbying against preventative or preparatory measures, and then adding to its harmful impact with their methods of operation. As Texas continues to reel under the effects of Harvey, it's been noted that besides massive flooding, some communities were also faced with dangerous chemicals released into the air by refineries and petrochemical plants.

How did that happen, and what can prevent it from happening again? Our next guest has been investigating that. Shaye Wolf is climate science director for the Center for Biological Diversity. She joins us now by phone from Oakland. Welcome to CounterSpin, Shaye Wolf.

Shaye Wolf: Thank you for having me.



http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/41987-climate-change-is-making-these-facilities-even-more-dangerous
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 #594 on: September 21, 2017, 07:23:19 pm »

EcoWatch

UN Environment Chief:  Make Polluters, Not Taxpayers, Pay For Destroying Nature

Erik Solheim, the head of the United Nations' Environment Program, made an interesting point during a recent speech in New York: Companies, not taxpayers, should pay the costs of damaging the planet.

Quote
"The profit of destroying nature or polluting the planet is nearly always privatized, while the costs of polluting the planet or the cost of destroying ecosystems is nearly always socialized," Solheim said Monday, per Reuters, at the annual International Conference on Sustainable Development at Columbia University.

Quote
"That cannot continue," Solheim added. "Anyone who pollutes, anyone who destroys nature must pay the cost for that destruction or that pollution. "

In a recent article, climate experts Peter C. Frumhoff and Myles R. Allen argue that companies like Exxon and other Big Oil and Gas giants—which purportedly knew about the link between fossil fuels and climate change for decades—should shoulder the billions of dollars in damages caused by extreme weather events such as hurricanes that are exacerbated by Earth's rising's temperatures.


Frumhoff and Allen write:

Using a simple, well-established climate model, our study for the first time quantifies the amount of sea level rise and increase in global surface temperatures that can be traced to the emissions from specific fossil fuel companies.

Strikingly, nearly 30% of the rise in global sea level between 1880 and 2010 resulted from emissions traced to the 90 largest carbon producers. Emissions traced to the 20 companies named in California communities' lawsuits contributed 10% of global sea level rise over the same period. More than 6% of the rise in global sea level resulted from emissions traced to ExxonMobil, Chevron and BP, the three largest contributors.

The scientists point out: "It may take tens to hundreds of billions of dollars to support disaster relief and recovery among Gulf coast communities affected by Hurricane Harvey. ExxonMobil, Chevron and BP have collectively pledged only $2.75m." 


During his comments in New York, Solheim noted that economic growth and environmental preservation are not mutually exclusive. In India, for example, the promotion of renewable energy is bringing human health and environmental benefits as well as spurring the economy.

"Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi realized he can electrify the villages and provide any number of green jobs—he can provide high economic growth, he can take care of his people, and take care of the planet by the same policies," said Solheim.

Solheim said that a "pollution-free planet" is achievable but the world must take immediate action to meet that goal.

"Change is happening," he said. "Economic-wise, we are on the right track, but we need to speed up because the challenge is so big."

https://www.ecowatch.com/u-n-environment-chief-2487568725.html

Quote
Kae Bender  · Editor at EverydayEditing.com

Interesting point? No, it's a logical and long overdue point that companies should clean up their messes. It's a cost of doing business that these corporations have too long ignored with the tacit understanding that if they make a big enough disaster, taxpayers will step in. Really, there's NO logic or rationale to that except they have the politicians in their pockets. It's time to change that dynamic and put the people back in charge.

Agelbert NOTE: Fossil Fuel Industry reaction to above irrefutable scientific evidence that they are dangerously, and delberately, degrading our biosphere for short term profit (see below):


The Fossil Fuelers DID THE Clean Energy  Inventions suppressing, Climate Trashing, human health depleting 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

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Re: Pollution
« Reply #595 on: September 21, 2017, 08:05:39 pm »
Oil Tanker Grounds on Scheldt River After Run-In with Bulk Carrier


MT Seatrout aground on Scheldt river. Photo: Port of Antwerp Authority

September 20, 2017 by Mike Schuler

A 188-meter oil tanker ran aground on the Western Scheldt while departing the Port of Antwerp on Wednesday following a close encounter with a bulk carrier, according to reports.

The Port of Antwerp posted pictures showing the German-flagged MT Seatrout aground at low tide near Bath, Netherlands. After closing the port to vessels less than 200m, tugs helped refloat the tanker at high tide and the ship was brought to Vlissingen for inspection.

The MT Seatrout after refloating.

According to some media reports, the Seatrout may have had a close encounter or even a minor collision with a bulk carrier which led to the grounding.

A look at AIS shows the Seatrout was outbound on the Scheldt when it ran aground at the Bath corner at about 03:43 UTC:


The second vessel in the incident has been identified as the 225-meter MV Usolie, a Liberian-flagged bulk carrier.

AIS data from the Usolie shows it was also outbound on the river and in the vicinity of the grounding at the same time as the incident (03:43 UTC):


Both vessels were in ballast the time of the incident, AIS showed.

As of 19:00 UTC showed that the MV Usolie had already left the Scheldt for its next destination.

So far no damage has been reported to either vessel.

Coincidentally, MT Seatrout ran aground in nearly the exact same location where the large containership CSCL Jupiter ran aground in August.

CSCL Jupiter hard aground on river Scheldt near Bath, Netherlands, August 14, 2017. Photo: Anton v/d Aarssen

AIS screenshot shows the CSCL Jupiter’s track before the grounding. Credit: MarineTraffic.com

http://gcaptain.com/oil-tanker-grounds-on-scheldt-river-after-run-in-with-bulk-carrier/



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 #596 on: September 22, 2017, 03:47:33 pm »
Greenpeace Activists Scale Car Carrier in Thames Estuary  

September 21, 2017 by Reuters


SNIPPET:

By Costas Pitas LONDON, Sept 21 (Reuters) – Greenpeace activists boarded a ship arriving in Britain on Thursday to stop the delivery of more than 1,000 Volkswagen cars from Germany while others sought to immobilize vehicles at a port in anti-diesel protests.

VW admitted cheating diesel emissions tests in 2015, triggering political and consumer pressure that has caused a slump in sales of diesel cars in major markets, with governments announcing plans to ban vehicles powered by conventional combustion engines.

full article:

http://gcaptain.com/greenpeace-activists-scale-car-carrier-in-thames-estuary/
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 #597 on: September 29, 2017, 07:38:12 pm »
SEP 28, 2017 TD ORIGINALS

Trump's  Cruel Indifference to Puerto Rico

"Puerto Rico is Trump’s Katrina, times 1,000,” says Rosa Clemente, comparing the aftermath of Hurricane Maria to the humanitarian crisis in New Orleans in 2005.

Clemente is a community organizer active with Black Lives Matter and a doctoral candidate in the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, although she is best known for her 2008 Green Party vice presidential candidacy.

With family members in Puerto Rico, Clemente knows through direct testimony how desperate circumstances are in the U.S. territory right now. “This is 3.5 million human beings that, in a couple of days, if relief is not provided, we’re going to see massive amounts of deaths,” she explained to me in an interview earlier this week.

When the storm made landfall in Puerto Rico on Sept. 20, President Trump issued a single brief tweet to Gov. Ricardo Rosselló: “We are with you and the people of Puerto Rico. Stay safe!” He then spent his weekend manufacturing a controversy over NFL players who were protesting racism by refusing to stand during the national anthem. He first raised the issue at a campaign speech for a fellow Republican in Alabama on Sept. 22, and went on to engage in a massive tweet storm through Monday, in what some speculated was an attempt to rally his base in the face of flagging poll numbers.

Finally, five days after his initial tweet about the island, Trump published a series of three more tweets that were incredibly callous. “Much of the island was destroyed, with billions of dollars owed to Wall Street and the banks, which, sadly, must be dealt with,” the tweets said. For the president to bring up Puerto Rico’s economic crisis and its debt to corporate America during a time of tremendous suffering is shocking, even for Trump. The fact that he accompanied this statement with very little action to actually help Puerto Ricans intensified the cruelty of his words.

“Everything [Trump] says enrages Puerto Ricans in the diaspora like me. It should be enraging everyone,” Clemente says. While a majority of Puerto Ricans have been without power, water or cellphone service for nearly a week, Trump’s White House decided to wait until nearly two weeks after the hurricane hit to even consider an aid package. Waiting that long means that “a lot of people are going to die,” Clemente believes.

“What’s going to happen, I think, in the next 48 hours is panic,” she said. “Full-on panic.”

On Tuesday—seven days after the hurricane hit the island—Trump rolled out a public relations effort, supported by heads of government agencies, to convince reporters that his administration is taking action. He then raised the issue at a press conference, where he mostly bragged, saying, “Everybody has said it’s amazing, the job we’ve done in Puerto Rico.” He concluded by announcing that he would visit the island a whole week later.

Puerto Rico today is ground zero for American disaster capitalism. The electrical grid, which, Trump lamented, “was in terrible shape,” was neglected because the Republican Gov. Rosselló “for the last two years has been paying the debt as opposed to fixing the electrical grid,” Clemente says. The island’s crumbling infrastructure was apparently less important than its debt repayments. Then, the hurricane hit and Puerto Rico went dark. The governor estimates it could take months to restore power.

On the mainland, Puerto Rico rarely enters into our national consciousness, even though it has a population greater than more than half the states in the nation—roughly the same as Connecticut.

“Because Puerto Ricans have always been relegated to second-class citizenship, I even wonder how many Americans know that Puerto Ricans are American citizens,” Clemente says. A new poll answers her question: Only 54 percent of Americans realize that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens.

What Puerto Rico needs immediately is action from the executive branch. If Trump cared even slightly about Puerto Ricans, not only would he expedite the aid package, he would have immediately suspended the Jones Act, a shipping restriction that prevents nations from docking at Puerto Rico’s ports and directly delivering aid. The Trump administration’s initial refusal to grant a waiver for the rule invited harsh criticism from his fellow Republican, Arizona’s Sen. John McCain, who called it “unacceptable” in a letter to the Department of Homeland Security.

But Trump cited economic interests as being more important than actual human beings—he initially justified keeping the restriction in place by saying, “We have a lot of shippers and a lot of people … who work in the shipping industry that don’t want the Jones Act lifted.”

Only under massive public pressure did he decide to lift the restrictions on Thursday.

Puerto Ricans had to wait more than a week after the hurricane hit before their colonial master decided to allow supplies to be shipped directly to the island. Just as it is impossible to separate Puerto Rico’s economic crisis from its status as a U.S. territory, it is impossible to disentangle the devastation of the hurricane from the man-made disaster stemming from the island’s subservient relationship with the U.S.

With Trump in charge, there is a deep irony about the U.S. government’s inaction. First, as Clemente points out, “Because we’re a colony, we can’t even file for bankruptcy. Meanwhile, the president was able to file for personal bankruptcy four times in his life to start over.”

Second, Trump himself is part of the problem in Puerto Rico’s economy. His business made money from taking over a failing golf course on the island. After promising to turn it around, Trump International called it quits. Snopes.com explains: “His role in the bankruptcy of the company, which ended up costing Puerto Rican taxpayers $32.6 million, was significant but limited.” Corporations similar to Trump’s have taken advantage of subsidies and handouts in Puerto Rico, leaving islanders saddled with more problems and more debt.

More than 10 years ago, musician Kanye West remarked that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” during a fundraising telethon for victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. Clemente expressed similar sentiments about Trump this week. “He is a soulless human being. He has no empathy. He does not care,” she says.

Although so far Hurricane Maria has caused fewer deaths in Puerto Rico than Hurricane Katrina caused on the U.S. mainland, in Clemente’s eyes the scale of the catastrophe facing Puerto Ricans potentially eclipses that of Katrina and its aftermath. “When I went down to New Orleans and to the areas affected by the levee breach, we weren’t talking about millions of people [as we are with Puerto Rico],” she said. “Look at what that slow response did, how many people died, how many people were never able to come back.”

The government’s botched response to hurricane damage in New Orleans caused devastation that the city never fully recovered from. Today, Puerto Rico faces a proportionately larger dilemma. Clemente warns: “It’s a crisis of epic proportions that we’ve probably never seen in this country.”

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/trumps-cruel-indifference-puerto-rico/

Agelbert COMMENT: Still another "once in 500 year event" in less than a MONTH!

How long are we going to let bought and paid for TOOLS of the fossil fuel Industry like TRUMP continue to pretend that we can continue the profit over planet business as usual of burning fossil fuels?

Catastrophic Global Warming is here and will only get WORSE!

"When we are swiftly shuttling ourselves down the path of irreversible climate cataclysm, the only unreasonable option is to double down on the status quo."

Quote
"There is a nice legal concept called estoppel. If you argue that you didn't kill the Major in the library with the Ming vase because you were in bed with his wife, you are estopped from pleading self-defence. In the same way, polluters are estopped from arguing that they were only complying with public policy as laid down in the law, because they spent tens of millions shaping those policies and laws to their advantage." James Wimberley

Quote
“Subsidizing fossil fuel companies in the face of rapid climate change is like spraying jet fuel on a burning home. To put out the fire, we must first stop making the problem worse,” Doukas continued. “Ignoring the problem just because fossil fuel industry mascots like Trump demand it is like agreeing to take the warning labels off of cigarettes because they offend Joe Camel. Our leaders must act now to stop burning our tax dollars and stop trashing the climate.”
« Last Edit: September 29, 2017, 10:48:22 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

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Re: Pollution
« Reply #598 on: October 11, 2017, 02:17:03 pm »


Germany set to widely miss climate targets, env ministry warns

     


DETAILS AT LINK:

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/climate-targets-grave-danger-union-wants-energiewende-ministry
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 #599 on: October 11, 2017, 08:59:05 pm »
 

October 11, 2017
'Unprecedented' California Wildfires: 21 Dead, More than 500 Missing

Despite studies linking increasing wildfires to climate change, the Trump administration scrapped an important Obama-era climate regulation this week--just as deadly wildfires spread across Northern California.


http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=20198


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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