INTERESTING TIMES

Anything else you're interested in is not going to happen if you can't breathe the air and drink the water. Don't sit this one out. Do something. You are by accident of fate alive at an absolutely critical moment in the history of our planet.
--Carl Sagan

Perhaps the reason that his father, Ron Paul, has been successful in congress longterm, is because he has not gone out on the anti-environmental limb. It's a particularly shaky limb. Rand's recent introduction of a bill that would eliminate the inter-state control of air quality by the FDA is running up against the Sierra Club and others. The kid's a rookie, and is going to learn the hard way that the far right agenda has some true weaknesses, not the least of which is an inattention to our quality of life as manifested by our environment.

That's what it sounds like from the letter behind the cut (at bottom), anyway. Then I searched and found that there are some senators working to strengthen the Clean Air Act on some specific pollutants, specifically with regard to coal. And frankly, I'm all for it. We need clean air. Clean air makes all the difference. I come from East Tennessee, the land of acid rain and asthma. And I have lived where the air is clean. I know the difference.

The specific proposals are to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions by 80% by 2018, mono-nitrogen oxides by 53% and mercury by 90% by 2015. I don't know a thing about the technology involved, but if these adjustments ARE technologically feasible we absolutely should require that our plants do them. Even knowing that we have to pay for it. Sulfur dioxide is the main thing that causes acid rain, and acid rain kills the trees and depletes the soil and turns the land into waste. It is the nightmare that people have when they think about nuclear devastation, only it happens. Nitrogen oxide contributes to acid rain. Mercury is just plain old toxic, neurotoxic and hard to get rid of. If we can stop plants from blowing mercury into the air, it won't get rained into the water, and it won't concentrate in the fish or come pouring through our taps. We won't be so poisoned.

Oh, you say, you're not poisoned? Don't check your own heavy metals if you don't want to know.

On the subject of fossil fuel dependence, here's a short history from the Post Carbon Institute.


( this letter from CREDO action in my email inbox today )

When I drove into Oregon a few days ago I noticed a thick white haze over Pendleton. A day or so later I heard on the NPR news that the widespread haze had blown here from extensive fires burning in Russia. Apparently it's ungodly hot there and the peat bogs are burning. Today I learn that people are getting worried that the burns in Russia are sending radioactive particulates into the air that has been stored in the biomass there since the Chernobyl accident 24 years ago. My goodness.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38648372/ns/world_news-the_new_york_times

Frankly, though, we Americans cannot point too many fingers at other nations who've made contaminating mistakes as long as we are actively engaging in toxic warfare for oil: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/toxic-legacy-of-us-assault-on-fallujah-worse-than-hiroshima-2034065.html