Environment Archives

 

National Research Council & Clear Skies

The National Research Council, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences, has released a study that says that reduction in air pollution "could be accelerated by a 'multi-state, multi-pollutant' approach that sets broad overall reduction targets, then allows industrial facilities to trade reduction permits with each other." The is the approach used by the Clear Skies Act being promoted by the Bush administration. This is also the only scientific study I've seen cited in this debate, and comes from a prestigious scientific group. Link via Easterblogg.

Posted by Mike Jurka on February 2, 2004 in Environment | Permalink | Comments (0)

Free market environmentalism

A liberal magazine endorsing free market environmentalism? That's right, Mother Jones has an article pushing a free-market alternative to the subsidy-laden energy bill the Bush administration tried to get through Congress a few months ago. I disagree with them that renewable energy should be subsidized, provided that all other energy sources are taken off subsidies as well. Subsidies would distort the market and make energy artificially cheap, leading people to consume more energy than they otherwise would. However, their analysis shows that solar and wind power are cheaper than fossil fuel-based energy generation if externalities (i.e. cost of pollution) are taken into account. Instead of subsidies which would distort the market, what is needed is taxes on dirty energy sources to account for their external health and environmental benefits. It's a case where some government intervention is needed to account for externalities, but once the government corrects the price signals with taxes, free markets can finish the job of bringing us to a more green future.

Posted by Mike Jurka on February 2, 2004 in Environment | Permalink | Comments (2)

3 Top EPA Officials Quit, Fed Up With Bush Administration

According to the NY Times, the 3 top enforcement officials at the EPA have simultaneously resigned in disgust over interference from the Bush Administration preventing them from doing their jobs. You know he's been a horrible environmental president when HIS OWN PEOPLE are quitting their jobs! The situation is ridiculous. Even his own business-friendly administrators are disgusted with his environmental actions. According to the article:

The top three enforcement officials at the Environmental Protection Agency have left the agency, citing interference by the Bush administration that prevented them from doing their jobs. Two of the three "were architects of the agency's litigation strategy against coal-burning power plants," a strategy abandoned by the President. Instead, the E.P.A. announced it "it was going to suspend investigations into utilities" due to the Bush administrations' attempt to weaken provisions in the Clean Air Act. In 2002, former head of civil enforcement at the E.P.A. Eric Shaeffer resigned "with a scathing letter criticizing the administration's enforcement of the Clean Air Act." Responding to questions about Bush's abandonment of Clean Air Act enforcement, retiring associate director of the air enforcement division/ Rich Biondi said, "the rug was pulled out from under us." Biondi said he believed that under Bush's leadership, he could no longer make a difference at the E.P.A.

Posted by Mike Bitondo on January 25, 2004 in Environment | Permalink | Comments (1)

Perino's Letter

Wow, I'm amazed some pretty high-up people read the Daily Bruin. Or at least do a full-text search of it for words relating to their policies... lol. Bitondo, I think you should first put some of your responses to the letter on the blog, and then email them. I have some personal follow up on the letter:

Posted by Mike Jurka on January 18, 2004 in Environment | Permalink | Comments (0)

More on Clear Skies and Cap and Trade

I really don't trust anything put out by the EPA anymore because the Bush Administration has literally stacked the entire agency with former industry lobbyists. These EPA cronies also work the other way around - relaxing environmental regulations and then getting rewarded with industry positions:

Mark Rey - Undersecretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and Environment - Currently in Charge of: Forests - Previously Lobbied for Polluters of: Forests

Bennet W. Raley - Interior Assistant Secretary for Water and Science - Currently in Charge of: Water - Previously Lobbied for Polluters of: Water

Rebecca Watson - Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Land and Minerals Management - Currently in Charge of: Land that Contains Minerals - Previously lobbied for polluters of: Land that contains minerals

Carmen Toohey - Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Interior of Alaska - Currently in Charge of: Alaska - Previously lobbied for polluters of: Alaska

Patricia Lynn Scarlett - Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Policy, Management, and Budget - Currently in charge of: government regulations - Previously lobbied for polluters of: Everything

-Al Franken, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them" 2003

One week after the Environmental Protection Agency announced it was easing an important air pollution control program, a company that stands to benefit most from the policy change has hired a senior EPA official." - Shogren 2003
During the 2000 campaign, then-candidate Bush promised to cap carbon dioxide emissions. Last year, he backtracked from that promise after Vice President Dick Cheney's office received a letter from Haley Barbour, a power industry lobbyist who served as chairman of the Republican Party's fundraising arm during Bush's 2000 campaign. - Mother Jones
This tompaine.com article discusses the EPA's "Industry Tilt" under the Bush Administration
Such connections between the administration and the electric industry have become increasingly common. In early 2001, Bush appointed Jeff Holmstead, a former lawyer and lobbyist for the electric industry, as the EPA's chief clean air official. Among Holmstead's clients was Alliance for Constructive Air Policy, a coalition of power companies which lobbied the Clinton administration to reduce Clear Air Act caps on ozone pollution. And Holmstead has maintained his corporate ties while at the EPA. - Mother Jones
"It's utterly Orwellian in terms of how they approach all these issues," says Wesley Warren, an economist for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Put some kind of great sounding name on it and claim in is some sort of great new program." - Mother Jones
Administration officials are doing their best to downplay such outside criticism. But the most damning evidence of the plan's shortcomings can be found in a 2001 EPA report presented to the Edison Electric Institute -- the electric power industry's chief lobbying group. In the report, agency officials described the expected emissions guidelines if the Clean Air Act was implemented under a 'business as usual' scenario. If the Clean Air Act were simply enforced, the agency estimated, sulfur dioxide emissions would be reduced by 82 percent by 2012; nitrogen oxides would be reduced by 78 percent in the eastern region of the country by 2010; and mercury would be reduced by at least 70 percent by 2008.

By comparison, the president's new plan requires sulfur reductions of 73 percent, nitrogen reductions of 67 percent, and mercury reductions of 69 percent. What's more, while the Clean Air Act would require all power plants to comply with the tighter standards, the administration's plan will allow highly-polluting power plants to avoid penalties by purchasing emissions credits from cleaner generators. And, finally, the deadline for all the new mandates under "Clear Skies" has been pushed back until 2018. - Mother Jones

Posted by Mike Bitondo on January 17, 2004 in Environment | Permalink | Comments (0)

In defense of cap-and-trade

While Bitondo's analysis about a cap-and-trade policy makes a good observation, namely that local hot-spots of pollution could remain even though overall pollution is down, it is not a reason to reject a market based approach. First of all, certain pollutants have effects that are more regional rather than local(for example, the pollutants causing acid rain). Therefore, a regional cap-and-trade policy is clearly superior in these cases. Second, this criticism is not limited to just market-based approaches. Even the current Clean Air Act is not enough to solve pollution in areas like Los Angeles. Fortunately, most counties can meet air-quality goals with just a national cap-and-trade approach, according to the EPA:

Jeffrey Holmstead, assistant EPA administrator for air programs, said the agency projects that the proposed rules would enable 90 percent of the affected counties to meet the air-quality standards by the 2015 deadline.
Third, local pollution control strategies can take care of "local hot-spots" that might form:
Most of the other counties would be able to meet their deadline by additionally controlling local pollution sources, he said.
There's also no reason that these local stragies can't be market-based, either; for example, LA county could create a set of "pollution vouchers" that add up to the maximum allowable pollution for the local airshed and then require companies to buy the rights to pollute. The paper "Accounting for Spatial Variation of Ozone Production in NOx Emission Trading" in Environmental Science & Technology identifies another simple remedy:
However, if a select few facilities identified with high ozone productivity are restricted from obtaining allowances but are still allowed to sell allowances to low impact facilities, the likelihood of bad trading scenarios is greatly diminished, and in fact, NOx trading scenarios are likely to result in an air quality benefit that exceeds across-the-board reductions.

Posted by Mike Jurka on January 16, 2004 in Environment | Permalink | Comments (0)

Cap and Trade System Bad Policy

This post is a continuation of my discussion with Jurka over the Cap-and-Trade system that Bush's Clear Skies Initiative enacts. Jurka believes that the cap and trade approach is good because it is a market based solution that is more efficient. According to Jurka:

The experience with the cap-and-trade approach to SO2 emissions implemented by the Clinton administration shows how a little insight into economics can make environmental regulation much more effective. Market solutions are efficient because they take advantage of decentralized knowledge and profit motives, something which centralized technological standards cannot do.

While the cap and trade system might be more economically efficient, it is really a devastating way to reach lower emissions levels. While it may be efficient at reducing the overall rates of emissions across the entire nation, it allows big polluting plants to continue to release far more toxins than normal emission standards actually allow. It creates areas of highly concentrated localized pollution around these heavy polluting plants. This is environmentally disastrous for residents and employees living around these plants that are allowed to continue to pollute far above regular emissions standards by purchasing pollution credits. The point of emissions standards is to make the environment cleaner for every American, not just part of America.

Posted by Mike Bitondo on January 15, 2004 in Environment | Permalink | Comments (0)

New Bush Policy a Boon to Polluters

Here's another example of how the Bush Administration is the worst environmental administration in our nation's history. This article discusses how a new Bush policy is going to allow "mountaintop mining" near streams and rivers. "Mountaintop mining" is where the mining corporations use gigantic machines to decapitate the tops of mountains to expose coal veins. If we allow this process to continue, the Appalachians as we know them will know longer exist. This particular policy is even more worrisome because it will destroy the ecosystem of rivers and also pollute America's water supply.

"Instead of changing industry practice to conform to the law, the Bush administration is changing the law to conform to industry practices," said Jim Hecker, a Washington-based environmental lawyer.

I highly encourage everyone to listen to the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speech in front of the National Press Club from a couple months ago that I already blogged about earlier. "Mountaintop Mining" is one of the many current environmental issues that he discusses.

Posted by Mike Bitondo on January 8, 2004 in Environment | Permalink | Comments (0)

Kennedy Speaks at the National Press Club

Here's a link to a speech by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in front of the National Press Club from November 21, 2003. I recently heard it on NPR and had to put a link up to it here. Kennedy is an environmental lawyer who works as a senior fellow at the National Resources Defense Council and his speech describes in great detail how the Bush Administration has been the worst environmental presidency ever.

Every time that Kennedy and his group were able to successfully defeat a polluting industry in the courts, the Bush Administration came in and re-wrote the laws to allow these industries to keep on polluting our environment. Kennedy also describes the recent successful defeat of the Bush energy bill in the senate where a number of Republican senators broke ranks and voted against the bill. Senator John McCain, who was one of these Republicans who broke ranks, aptly described the energy bill as "The No Lobbyist Left Behind Act." Simply put, it's a $80 billion subsidy for the oil and coal barons of America.

I also like how Kennedy describes how the right wing has succeeded in painting a false environmental tradeoff of "jobs or environmentalism." But Kennedy says that this is a false choice and that environmentalism and the economy go hand-in-hand. If we don't protect our environment, then we will get a few years of "pollution-based prosperity" until we've spent our resources and destroyed our environment. If we want to guarantee long-term economic growth, then we need to protect the environment now. The current path is to allow giant corporations to liquidate our national resources for cash while destroying our communities and environment with their pollution.

"...and that is a false choice. In 100% of the situations, good environmental policy is identical with good economic policy." "It's a way of loading the costs of our generation's prosperity on the backs of our children."

Kennedy also describes some of the horrible pollution that is still going on today and getting worse. One of the more polluting industries, the hog industry, has gone from being a small farm business of over 27,500 hog farms nationwide, to a corporate industry where there are no small hog farms left. They have been replaced by 2200 hog factories, 1500 of which are owned by one corporation!

"The truth is that not one of these industries can produce a pound of pork cheaper or more efficiently than a family farm without breaking the law. The only reason that this industry has been able to survive and dominate the business landscape is because its business plan includes the capacity to bribe and corrupt public officials."

I'd like to emphasize that this is the opposite of free market competition and capitalism. This is the opposite of Jefferson's vision of America as a land of a bunch of small businessmen competing amongst each other. This is a land where one gigantic corporation dominates the marketplace and pollutes the environment and their cheap products don't include the real costs that they are exacting on the public through their polluting practices.

"There is no stronger advocate of free market capitalism than myself. This is not free market capitalism. These industries are doing this by escaping the discipline of the free market. You show me a polluter, I'll show you a subsidy. I'll show you a fat cat who is using political clout to escape the discipline of the free market and load his costs on the backs of the public. The free market is a good thing, we should try it some time. A true free market economy would be the best thing that ever happened to the environment."
"I consider myself a free marketeer. We go up to all the cheaters and force them to internalize their costs like they are internalizing their profits."

To give you an idea about just how destructive our national environmental leadership has been:
In response to question on Mike Lovitt, the new EPA head. "I think Mike Lovitt is a very charming man but he has simply been a catastrophe. Under his leadership in Utah, Utah became the second worst polluting state in America, behind Texas."

Posted by Mike Bitondo on January 3, 2004 in Environment | Permalink | Comments (0)

Federal Court Blocks Clear Skies

A federal court blocked the implementation of many of the Clear Skies Initiative's changes to the Clean Air Act today. Since senate democrats haven't had the backbone to stand up to the Bush Administrations right wing radical policies, it's good to see that someone else does. Here's an exerpt:

A federal appeals court on Wednesday blocked some of the Bush administration's changes to the Clean Air Act from going into effect, dealing a major setback to one of the White House's biggest environmental decisions.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (news - web sites) for the District of Columbia agreed with 12 states and several major cities that argued they would face irreparable harm to their environments and public health from the changes. The judges ordered the Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites) not to implement its rules change until the panel can make a final determination about the case.

While the court didn't block all of the changes, it blocked some of the big ones that were going to allow businesses to walk all over the Clean Air Act.

Posted by Mike Bitondo on December 24, 2003 in Environment | Permalink | Comments (0)

Market solutions to air pollution

I was just reading material on Clark's website and I came upon this part of his "Clean Air Plan:"

Use American technology and market-based approaches to meet air pollution challenges with innovative, job-creating solutions. Wes Clark will promote an aggressive effort to develop innovative pollution control technologies. In addition, he will use market-based approaches that foster environmental protection while promoting economic growth.
I'm encouraged that he sees the light and understands the greater effectiveness of market-based approaches. My support of Bush's Clear Skies Act has been for that fundamental reason: that it changes the mechanism of reducing pollution to a market-based approach. If hard scientific evidence shows pollution levels should be lower, it's unfortunate that the Clear Skies Act also doesn't reduce pollution as much in the future as the Clean Air Act would; however, changing the caps in the future is easy. But the fundamental shift to a market-based approach is what's important, and why I'm encouraged to read this in a Democratic candidate's platform as well.

Posted by Mike Jurka on December 14, 2003 in Environment | Permalink | Comments (0)

Clear Skies Clouds the Issue

In response to Jurka's recent Clear Skies post and his use of Gregg Easterbrook's column: you are both clouding the issue. It's sad that people aren't recognizing Bush's double-speak for what it is. This kind of bait-and-switch is simply insulting to me as an environmentalist voter. He's pretending to pass a pro-environment policy when actually he's reducing environmental regulations. The really sad part is that people, even intelligent people like Easterbrook, still don't understand this and that Bush is getting away with it.

Clear Skies is not increasing emission regulations! The Clean Air Act, the godsend environmental of the 20th Century, especially for people living in big smoggy cities like myself, established a set of emissions regulations that would steadily increase over time. What Clear Skies does is increase those emissions regulations LESS than they are supposed to be under Clean Air. This means that Bush would be helping out the environment a lot more if he just enforced the Clean Air Act the way it was supposed to be enforced!

This is all part of Bush's plan to roll back the Clean Air Act. In August, he rolled back the New Source Review provision of the Clean Air Act that stipulated that old power plants and industrial plants from before the Clean Air Act was passed in 1970 have to upgrade their plants to today's emission standards whenever they do major repairs or expansions. Now this rule is pretty much gutted and tens of thousands of industrial plants are now free to upgrade and improve their "old" plants to make them new. These are the heaviest polluters in the country and they are receiving a huge competitive reward for being so. Investors are now much rather going to want to put their money into expanding cheaper and old pre-1970 plants than new and expensive plants.

I urge everyone to not get confused by what's going on here. Bush is rewarding the polluters and punishing the clean industries and then calling it environmentalism. This bait-and-switch is extremely intellectually dishonest and it treats American voters like we are kids who can't tell the difference. Unfortuantely, it's starting to seem like nobody can tell the difference... maybe we deserve what we get.

Posted by Mike Bitondo on December 14, 2003 in Environment | Permalink | Comments (5)

Clear Skies

The E.P.A. just passed stricter new emission requirements on power plants. Here's Gregg Easterbrook:

Bush's Clear Skies bill would scrap the litigation-based system and substitute the "cap and trade" approach that has been spectacularly successful at reducing acid rain. Caps under the Bush bill are mandatory, and the bill regulates power-plant mercury emissions for the first time, imposing a mandatory two-thirds reduction; by using a cap-and-trade approach, Bush's approach would achieve Clean Air Act goals at lower cost and without lawsuit uncertainty. To top it off, if Clear Skies were enacted, it would bind the power plants governed by the "new source rule" controversy, mooting that whole issue and ending the dispute.

But then, ending disputes is not what Washington is about, is it?

Now we come to last week's action. Because Democrats and Jeffords have thrown their bodies in front of Clear Skies, it cannot pass in the current session of Congress. Recognizing that, the Environmental Protection Agency and Bush's Council on Environmental Quality wrote a series of administrative rules that impose most Clear Skies goals without legislation. Power-plant emissions, including mercury, will be capped at an almost 70 percent reduction over current levels; industry will be required to spend billions of dollars for new pollution-control equipment.

This is great. The experience with the cap-and-trade approach to SO2 emissions implemented by the Clinton administration shows how a little insight into economics can make environmental regulation much more effective. Market solutions are efficient because they take advantage of decentralized knowledge and profit motives, something which centralized technological standards cannot do. The coverage on these reforms to be pretty lacking, strangely. Here's more from Easterbrook:
The New York Times, which has had the incredible, super-ultra menace of Midwest power plants on page one perhaps a dozen times since Bush took office, put the plan to end the problem on page A24. The Times story was a small box cryptically headlined. "E.P.A. Drafts New Rules for Emissions From Power Plants."

Posted by Mike Jurka on December 12, 2003 in Environment | Permalink | Comments (0)

Modern environmentalism

Michael Crichton gave an excellent speech a couple months ago to the Commonwealth Club about environmentalism as a religion.

Posted by Mike Jurka on December 12, 2003 in Environment | Permalink | Comments (1)

In defense of Clear Skies

I disagree with Mike's portrayal of the Clear Skies Initiative. He laments that with the advent of this legislation, "we are in for some very dark, very polluted, very smoggy times." In addition, he simplifies the environment issue, declaring "Well if being exremist [sic] means wanting clean air for Americans to breathe, then sign me up!" As if nobody else wanted clean air either! I don't wake up in the morning and say, "Wow, this air is so clean, I wish it had a little more SO2."

What's most clearly lacking from this kind of rhethoric is any acknowledgement of the costs of environment regulation. Here's a question I was asked in my Economics 1 class: what is the optimal amount of litter in a society? People's first instinct is to say "none." But is it really? If you started a program to remove litter, the first dollars you spend would have the biggest impact. But as you spent more and more money, you would be getting less and less litter picked up per dollar. To truly eliminate all litter you would have to devote a huge amount of resources. Instead, we decide that it's not worth that and live with a little litter (but not a lot). The same is with pollution.

Also remember the choice you are being given is not to have pollution or no pollution. It's something more like x particles per million or a slightly smaller y particles per million.

In addition, the Clear Skies Initiative, as far as I can tell, is not rolling back any gains we've made so far. At worst, it might cut the future reductions by a modest amount. But there is much reason to believe it will accelerate reductions, as I now explain.

The most exciting aspect of the Intiative, in my eyes, is the expansion of the "tradeable cap" scheme to more pollutants. This scheme, put on sulfur dioxide emissions during the Clinton administration, reduces the pollutants in the least costly way possible by letting (usually older) factories that find it very costly to reduce pollution to buy "pollution credits" from companies that do better than their legal limit. Therefore, you can reduce pollution by the same amount as a more regulatory regime much more quickly and at much lower cost. If a group of citizens wanted to decrease the amount of pollution in the air, they could also buy a pollution credit at the market price so that no company could use it. People were astounded by how quickly and effectively this pollution control scheme worked on sulfur dioxide emissions. It is clearly superior to the more bureaucratice regime we have now in the Clean Air Act.

Even more effective, I think, would be to impose a per-pound tax on pollutants that is equal to the marginal costs imposed by each pound on society from things like damage to forests and buildings by acid rain, lower health quality, etc. The alternative scheme has several advantages. Since it actually makes the cost of pollution reflect the true societal costs, it increases overall societal efficiency. The revenues can also allow the government to lower other taxes, like income taxes, which distort the market and decrease inefficiency. In addition, it would be much more effective than a regulatory regime since it would encourage companies to find the cheapest ways of lowering their pollution and it would provide a consistent incentive to reduce pollution, unlike a regulatory regime which gives no incentive for a company to cut pollution after it's met the legal limit.

Posted by Mike Jurka on October 28, 2003 in Environment | Permalink | Comments (2)

Bush vs. Environment

I. Intro

It is no secret that President Bush is pro-business. Usually, this means that you are opposed to government involvement and meddling in the market such as taxes, tariffs, and red tape regulations. One of the most important pieces of "red tape" in the federal government are its environmental protections and the EPA. When he was running for office, Bush campaigned as a compassionate conservative / moderate. Over the past couple of years, especially after the midterm congressional elections, Bush has really started showing his true color. This article will examine his incredibly destructive and anti-environment policies. In the end, I will show that Bush is truly a "wolf in sheep's clothing" and despite what he may have said in some of his campaign speeches, he has been nothing but an enemy to the environment during his time in office. I will also try to include links to certain think tanks' and other institutes' analysis of Bush's environmental policies.

Additionally, the argument that being pro-environment necessarily means you are anti-business is bunk. I think President Clinton was able to prove that a President can easily be pro-business and pro-environment, although he may have skimped a little on the environment part. The bottom line is, forcing industry to operate by cleaner standards is not going to put them out of business.

Conservatives like to accuse environmentalists of being extremists (and also hippie tree-huggers). Well if being exremist means wanting clean air for Americans to breathe, then sign me up! If being extremist means wanting to take the "acid" out of "acid rain," then call me extremist!

II. The Clear Skies Initiative

A. The Lie

President Bush's Clear Skies Initiative will definately help to clear our skies - it will clear our skies of clean air and sunlight and replace it with toxins, smog, and air pollution. Honestly, who do the Bush administration officials think they are fooling by naming an anti-environment policy as if it were pro-environment? To give some examples: it would be like renaming the Bush tax cut "The Robin Hood Initiative" or renaming the current occupation of Iraq "Operation Iraqi Freedom," wait a second... huh? Oh yeah, that IS Bush's name for the Iraq War. Well, you get the picture.

Here's how it works: The legislation proposes to "cut" emissions by setting a bunch of caps on different types of emissions over the next 15 years. Here's what they don't tell you: these caps are actually huge reductions of the caps mandated in the existing Clean Air Act. So Bush isn't improving the environment, he's actually gutting one of the most important pieces of environmental protection legislation from the 20th Century. If this is the way America is going to begin the 21st Century, then we are in for some very dark, very polluted, very smoggy times.

B. The Works

Clear Skies is not some small piece of legislation that makes minor changes in the Clean Air Act. It is a lengthy 238 page document that will completely change the air that Americans breathe for many decades to come.

According to the National Resource Defense Council (a.k.a. Council of Hippie Tree-Huggers to you conservatives out there):

"The Clear Skies legislation sets new targets for emissions of sulfur dioxide, mercury, and nitrogen oxides from U.S. power plants. But these targets are weaker than those that would be put in place if the Bush administration simply implemented and enforced the existing law! Compared to current law, the Clear Skies plan would allow three times more toxic mercury emissions, 50 percent more sulfur emissions, and hundreds of thousands more tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides. It would also delay cleaning up this pollution by up to a decade compared to current law and force residents of heavily-polluted areas to wait years longer for clean air compared to the existing Clean Air Act."

C. The Public Health Disaster

The damaging health effects of air pollution on human beings are extremely serious. To allow the changes that the Clear Skies Initiative proposes will be disastrous to the health of all Americans.

The EPA recently completed a study on how much more pollutants the new, lower caps in Bush's Clear Skies Initiative: 125% more sulfur dioxide, 68% more nitrogen oxides, and 420% more mercury!!!

According to the NRDC:

1. Sulfur dioxide emissions, most of which originate from power plants, are linked to respiratory disease the causes the premature death of approximately 30,000 Americans every year.

2. Smog (nitrogen oxide) and fine particle pollution contribute to Asthma attacks. 14.9 million Americans suffer from Asthma. In 1997, there were 6 million smog-related Asthma attacks and 160,000 people were hospitalized for such attacks.

3. Mercury emissions (power plants cause 34% of all mercury emissions in the U.S.) cause serious birth defects in newborn babies such as loss of sensory and cognitive ability. Mercury accumulates in our lakes and rivers and lingers around in ecosystems for a long time.

Here's a link to a funny and yet incredibly serious flash cartoon on the initiative:
http://www.nrdcaction.org/clearskies/flash.asp

Mike B.

"The Idiots Are Taking Over" - NOFX

Posted by Mike Bitondo on October 23, 2003 in Environment | Permalink | Comments (2)