toxics

Six firms agree to stop using chemical in baby bottles

WASHINGTON — The six major baby bottle makers in the United States have agreed to stop using the toxic chemical Bisphenol-A, suspected of harming human development, local officials said. “All six major baby bottle companies — Avent, Disney First Years, Gerber, Dr. Brown, Playtex and Evenflow — have agreed to voluntarily ban BPA from bottles […]

Waterkeeper Alliance unveils anti-coal campaign

The essay below was written by Steve Fleischli and Scott Edwards of Waterkeeper Alliance.

Right now the coal industry is engaged in a multi-million-dollar campaign propagating the lie that coal and so-called clean-coal technology are the answer to America's future energy needs. Nothing could be farther from the truth. There is no such thing as clean coal.

Waterkeeper programs in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Utah, and West Virginia have been fighting the coal industry for years. Now, they have joined together with the nearly 200 programs of Waterkeeper Alliance in a grassroots campaign called "The Dirty Lie" -- because none of us can afford to wait another minute to start creating a new national energy policy that frees us from a reliance on fossil fuels.

You don't have to live in the coal fields or in the shadow of a coal-fired power plant to be affected by this filthy industry -- coal causes acid rain, pollutes our water and food chain with mercury, and is grossly accelerating climate change. From mining it to the disposal of ash after it's burned, there is no part of the coal industry that is good for the environment, good for people, or good for America.

Every year, the 1,100 coal-fired power plants in America spew 48 tons of toxic mercury into our air, poisoning hundreds of square miles of rivers, lakes and streams, accumulating in fish, and entering our bodies through fish consumption.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that one of every six women of childbearing age now has unsafe mercury levels in her blood and, potentially, breast milk, putting more than 410,000 American children born each year at high risk for neurological damage and a grim inventory of illnesses.

And while coal-fired power plants generate about half of America's electricity, they contribute 80 percent of the total greenhouse gases from electricity production that cause global warming. Yet, even if carbon capture and sequestration technology existed to remove these emissions, it still wouldn't make coal clean.

Umbra on cleaning cars inside and out

Dear Umbra, I recently bought a new-to-me car (fuel efficient!). It’s the nicest car I’ve ever owned, so I want to keep it well-maintained and clean. What are some environmentally friendly ways to keep my car clean, both inside and out? I’d rather not use gross chemicals and harsh soaps. Will good ol’ vinegar and […]

Authors of economic collapse advise us to stick with coal

The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a right-wing think tank, has announced it is holding a counter-protest to the Capitol Climate Action, the biggest civil disobedience on climate issues in U.S. history. They're calling it the "Celebrate Coal! and Keep Energy Affordable" rally.

A better name might be the "Celebrate 24,000 Dead Americans!" rally, because that's how many people toxic pollution from coal-fired power plants kills every year, costing Americans $167 billion in additional health care costs.

Other titles CEI could have chosen:

Celebrate Unemployment! Coal kills jobs. Investments in energy efficiency create more than twice the number of jobs as investments in coal, according to the latest numbers from Professor Robert Pollin and Heidi Garrett-Peltier at the University of Massachusetts. Every dollar sunk into a coal plant, even if it's spent making it marginally cleaner, is a job creation dollar almost half wasted. New coal plants are so expensive that they actually cost jobs.

Celebrate Economic Collapse! As the biggest U.S. source of global warming pollution, coal is a major contributor to the $271 billion annual drag on the economy global warming is projected to cause by 2025 (it's already causing a multi-billion drag). Unless we solve the climate crisis, it's going to be that much harder to overcome our economic woes.

Celebrate Weather Disasters! Expect more intense (and possibly more frequent) hurricanes like Katrina and Rita in a global warming world -- and many more climate refugees.

Celebrate Species Extinction! According to the journal Nature, "New analyses suggest that 15-37% of a sample of 1,103 land plants and animals would eventually become extinct as a result of climate changes expected by 2050."

Celebrate Mercury Poisoning! Coal-fired power plants are the largest source of man-made mercury pollution. Mercury from coal pollution can interfere with the development of babies' brains and neurological systems. One in six babies born in America (as well as Jeremy Piven) have elevated levels of mercury in their blood, putting them at risk of learning disabilities, developmental delays, and problems with fine motor coordination.

If it was up to CEI, we would still have lead in our gasoline, no seatbelts in our cars, and more pesticides in children's food. These are the guys who backed deregulation of Wall Street CEO's -- and are now opposing action on climate to get the economy back on track.

If Congress listens to CEI and Big Coal, we won't be able to solve global warming, switch to clean energy, and create the millions of green jobs we need to put people back to work and restore prosperity.

You can help make sure they don't by signing up for the Capitol Climate Action here.

Why isn’t ‘organic pesticide’ an oxymoron?

In Checkout Line, Lou Bendrick cooks up answers to reader questions about how to green their food choices and other diet-related quandaries. Lettuce know what food worries keep you up at night. Ms. Bendrick, I have a question about pesticides and organic food. I buy organic both to encourage the right kind of farming and […]

Higher productivity and lower health costs outweigh additional spending

Grist has discussed the consensus among most economists that the net cost of solving the climate crisis will be around 1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Basically this consensus says that total expenditures in various greenhouse gas emitting sectors will increase by 1 percent for the same economic output if emissions are controlled.

To be fair to economists, these estimates are based on studies that include substantial increases in energy efficiency -- even count some of the maintenance and capital savings. They are actually taking a stab at following Amory Lovins' dictum to count all costs and benefits.

Nonetheless, I think there are some good reasons why the consensus is wrong about there being a net cost at all. I think the overwhelming evidence is that a climate-stable future will have a higher GDP, even before avoided climate disruption is counted.

The main extra benefits economists overlook are the helpful side effects other than mitigating the climate crisis -- "positive externalities," in economic jargon.

For example, about half of all economic activity takes place in climate-conditioned buildings. Greening these buildings could increase[PDF] productivity [PDF] by around 10 percent. Similarly, switching most long-haul freight trucking miles to long-haul freight rail would increase productivity in transportation. Many energy-saving practices in industry, such as reducing scrapping and reducing spills and other types of emitting stoppages, would increase productivity as well. A switch to wind and solar would reduce labor productivity in the electricity sector; the conventional wisdom is that a switch to organic agriculture would do the same in that sector, though I think this is much less certain that people think. At any rate, sectors where productivity would rise greatly outnumber the tiny sectors where it might fall -- resulting in a huge net increase, probably greater than 5 percent for the economy as a whole.

Another example would be huge benefits to health. Eliminating or greatly reducing the use of fossil fuels would reduce air pollution, water pollution, and exposure to toxics. A switch to organic and low input agriculture would decrease direct ingestion of toxics, and increase available vitamins and minerals in food. Whether such a switch alone would encourage a switch to healthy increase in the consumption of non-starchy vegetables and fresh fruits I don't know, but it certainly could be part of policy that accomplished this. Overall, I think it is almost impossible that switching from fossil fuels to renewables and efficiency, that switching from toxic soil-consuming agriculture to non-toxic soil building agriculture, from unsustainable to sustainable forestry, would not increase GDP.

Two last points.

Urgent letter from Bo Webb on Coal River

Bo Webb, a Vietnam veteran and Coal River Mountain resident in West Virginia, just penned this urgent appeal to President Obama. His family's homeplace, dating back to the 1820s, is being rattled by explosives from mountaintop removal operators today. This letter bears witness to the terror of mountaintop removal on American citizens.

Every American should be forwarded this letter, and then they should go to ilovemountains.org, put in their zip code, and see if their coal-fired plant electricity comes from coal stripped from West Virginia. And then they should contact their member of Congress to support the Clean Water Protection Act.

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Dear Mr. President,

As I write this letter, I brace myself for another round of nerve-wracking explosives being detonated above my home in the mountains of West Virginia. Outside my door, pulverized rock dust laden with diesel fuel and ammonium nitrate explosives hovers in the air, along with the residual of heavy metals that once lay dormant underground. The mountain above me, once a thriving forest, has been blasted into a pile of rock and mud rubble. Two years ago, it was covered with rich black top soil and abounded with hardwood trees, rhododendrons, ferns and flowers. The under-story thrived with herbs such as ginseng, black cohosh, yellow root, and many other medicinal plants. Black bears, deer, wild turkey, hawks, owls, and thousands of birds lived here. The mountain contained sparkling streams teeming with aquatic life and fish.

Now it is all gone. It is all dead. I live at the bottom of a mountain top removal coal mining operation in the Peachtree community.

Mr. President Obama, I am writing you because we have simply run out of options. Last week, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court in Richmond, Va. overturned a federal court ruling for greater environmental restrictions on mountaintop removal permits. Dozens of permits now stand to be rushed through. As you know, last December, the EPA under George W. Bush allowed an 11th hour change to the stream buffer zone rule, further unleashing the coal companies to do as they please.

Farmers take the hit as the CAFO model comes under pressure

In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries.

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The industrial meat giants have entered a crisis phase.

As I've reported before, the world's biggest chicken packer, Pilgrim's Pride, is languishing in bankruptcy, squeezed by high feed costs, its own addiction to cheap capital from Wall Street, now dried up, and ruthless competition from rival Tyson. Facing a similar situation, Smithfield Foods, the globe's biggest pork packer and hog producer, announced it's shuttering six plants and hacking away 1,800 jobs.

Pilgrim's Pride has deftly used its bankruptcy to shunt much if the pain onto the backs of its farmer-suppliers, The Wall Street Journal reports (see extremely interesting related video). The article shows the massive risks required of the farmers who supply the nation with meat. Get this:

Syncrude faces fines for duck deaths

OTTAWA — Canadian environmental authorities on Monday charged Syncrude in the death of 500 migrating ducks that landed in its oil sands sewage ponds in western Canada. The waterfowl died after being coated in April 2008 with toxic oil residue from an Alberta mine left behind in the ponds by Syncrude Canada Limited, the world’s […]