Millions Of People In The U.S. Must Breathe Polluted Air

 

These charts are from a report by IQAir ( a Swiss company that monitors air pollution). It shows the countries that meet the World Health Organizations recommended air pollution standard. Note that no country actually meets that standard.

The bottom chart shows the countries with the worst and best air quality. Where does the U.S. stand? It ranks 28th best for air quality. With 27 countries having better air quality, it means millions of Americans are condemned to breathe polluted air -- air that could negatively impact their health.

This is shameful in a country as rich as the United States. But it will continue as long as our politicians consider corporate profits to be more important than the health of citizens.

The "Pandemic" That Kills 3 Times As Many As COVID-19

The Coronavirus worldwide pandemic is in the headlines all the time these days. And it should be, since it has killed over 2.8 million people.

But there is another killer that causes the deaths of three times as many people every year. It is air pollution, and it is caused mainly by our overuse and misuse of fossil fuels. Sadly, it is mostly ignored in the media.

We could eliminate most of those deaths by addressing global climate change -- by going to cleaner and renewable forms of energy, and going away from the use of fossil fuels. Unfortunately, too many of our politicians (and those in other countries) care more about corporate profits than they do about the lives of people. This must change!

The following is just part of an op-ed in The Guardian by their U.S. columnist Rebecca Solnit:

It is undeniably horrific that more than 2.8 million people have died of Covid-19 in the past 15 months. In roughly the same period, however, more than three times as many likely died of air pollution. This should disturb us for two reasons. One is the sheer number of air pollution deaths – 8.7 million a year, according to a recent study – and another is how invisible those deaths are, how accepted, how unquestioned. The coronavirus was a terrifying and novel threat, which made its dangers something much of the world rallied to try to limit. It was unacceptable – though by shades and degrees, many places came to accept it, by deciding to let the poor and marginalized take the brunt of sickness and death and displacement and to let medical workers get crushed by the workload.

We have learned to ignore other forms of death and destruction, by which I mean we have normalized them as a kind of moral background noise. This is, as much as anything, the obstacle to addressing chronic problems, from gender violence to climate change. What if we treated those 8.7 million annual deaths from air pollution as an emergency and a crisis – and recognized that respiratory impact from particulates is only a small part of the devastating impact of burning fossil fuels? For the pandemic we succeeded in immobilizing large populations, radically reducing air traffic, and changing the way many of us live, as well as releasing vast sums of money as aid to people financially devastated by the crisis. We could do that for climate change, and we must – but the first obstacle is the lack of a sense of urgency, the second making people understand that things could be different.

I have devoted much of my writing over the past 15 years to trying to foreground two normalized phenomena, violence against women and climate change. For all of us working to bring public attention to these crises, a major part of the problem is trying to get people engaged with something that is part of the status quo. We are designed to respond with alarm to something that just happened, that breaches norms, but not to things that have been going on for decades or centuries. The first task of most human rights and environmental movements is to make the invisible visible and to make what has long been accepted unacceptable. This has of course been done to some extent, with coal-burning power plants and with fracking in some places, but not with the overall causes of climate chaos. . . .

A lot of attention was paid to whatever actions might have caused Covid-19 to cross from animals to humans, but the actions that take fossil fuel out of the ground to produce that pollution that kills 8.7 million annually, along with acidifying oceans and climate chaos, should be considered far more outrageous a transgression against public health and safety.

My hope for a post-pandemic world is that the old excuses for doing nothing about climate – that it is impossible to change the status quo and too expensive to do so – have been stripped away. In response to the pandemic, we in the US have spent trillions of dollars and changed how we live and work. We need the will to do the same for the climate crisis. The Biden administration has taken some encouraging steps but more is needed, both here and internationally. With a drawdown on carbon emissions and a move toward cleaner power, we could have a world with more birdsong and views of mountains and fewer pollution deaths. But first we have to recognize both the problem and the possibilities.

Trump To Allow Pollution Of America's Watershed

Trump is still trying to erase all the good things President Obama did for the United States.

This time, it's Obama's effort to make sure Americans have clean and safe water.

Trump has moved to allow his corporate cronies in the fossil fuel, agriculture, and chemical industries to have an easier time dumping their poisons in the country's watershed. For him, another few dollars of corporate profit is more important that assuring Americans have safe water.

Here is part of how Coral Davenport describes Trump's scandalous move in The New York Times:

From Day 1 of his administration, President Trump vowed to repeal President Barack Obama’s “Waters of the United States” regulation, which had frustrated rural landowners. His new rule, which will be implemented in about 60 days, is the latest step in the Trump administration’s push to repeal or weaken nearly 100 environmental rules and laws, loosening or eliminating rules on climate change, clean air, chemical pollution, coal mining, oil drilling and endangered species protections.

Although Mr. Trump frequently speaks of his desire for the United States to have “crystal-clean water,” he has called his predecessor’s signature clean-water regulation “horrible,” “destructive” and “one of the worst examples of federal” overreach.

Although Mr. Trump frequently speaks of his desire for the United States to have “crystal-clean water,” he has called his predecessor’s signature clean-water regulation “horrible,” “destructive” and “one of the worst examples of federal” overreach.

Mr. Trump’s replacement, called the “Navigable Waters Protection Rule,” finishes the process. It not only rolls back key portions of the 2015 rule that had guaranteed protections under the 1972 Clean Water Act to certain wetlands and streams that run intermittently or run temporarily underground, but also relieves landowners of the need to seek permits that the Environmental Protection Agency had considered on a case-by-case basis before the Obama rule. . . .

The new water rule for the first time in decades allow landowners and property developers to dump pollutants such as pesticides and fertilizers directly into hundreds of thousands of waterways, and to destroy or fill in wetlands for construction projects.

“This will be the biggest loss of clean water protection the country has ever seen,” said Blan Holman, a lawyer specializing in federal water policy at the Southern Environmental Law Center. “This puts drinking water for millions of Americans at risk of contamination from unregulated pollution. This is not just undoing the Obama rule. This is stripping away protections that were put in place in the ’70s and ’80s that Americans have relied on for their health.”. . .

The Obama rule protected about 60 percent of the nation’s waterways, including large bodies of water such as the Chesapeake Bay, Mississippi River and Puget Sound, and smaller headwaters, wetlands, seasonal streams and streams that run temporarily underground. It limited the discharge of pollutants such as fertilizers, pesticides and industrial chemicals into those waters.

The new rule, written by the E.P.A. and the Army Corps of Engineers, will retain federal protections of large bodies of water, as well as larger rivers and streams that flow into them and wetlands that lie adjacent to them. But it removes protections for many other waters, including wetlands that are not adjacent to large bodies of water, some seasonal streams that flow for only a portion of the year, “ephemeral” streams that only flow after rainstorms, and groundwater.

Legal experts say that Mr. Trump’s replacement rule would go further than simply repealing and replacing the 2015 Obama rule — it would also eliminate protections to smaller headwaters that have been implemented for decades under the 1972 Clean Water Act.

“This is rolling back federal jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act further than it’s ever been before,” said Patrick Parenteau, a professor of environmental law at Vermont Law School. “Waters that have been protected for almost 50 years will no longer be protected under the Clean Water Act.”

That could open millions of acres of pristine wetlands to pollution or destruction, and allow chemicals and other pollutants to be discharged into smaller headland waters that eventually drain into larger water bodies, experts in water management said. Wetlands play key roles in filtering surface water and protecting against floods, while also providing wildlife habitat. . . .

The E.P.A.’s Scientific Advisory Board, a panel of 41 scientists responsible for evaluating the scientific integrity of the agency’s regulations, concluded that the new Trump water rule ignores science by “failing to acknowledge watershed systems.” They found “no scientific justification” for excluding certain bodies of water from protection under the new regulations, concluding that pollutants from those smaller and seasonal bodies of water can still have a significant impact on the health of larger water systems.

After Years Of Getting Better, Air Pollution Is Getting Worse

A new study by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) gives us some bad news. It shows fine particulate air pollution is getting worse. Between 2010 and 2016, this pollution had decreased, thanks to regulations put in place by the Obama administration.

But in 2017 and 2018, that air pollution got worse -- 5.5% worse in 2018 than it had been in 2016.

What is different in 2017 and 2018? A new Republican administration that has made it a point to put lobbyists in charge of the environment and deregulated what corporations must do to protect the environment. These Republicans seem to believe that we can have deregulated corporations and a clean environment. They are living in a dream world.

Corporations are not created to be good citizens and protect the environment. They have only one purpose -- to make as much money as possible. If a corporation can make a bigger profit by dumping more pollution in our air (and water), then that is what they are going to do.

How much longer will we put up with a Republican president and Congress members that don't care about the environment? How much dirtier do we want our air and water?

Donald Trump Is Lying - The U.S. Doesn't Have The Cleanest Air (And His Actions Are Making It Worse)

(Cartoon image is by Milt Priggee at miltpriggee.com.)

With Donald Trump, it's always believe what I say and ignore what I'm doing. That is especially true when it comes to the environment. While he is busy deregulating and eliminating rules for a cleaner environment, he tells the public that he's the "environmental" president, and that the United States has the cleanest air in the world.

Here's part of what Hilary Brueck has to say about this obvious Trump lie in Business Insider:

President Trump has once again falsely claimed that the US has the cleanest air in the world. 

"Who's got the world's cleanest and safest air and water? AMERICA!" Trump tweeted on Wednesday, as CNN kicked off a 7-hour-long session of "climate crisis" town halls with 10 Democratic presidential candidates. 

"I want crystal clean water and the cleanest and the purest air on the planet - we've now got that!" Trump added.

This isn't the first time that Trump has falsely touted America's air as number one — he tweeted a similar statement in October 2018, along with a map from a World Health Organization report. The statement was not true then, and it definitely isn't now. 

The Environmental Performance Index, a metric from environmental scientists at Yale and Columbia that ranks 180 countries around the world, puts the US in 10th place when it comes to overall air quality (Australia is first). 

In terms of PM 2.5 pollution — a measure of ultra-fine particulate matter in the air — the country with the world's cleanest air is New Zealand, while the US ranks seventh on that list. Meanwhile, the cleanest cities in the world (in terms of particulate concentrations) are in Sweden. . . .

Despite Trump's claims about the US' air quality, air in the country is actually getting dirtier and more dangerous to breathe under his administration. An Associated Press report in June analyzed federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data and found that "there were 15% more days with unhealthy air in America both last year and the year before" than there were during the period from 2013 to 2016. 

"There were noticeably more polluted air days each year in the president's first two years in office than any of the four years before," the AP said.

The American Lung Association's "State of the Air" report for 2019 found, similarly, that more than four in 10 Americans live in counties that got at least one "F" for unhealthy air. 

"That's 7 million more than last year's report," the report said. 

Air pollution is deadly — it kills tens of thousands of people in the US every year. Yet Trump has rolled back at least 10 air-pollution and emissions rules while he's been president, according to the New York Times.

Pollution Is Killing Millions Of People Each Year

(This pollution image is from DoSomething.org.)

We talk a lot about pollution, and what it does to our air and water -- and even what it means to the future of the planet. But one thing we don't stress enough is that pollution kills people -- about 9 million worldwide each year.

The following is just part of a thought-provoking article by Natasha Geiling at Think Progress:

A landmark new study on the public health impacts of global pollution found that toxic air, water, and soil are responsible for the deaths of nine million people each year, more than the number that die from war, hunger, malaria, and AIDS — combined.

The study, published on Friday in the Lancet, warned that pollution is so dangerous it “threatens the continuing survival of human societies.” According to the study, which pulled data from the World Health Organization’s (WHO) ongoing Global Burden of Disease project, pollution accounts for 16 percent of deaths worldwide — 15 times more than deaths from war and conflict, and three times more than deaths from AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria combined. . . .

Most of these nine million deaths occur from pollution-related diseases, such as heart disease, stroke, and lung-cancer. The majority occur in developing nations, where rapid industrialization combined with lax regulations translate into higher exposure to toxic air, water, and soil pollution for residents. But the study found that pollution-related deaths do occur in industrialized nations, with the United States and Japan topping the list for most “modern” pollution-related deaths, from things like fossil fuel-related and chemical pollution.

According to the study, outdoor air pollution from things like cars or industrial activity is responsible for some 4.5 million deaths each year, nearly half of all pollution-related deaths — a number that experts estimate will only increase in the coming years, with air pollution deaths in southeast Asia expected to double by 2050. Another 2.9 million deaths come from indoor air pollution, from things like wood-burning stoves, which are still used throughout the developing world for heat and cooking. Toxic water is responsible for another 1.8 million death each year; sewage-laced water, for instance, is often linked to illnesses like cholera or parasitic infections. Workplace pollution — prevalent in industrialized countries — accounts for some 800,000 deaths each year.

Researchers warned that nine million could be an underestimate of the true number of deaths due to pollution each year, as the link between pollution and certain diseases — like dementia or diabetes — is an area of emerging science. Researchers also pointed to the unknown impact of hundreds of widely-used chemicals and pesticides prevalent in the environment, which could increase the total number of pollution-related deaths.

According to the study, while sources of “traditional pollution” — like wood-burning stoves and toxic water — have declined in recent years, sources of “modern pollution” — largely defined as pollution from industry — has increased at a stunning rate.

The study also linked pollution deaths to lost economic output, finding that on average, pollution-related deaths resulted in a 6 percent hit to global GDP (a loss of $4.6 trillion each year). In developing countries, pollution-related deaths were linked to a 1.3 percent loss in national GDP, compared with a .5 percent loss in developed countries. . . .

The report comes as the Trump administration looks to roll back a number of pollution-related regulations in the United States, from stricter limits on ozone pollution from industry to limits on toxic discharge allowed for coal companies. 

Public Opposes Trump's Overturning Of Clean Air Regs

President Obama signed the Paris Accord to reduce global warming, and then issued an executive order that would have reduced carbon dioxide emissions from power plants by 1/3 in the next 13 years. Donald Trump has reversed course for this country. He has withdrawn the U.S. from the Paris Accords and issued orders negating the Clean Air Initiative of President Obama.

But it turns out that, once again, Trump is acting in opposition to the wishes of a majority of Americans. About 56% of the public favors keeping the Obama regulations to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 1/3, while only 33% opposed those regulations. Trump may be making his base happy, but he is hurting himself with the general population.

The chart reflects the result of a new Rasmussen Poll -- done on October 10th and 11th of a random national sample of 1,000 likely voters, with a 3 point margin of error.

Trump / Pruitt Purge The EPA Of All Its Scientists

 (These caricatures of Donald Trump and Scott Pruitt are by DonkeyHotey.)

Donald Trump has said he would protect the environment, but that is just another of his many lies.

We know that because of his withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Agreement on global warming, his executive orders repealing Obama's clean air and water efforts, and his appointment of Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) -- a man with a history of opposing EPA actions. While Trump mouths environmental platitudes, it is obvious that what he really wants to do is let corporate polluters off the hook. Now we find that its gotten even worse.

Trump and Pruitt are actively removing all the scientists from the EPA -- those people who tell the truth about pollution and global climate change. They will be replaced with lobbyists and sycophants who mirror Trump's own corporate polluter friendly views.

Here is what Mark Sumner at Daily Kos has written about the purge of scientists:

Scott Pruitt had already moved to replace much of the scientific review boards at the EPA with industry lobbyists. 

The Environmental Protection Agency has dismissed at least five members of a major scientific review board, the latest signal of what critics call a campaign by the Trump administration to shrink the agency’s regulatory reach by reducing the role of academic research.
 

And with that minor test run over, Pruitt has moved on to a wholesale purge of scientists from his supposedly scientific agency.

The Environmental Protection Agency has given notice to dozens of scientists that they will not be renewed in their roles in advising the agency, continuing a scientific shake-up that has already triggered resignations and charges from some researchers that the administration is politicizing the agency.

With climate change data hidden or destroyed, Pruitt directly working to raise funds for Republicans, and actions that go beyond accepting climate change to denying basic science, it’s no doubt inconvenient to have people around who know what the hell they’re doing. So that is being remedied. Pronto. And just in case any of those scientists were thinking about saying something Pruitt wouldn’t like, he made sure that wouldn’t happen—at least not on EPA grounds.

None of the subcommittees will have a chair or vice chair, and all committee meetings scheduled for late summer and fall have been cancelled.

Pruitt’s actions completely wipes out the existing Board of Scientific Counselors. It means the whole board can now be reappointed, filled with industry lobbyists and science deniers, and the EPA can then go forward on the basis that “its scientific advisers” tell it that carbon dioxide is good for plants, only God can change the climate, and Donald Trump is nature’s bestie.

President Trump has directed Mr. Pruitt to radically remake the E.P.A., pushing for deep cuts in its budget — including a 40 percent reduction for its main scientific branch — and instructing him to roll back major Obama-era regulations on climate change and clean water protection. 

No clean water. No clean air. Certainly no scientists.

It seems pretty clear that neither Trump nor Pruitt understand what “protection” means. They certainly don’t understand “environmental.”

General Public's Worry About Pollution Is Increasing

Donald Trump doesn't seem to be worried at all about the environment and keeping it clean for everyone. He has put an EPA-hater  in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency, and proposed cutting funding for the agency by around 25%.

This flies in the face of the general public's view on the environment and pollution. About 63% of the public say they worry a great deal about pollution of drinking water -- and 57% say they worry a great deal about the pollution of rivers, lakes, and reservoirs. Those are significant majorities.

In fact, those who worry a great deal has increased each of the last three years regarding all aspects of the environment -- 8 points for pollution of drinking water, 10 points for pollution of rivers & lakes & reservoirs, 9 points for air pollution, 13 points for global climate change, 11 points for loss of tropical rain forests, and 8 points for extinction of animals/plants.

Once again, Trump is following a policy that goes against the wishes of most Americans.

The chart above is from three years of questioning by the Gallup Poll -- the most recent being done between March 1st and 5th of a random national sample of 1,018 adults, with a 4 point margin of error.

Democrats Hold An Advantage On These Important Issues

These charts were made from results of a recent Public Policy Polling survey. It was done on December 16th and 17th of a random national sample of 1,267 registered voters, and has a 2.8 point margin of error.

This shows that the Democrats are on the right side of four very important issues, and their positions are supported by a clear majority of the public. Democrats want to close the loopholes of the background check for gun buyers law, and 85% of the public agrees (including 92% of Democrats, 82% of Independents, and 80% of Republicans). Democrats also want to keep those on the terrorist watch list (the "no-fly list) from buying a firearm, and 81% of the public agrees (including 85% of Democrats, 78% of Independents, and 80% of Republicans).

And it doesn't stop there. Democrats want to raise the minimum wage to at least $10 an hour, and 72% of the public agrees with that (including 90% of Democrats, 65% of Independents, and 57% of Republicans). Democratic officials also support the president's plan to limit pollution from power plants, and 64% of the public agrees (including 87% of Democrats, 57% of Independents, and 42% of Republicans).

The Republican candidates for president (and other offices) oppose the public's wishes on all four of these issues. If the Democrats are smart, they will make sure these issues are front and center in the next campaign season.

White House Statement On The New "Clean Power" Plan

(This image of a U.S. coal-burning power plant is from greenpeace.org.)

On Monday, President Obama announced that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is instituting tough new pollution standards for power plants in the United States. The plan will not only help to protect the world from the disastrous effects of climate change, but will also improve the health and safety of American citizens (by cleaning up the air we must breathe).

The Republicans have already started whining about the plan, which is no surprise, since they consider the campaign donations they will receive from the power industry much more important than citizen safety or the impending climate change disaster.

Before the media gives those Republican lies too much air time, I thought we should see what the real facts are about this new plan. Here is part of the statement released by the White House press office:

KEY FEATURES OF THE CLEAN POWER PLAN

The final Clean Power Plan takes into account the unprecedented input EPA received through extensive outreach, including the 4 million comments that were submitted to the agency during the public comment period. The result is a fair, flexible program that will strengthen the fast-growing trend toward cleaner and lower-polluting American energy. The Clean Power Plan significantly reduces carbon pollution from the electric power sector while advancing clean energy innovation, development, and deployment. It ensures the U.S. will stay on a path of long-term clean energy investments that will maintain the reliability of our electric grid, promote affordable and clean energy for all Americans, and continue United States leadership on climate action. The Clean Power Plan:   

• Provides Flexibility to States to Choose How to Meet Carbon Standards: EPA’s Clean Power Plan establishes carbon pollution standards for power plants, called carbon dioxide (CO2) emission performance rates. States develop and implement tailored plans to ensure that the power plants in their state meet these standards– either individually, together, or in combination with other measures like improvements in renewable energy and energy efficiency. The final rule provides more flexibility in how state plans can be designed and implemented, including: streamlined opportunities for states to include proven strategies like trading and demand-side energy efficiency in their plans, and allows states to develop “trading ready” plans to participate in “opt in” to an emission credit trading market with other states taking parallel approaches without the need for interstate agreements. All low-carbon electricity generation technologies, including renewables, energy efficiency, natural gas, nuclear and carbon capture and storage, can play a role in state plans.
   
• More Time for States Paired With Strong Incentives for Early Deployment of Clean Energy: State plans are due in September of 2016, but states that need more time can make an initial submission and request extensions of up to two years for final plan submission.  The compliance averaging period begins in 2022 instead of 2020, and emission reductions are phased in on a gradual “glide path” to 2030. These provisions to give states and companies more time to prepare for compliance are paired with a new Clean Energy Incentive Program to drive deployment of renewable energy and low-income energy efficiency before 2022.
   
• Creates Jobs and Saves Money for Families and Businesses: The Clean Power Plan builds on the progress states, cities, and businesses and have been making for years. Since the beginning of 2010, the average cost of a solar electric system has dropped by half and wind is increasingly competitive nationwide. The Clean Power Plan will drive significant new investment in cleaner, more modern and more efficient technologies, creating tens of thousands of jobs. Under the Clean Power Plan, by 2030, renewables will account for 28 percent of our capacity, up from 22 percent in the proposed rule. Due to these improvements, the Clean Power Plan will save the average American nearly $85 on their energy bill in 2030, and save consumers a total of $155 billion through 2020-2030, reducing enough energy to power 30 million homes.
   
• Rewards States for Early Investment in Clean Energy, Focusing on Low-Income Communities: The Clean Power Plan establishes a Clean Energy Incentive Program that will drive additional early deployment of renewable energy and low-income energy efficiency. Under the program, credits for electricity generated from renewables in 2020 and 2021 will be awarded to projects that begin construction after participating states submit their final implementation plans. The program also prioritizes early investment in energy efficiency projects in low-income communities by the Federal government awarding these projects double the number of credits in 2020 and 2021. Taken together, these incentives will drive faster renewable energy deployment, further reduce technology costs, and lay the foundation for deep long-term cuts in carbon pollution. In addition, the Clean Energy Incentive Plan provides additional flexibility for states, and will increase the overall net benefits of the Clean Power Plan.
   
• Ensures Grid Reliability: The Clean Power Plan contains several important features to ensure grid reliability as we move to cleaner sources of power. In addition to giving states more time to develop implementation plans, starting compliance in 2022, and phasing in the targets over the decade, the rule requires states to address reliability in their state plans. The final rule also provides a “reliability safety valve” to address any reliability challenges that arise on a case-by-case basis. These measures are built on a framework that is inherently flexible in that it does not impose plant-specific requirements and provides states flexibility to smooth out their emission reductions over the period of the plan and across sources.
   
• Continues U.S. Leadership on Climate Change: The Clean Power Plan continues United States leadership on climate change. By driving emission reductions from power plants, the largest source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, the Clean Power Plan builds on prior Administration steps to reduce emissions, including historic investments to deploy clean energy technologies, standards to double the fuel economy of our cars and light trucks, and steps to reduce methane pollution. Taken together these measures put the United States on track to achieve the President’s near-term target to reduce emissions in the range of 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, and lay a strong foundation to deliver against our long-term target to reduce emissions 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. The release of the Clean Power Plan continues momentum towards international climate talks in Paris in December, building on announcements to-date of post-2020 targets by countries representing 70 percent of global energy based carbon emissions. 
   
• Sets State Targets in a Way That Is Fair and Is Directly Responsive to Input from States, Utilities, and Stakeholders: In response to input from stakeholders, the final Clean Power Plan modifies the way that state targets are set by using an approach that better reflects the way the electricity grid operates, using updated information about the cost and availability of clean generation technologies, and establishing separate emission performance rates for all coal plants and all gas plants. 
   
• Maintains Energy Efficiency as Key Compliance Tool: In addition to on-site efficiency and greater are reliance on low and zero carbon generation, the Clean Power Plan provides states with broad flexibility to design carbon reduction plans that include energy efficiency and other emission reduction strategies.  EPA’s analysis shows that energy efficiency is expected to play a major role in meeting the state targets as a cost-effective and widely-available carbon reduction tool, saving enough energy to power 30 million homes and putting money back in ratepayers’ pockets.
   
• Requires States to Engage with Vulnerable Populations: The Clean Power Plan includes provisions that require states to meaningfully engage with low-income, minority, and tribal communities, as the states develop their plans. EPA also encourages states to engage with workers and their representatives in the utility and related sectors in developing their state plans.
   
• Includes a Proposed Federal Implementation Plan: EPA is also releasing a proposed federal plan today. This proposed plan will provide a model states can use in designing their plans, and when finalized, will be a backstop to ensure that the Clean Power Plan standards are met in every state. 

Since the Clean Air Act became law more than 45 years ago with bipartisan support, the EPA has continued to protect the health of communities, in particular those vulnerable to the impacts of harmful air pollution, while the economy has continued to grow. In fact, since 1970, air pollution has decreased by nearly 70 percent while the economy has tripled in size. The Clean Power Plan builds on this progress, while providing states the flexibility and tools to transition to clean, reliable, and affordable electricity.

And Here are some of the myths and facts about the new plan:

Myth: Carbon pollution standards will destroy jobs and hurt the economy.

Fact: Americans know we can cut pollution and protect the health of our kids while creating jobs.

Myth: Carbon pollution standards will cause Americans’ utility bills to spike.

Fact: Cutting carbon pollution will help eliminate waste and save families money on their electric bills.

Myth: Carbon pollution standards will hit low-income communities the hardest.

Fact: EPA’s Clean Power Plan will protect the health of low-income communities and help them save on their energy bills.

Myth: This administration is waging a war on coal.

Fact: For years, the President’s political opponents have been blaming him for market trends that started well before the President took office.

Myth: This rule threatens the reliability of Americans’ electricity.

Fact: This flexible proposal allows states to implement the standards without impacting reliability.

Myth: The Clean Power Plan is regulatory overreach.

Fact: The Clean Power Plan is clearly consistent with EPA’s legal authorities

Myth: The final Clean Power Plan drops energy efficiency.

Fact: Investment in energy efficiency will be a powerful strategy for compliance under the final Clean Power Plan.

Myth: Climate change isn’t real.

Fact: Climate change is real, it’s happening now, and it’s affecting every region of the country.

EPA Finally Admits "Fracking" Pollutes Drinking Water

It looks like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is finally coming to realize something that most people with half a brain already knew -- that the gas production method called "fracking" does pollute ground drinking water sources.

Here is the conclusion reached by the EPA study:

Through this national-level assessment, we have identified potential mechanisms by which hydraulic fracturing could affect drinking water resources. Above ground mechanisms can affect surface and ground water resources and include water withdrawals at times or in locations of low water availability, spills of hydraulic fracturing fluid and chemicals or produced water, and inadequate treatment and discharge of hydraulic fracturing wastewater. Below ground mechanisms include movement of liquids and gases via the production well into underground drinking water resources and movement of liquids and gases from the fracture zone to these resources via pathways in subsurface rock formations.

24. We did not find evidence that these mechanisms have led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States. Of the potential mechanisms identified in this report, we found specific instances where one or more of these mechanisms led to impacts on drinking water resources, including contamination of drinking water wells. The cases occurred during both routine activities and accidents and have resulted in impacts to surface or ground water. Spills of hydraulic fracturing fluid and produced water in certain cases have reached drinking water resources, both surface and ground water. Discharge of treated hydraulic fracturing wastewater has increased contaminant concentrations in receiving surface waters. Below ground movement of fluids, including gas, most likely via the production well, have contaminated drinking water resources. In some cases, hydraulic fracturing fluids have also been directly injected into drinking water resources, as defined in this assessment, to produce oil or gas that co-exists in those formations. 

(NOTE -- The image above is from green-4-u.com.)

There's much more, and although the EPA tries to downplay the effects somewhat (probably to placate the giant oil and gas companies, and their GOP lackeys in Congress), it's a really scary assessment. Fracking DOES affect our drinking water, and the more it happens, the more water will be affected.

Texas Is The Worst Greenhouse Gas Polluting State

I have noted on this blog in the past about the massive amount of pollution the state of Texas produces. If Texas was a country, there would only be six other countries that produce more pollution (and one of them would, of course, be the United States). That's an inexcusable amount of pollution for a single state to be producing.

And it doesn't get any better when we only consider the "greenhouse gas" pollution (a primary cause of global climate change). While all states produce some greenhouse gas, and some states produce a lot of it -- no state is even close to Texas in the amount of greenhouse gas it produces. The chart above, from info provided at Moyers & company, shows that Texas produces nearly three times as much as Indiana (the state producing the second largest amount).

While it is true that Texas is a large state, that cannot be the only reason for the massive amount of pollution. Other large states (California, Florida, New York, etc.) don't produce anywhere near the amount that Texas produces. The real reason is that Texas is ruled by Republican officials, who hold a lll statewide elected offices and significant majorities in both the House and Senate in the state's legislature -- and they long ago sold out to the giant corporate polluters.

The truth is that corporations don't have to follow many regulations in Texas, especially regarding pollution. That's because the Republicans do everything they can to help those corporations avoid regulations. Every time the EPA issues a regulation to try and rein in some pollution, Texas takes them to court. And it even got so bad that the EPA finally had to take over the issuance of permits for new chemical and energy plants (because Texas was approving permits for big polluters with no restrictions).

Republican officials in Texas aren't just climate change deniers -- they are corporate whores. They don't care about the health of Texas citizens. They don't care about the state's environment. They don't care about the pollution from Texas that is carried by winds to other states. The only thing they do care about is protecting the corporations from having to clean up their pollution (or paying their fair share in taxes).

Texas needs to change -- for the good of its citizens, and for the good of the citizens in the United States as a whole. But that will never happen as long as the Republicans stay in power.

Majority Of The Public Say Humans Cause Global Warming

On Sunday, over 400,000 citizens filled the streets of New York City, and many more protested in other cities. They were demonstrating their anger at the government's refusal to take appropriate action to curb global climate change (commonly called global warming). It marls the largest crowds to ever demonstrate for action on global warming.

Now a new poll has been released that shows a rising number of Americans believe global warming is mostly caused by human activity (such as the burning of fossil fuels). It is the New York Times / CBS News Poll -- done between September 10th and 14th of a random national sample of 1,000 adults (with a 3 point margin of error). The poll shows that 54% of the general public now believes global warming is caused by human activity -- the largest percentage in this survey since they have been polling on this question.

It looks like we may finally be turning a corner on global warming -- at least as far as the public is concerned. Sadly though, the government is still refusing to act. Note in the chart above that while majorities of Democrats (67%), Independents (53%) and the general public (54%) now believe it is caused by humans and want to take action -- the same is not true of Republicans. They still believe the lies told by their leaders -- that global warming is not a serious problem, and taking action on it would hurt American businesses.

That is simply not true. Most American businesses would not be affected at all, but a few giant corporations would have to stop polluting (and that would take a small portion of their enormous profits to do that). The problem though is that the congressional Republicans take their marching orders from those giant corporations -- and those corporations aren't willing to spend a penny, even to stave off an environmental disaster.

This makes the November election very important. The Republicans must be voted out of the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, or we will have another two years (at least) of nothing being done about global  climate change -- and we probably don't have much time left before we reach the tipping point (the point at which action will not help to stave off the coming environmental disaster).

Supreme Court Says The EPA Has The Power To Control Pollution That Crosses State Lines

(This image is from killcoal.org.)

Texas produces more air pollution than any other state in this country. That's because Texas' GOP-dominated government has no interest in controlling that pollution, and the state agency designated to control environmental pollution has become little more than a rubber stamp for corporations to do whatever they want. It has gotten so bad that, if Texas was a country, it would be the seventh biggest polluting country in the world.

But the thing about air pollution is that it doesn't just stay where it's produced. It is carried by the winds to other states, and that is especially true of a big-polluting state like Texas. It ruins the air quality of several other states. And Texas is not the only offender. There are several other states that pollute their neighbors.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decided rightly that it was wrong for states to pollute other states, and several months ago they issued a new set of rules -- rules that would force these offending states to stop the pollution (especially that produced by coal-fired plants). Of course this angered the teabagger governor and attorney general of Texas (and several other polluting states). Playing to their right-wing base, they said the federal government had no right to make them stop polluting and they filed suit to stop the new EPA rules.

And they found some judges in the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia who were  crazy enough to believe them (although if the federal government can't stop one state from polluting another, I don't know who could). That decision made no sense, and the EPA appealed it to the United States Supreme Court. Last week, the Supreme Court issued their decision.

In a surprising 6 to 2 decision, the Court overturned the Court of Appeals decision. The six justices (Ginsburg, Roberts, Kennedy, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan) said the EPA did have the authority to force polluting states to reduce that pollution. The only two justices dissenting were right-wingers Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas (both of whom sold out to corporate interests long ago). Justice Alito did not vote either way.

This was a good decision, because no state should have the right to destroy the air quality of another state -- and some states, like Texas, have shown they will not act to stop the pollution until they are forced to do so.

Green Party Says Nuclear Energy Is NOT The Solution To Fossil Fuel Pollution

I think most people know now that global climate change (commonly called global warming) is really happening, and that the primary cause of it is the human overuse of fossil fuels (which produces pollution from greenhouse gases like CO2). Some, thanks to their own greed, will deny it. They want to continue making money from polluting the environment, and put the onus for doing something about that pollution on the next generation.

Unfortunately, we are running out of time, and need to do something now (before we reach the environmental tipping point, at which it will be too late for any action to be effective). The question is what to do. The most obvious solution, and one that would stop the energy pollution, is to use clean and renewable energy sources -- like solar, wind, wave, etc. But there is a growing movement, especially from the energy companies, that going back to nuclear power would be an option.

The Green Party disagrees with that -- and so do I. They say it would be tantamount to replacing one kind of environmental poisoning with a different kind of poisoning -- sort of like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. Here is how Green Party Shadow Cabinet member Harvey Wasserman (pictured) put it in an article for Truthdig:

The 25th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez disaster has brought critical new evidence that petro-pollution is destroying our global ecosystem.

The third anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear meltdown in Japan confirms that radioactive reactor fallout is doing the same.

How the two mega-poisons interact remains largely unstudied, but the answers can’t be good. And it’s clearer than ever that we won’t survive without ridding our planet of both. 

To oppose atomic power with fossil fuels is to treat cancer by burning down the house.

To oppose petro-pollution with nukes is to stoke that fire with radiation. 

In September, the first round of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest report confirmed yet again that global warming is accelerating and that human activity is the cause.

On March 31, it reported on additional ecological impacts ranging from compromised food systems to harm done a wide range of critical living networks. 

The core problem is “global weirding,” an escalating, unpredictable ecological instability. “A breakdown of food systems,” the loss of low-lying cities, ocean acidification, the death of coral reefs, the decline of critical land-based flora and fauna, and the decimation of critical ecosystems are all part of an increasingly poisonous package. The idea that somehow more CO2 will yield more crops is counteracted by the toll taken by temperature spikes and the loss of certain insects, combined with the increased predations of others—and much more we simply do not understand.

There are always dissenters. But at Prince William Sound in Alaska we see the consensus on warming joined by yet another global terror: petro-poisoning.

A quarter-century after the 1979 Valdez disaster, Exxon and its allies are sticking with their “see no evil, pay no damages” denials. 

But the hard evidence shows a wide range of local sea life has failed to return. Residual oil is still globbed along the shoreline. 

And, in what NPR has called a “Eureka moment,” scientists have confirmed that the “long-lasting components of oil thought to be benign turned out to cause chronic damage to fish hearts when fish were exposed to tiny concentrations of the compounds as embryos.”

The impact is confirmed by parallel heart problems reported by Bloomberg to tuna harmed in the Gulf of Mexico’s far more recent 2010 BP disaster.

If the petro-toxics from these spills can do such damage to larger fish, what are they also doing to all others that occupy this ecosystem? If trace poisons spewed 25 years ago are still ripping through the embryo of Alaskan fish, what must they also be doing to the starfish, the krill, the phytoplankton, the algae and so many other microorganisms?

It’s long been known that the particulate matter from burning coal over the centuries has killed countless humans.

But what, in turn, is all that doing to the global ecosystem and all its even more vulnerable creatures, warmed or otherwise?

Since the Valdez’s 25th anniversary last month, two more major spills have poisoned the waters off Galveston, Texas, and Michigan. As Greg Palast has reported at Truthdig, our single certainty is that in a world dominated by no-fault corporations, the fossil industry will pour ever-more lethal poisons into our air and water, land and crops, and all else on which we depend.

The same is true of atomic energy. A new scientific report about Chernobyl warns that in at least some of the forests saturated with radiation leaked from that nuclear plant, the natural cycle of decay has all but ceased. 

Like cancer cells that refuse to die, the fallen vegetation won’t go away. “Decomposers—organisms such as microbes, fungi and some types of insects that drive the process of decay—have also suffered from the contamination,” Rachel Nuwer writes on Smithsonian.com. “These creatures are responsible for an essential component of any ecosystem: recycling organic matter back into the soil.”

Sooner or later, that massive pile of inert detritus will catch fire. Gargantuan quantities of accumulated fallout will pour into the atmosphere. Those clouds will circle the globe. They’ll merge with all those other isotopes blown into the sky from Chernobyl for the past 28 years, and from all the other reactors and A-bomb tests dating back to New Mexico, 1945. 

Meanwhile, Fukushima continues to pour 300 tons or more of radioactive effluent into the Pacific every day. The first of its cesium isotopes have been found off Alaska and will come to California this summer. 

But the harm precedes the actual arrival. All 15 tuna taken in one recent study off the California coast tested positive for Fukushima contamination.

The eerie disintegration of starfish along the West Coast may have been caused by petro-pollution rather than Fukushima’s radiation. But each is clearly capable of doing the job alone. 

Reports of a “dead zone” in the Pacific and of an epic disappearance of other marine life should be terrifying enough to make us act on both. 

Burning coal and fracking gas release significant quantities of deadly radiation, as well as other pollutants and the matter at the root of climate change. Nuclear power heats our oceans and atmosphere, while spewing out still more eco-lethal doses of atomic emitters.

This is where tragedy and farce merge and mutate. 

Our choice is not between nuclear power and fossil fuels. Either is sufficient to kill us outright or strand us alone on a dead planet.

Those who would work for human survival should long ago have embraced the truth that all living beings are interdependent, and so are the dirty corporate technologies that kill them. 

We can no more survive on a planet burned and poisoned by fossil fuels than we can on one mutated and heated by atomic energy. 

Time is short and the two movements must make their peace. 

We have the means. Now we need the will.