Right to Work?

My thoughts about Michigan's new "Right to Work" law...

"In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as 'right to work'. It is a law to rob us of our civil rights and job rights. Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining by which unions have improved wages and working conditions of everyone ... Wherever these laws have been passed, wages are lower, job opportunities are fewer and there are no civil rights...We demand this fraud be stopped."

~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Post-Election Thoughts

A few things to keep in mind about the obstructionists in Congress.

• They are paid to work for the betterment of all people--not just the billionaires
• They are paid to work with the Executive branch to promote the general welfare not to sabotage said branch at the expense of the peoples' well-being
• Their oath is to the Constitution of the US, not a Norquist pledge
• They should not promote succession and government overthrow simply because their party lost the election 

Keep in mind that since election night the GOP has been talking about re-defining their party and expanding their base.  I think we're about to hear that they love everyone equally--women, Hispanics, LGBT, students, seniors--in other words lying.

Please, GOP, don't try to sell me the same tired policies wrapped in a shiny new package--find some new policies that offer real solutions for all 3.14 + million living in this country.

OK...I'm a big Pokemon fan and this latest meme just made me laugh out loud.  Team Rocket, that's right.  Read it left to right; in other words one sentence from Romney then one from Ryan and end with Meowth's line.  BTW, I know "fore" is wrong, but I'm not the one who did this...go complain to the original site:  http://weknowmemes.com/2012/09/romney-and-ryan-are-team-rocket/

So, I saw my first "FRACK ON" sign this summer.  It's less than a mile away from my home...(I wanted to put up my own "FRACK OFF" sign, but someone beat me to it.)  It grates on my nerves to have to see it every day.

Last week my son asked me how I felt about that sign--he likes to aggravate as much as any teen likes to...  but I laughed and said jokingly "If God doesn't think fracking is good for us, He'll take care of that sign."

To my surprise that night we had some windy weather...the sign blew down...in a few days the sign was back up only to have it completely disappear within two days...still not back up :)

Does this mean that God agrees with a Liberal tree hugger?  Someone should notify the Republicans.

"A water and methane geyser, bubbling water, and mud volcanoes have Pennsylvania shale-field residents scared and demanding answers.  A number of dramatic methane emissions were reported to have begun in Leroy Township, Bradford County on May 19, 2012. Initial reports from residents suggested that there may have been a substantial loss of control of natural gas from one or more of the shale gas wells in the area..."


Read more here: Independent study finds significant fault line methane leaks

CATHOLICS FOR OBAMA - BIDEN: Romney Profiting from Abortion

CATHOLICS FOR OBAMA - BIDEN: Romney Profiting from Abortion

Big Bang for the Fourth

Now that the God Particle has been found (well technically one that resembles the Higgs boson), science can move onto discovering things like sparticles, the sixth, seventh, eighth, eleventh, even twelfth dimensions or that mysterious stuff that dark matter is made of.  Congrats to all you smarter-than-me geeky science people.

CONNECT THE DOTS

There are significant health and environmental impacts when examining the full life-cycle of shale gas.

• Air pollution comes from the exhaust of generators and compressors (that run 24/7) at shale well sites, from heavy-duty truck traffic and from the venting of wastewater storage tanks.
• Shale development results in more emissions of greenhouse gases, smog-inducing compounds and other hazardous air pollutants than conventional oil and gas development.
• Increased use of shale gas instead of coal may actually accelerate climate change in the coming decades, not reduce climate change impacts.
• Air pollutants found near fracking sites include methanol, formaldehyde, carbon disulfide, and VOCs (including nitrogen oxides, benzene and toluene) are also discharged during fracking
• Emissions from well sites form ground-level ozone combine with particulate matter to form smog
• In Dish, Texas air samples contained high levels of neurotoxins and carcinogens
• In Wyoming, drilling and fracking have caused ground-level ozone pollution to exceed amounts recorded in Los Angeles.

Shale gas is not an alternative fuel that can serve as a bridge to a future powered by clean, renewable energy resources, but a path to more environmental degradation.

References:


Food and Water Watch. (2012, March). Fracking:  The new global water crisis.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (2011, June). The future of natural gas: An
interdisciplinary MIT study.

Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Manchester. ( 2011, January). Shale gas: a provisional assessment of climate change and environmental impacts.

Brown, Stephen P.A. et al. (2009, December). Natural gas: a bridge to a low-carbon future? 



United States House of Representatives:  Committee on Energy and
Commerce. [Minority Staff Report]. (2011, April). Chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing.
April 2011

May Day-OWS

Think about what people fought for a little over a century ago then ask yourself:  Are the "job creators" really creating jobs with their ever-growing tax breaks/loopholes?  Or is this mantra just a way to fool the 99% into supporting their agenda?  What regulations can we do without; cleaner air, unpolluted water, or protection from unsafe work places?  Higher taxes for us so the gap between rich and poor can grow even wider?  Does "Trickle Down Economics" really trickle down to the 99% or is it reverting our society to a Middle Age feudal system where the wealthy few have all the say and the rest of us do their bidding?  

Definitely a re-post--not my own words since I didn't take time to research and find info about the original May Day in the US....

Most people living in the United States know little about the International Workers' Day of May Day. For many others there is an assumption that it is a holiday celebrated in state communist countries like Cuba or the former Soviet Union. Most Americans don't realize that May Day has its origins here in this country and is as "American" as baseball and apple pie, and stemmed from the pre-Christian holiday of Beltane, a celebration of rebirth and fertility.

In the late nineteenth century, the working class was in constant struggle to gain the 8-hour work day. Working conditions were severe and it was quite common to work 10 to 16 hour days in unsafe conditions. Death and injury were commonplace at many work places and inspired such books as Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and Jack London's The Iron Heel. As early as the 1860's, working people agitated to shorten the workday without a cut in pay, but it wasn't until the late 1880's that organized labor was able to garner enough strength to declare the 8-hour workday...

Read the rest here.

~Eric Chase - 1993. 

When Profs Make Me Think

Oh Prof. Kennedy, I miss your thought-provoking questions......

The term "mitigation" is often used for construction projects. Often, if you disturb 1 acre of habitat, you would have to mitigate 1.4 acres of habitat. Is that fair, can we really restore other land to the same level as pristine land we are taking?

Uuuhhhhmmmm.....my brain hurts :(  but I gave it a shot:

Some pluses that I see with mitigation would be costs of environmental damage being internalized by the developer.  Without mitigation, the costs of environmental  damage is externalized and the government (at least in the US) would be responsible for restoration; mitigation helps avoid this.  However, this is also a way that may encourage further environmental degradation.  If a highly diverse area is developed and the requirement is to plant 1.4 acres of trees hundreds of miles away it will not help the area around the construction site.  As far as fairness, it can be fair.  I do see a lot empty buildings on already developed land sitting idle.  Maybe restoration or retrofitting older buildings is the answer to the development issue.  Why build on pristine land when there is plenty developed then abandoned to fall apart?

An interesting website that helps people make decisions about where and how to develop land is the Natural Capital Project (NCP) where Stanford U, Univ. of Minnesota, the Nature Conservancy, and the World Wildlife Fund joined together.  InVest 2.0 (NCP, n.d.) helps communities to assess the value of an ecosystem, find alternatives, and invest in natural capital.  After all, the idea is to find ways to work with nature, not against it.  

Natural Capital Project. (n.d.). InVest:  Integrated valuation of environmental services and tradeoffs. Retrieved from http://naturalcapitalproject.org/InVEST.html

Ethics of Sustainability

Discuss whether or not you agree with Judge Weeramantry’s concept of sustainability. Does he appear to be using any particular value system? If so, which one(s)?

Judge Weeramantry is arguing for development with the concept of stewardship for future generations.  He interjects traditional knowledge and cultural respect for the environment and points out that past civilizations did this in many instances.  He gives several examples from the past that help him define sustainable development that combines land use with protecting the environment (Weeramantry, n. d., p. 10).

The Judge's speech touches on our responsibility towards the stewardship ethic (Radcliffe, 2000, p. 79) where our generation has an obligation to preserve/conserve natural resources for the next one (or even more), which I agree with.  While there are many programs to promote stewardship like the Energy Star program, the US as a whole needs a clearly defined vision, goal, and an action plan that balances development with its impact on the environment.  I think that we have some visions and goals in place via the clean water and air laws, but lack the cohesiveness needed to fully implement these throughout the US.  We have forces that attempt to diminish these laws (lobbying) citing economic peril (job killers) and reduce the laws effect or defund them making enforcement difficult. 

While the economy is important, valuing it above ecosystems damages the environment and diminishes people's well being.  Most certainly, promoting its unending growth leaves little chance we will be able to hold our responsibility to future generations. We do not have to believe that "no drop of water should flow into the sea without first serving the interests of man" (Weeramantry, n. d., p. 10) to flourish and benefit from what nature has to offer all of us.  We only need to learn how to balance our impact with preservation.  After all, past generations, that had fewer tools and technology, managed their resources very well and preserved some for the next generation as Weeramantry points out.  Why is it that we have such vast amount of information/tools at our hands but fail to do the same?

References:

Radcliffe, J. (2000). Chapter 4 – The need for an environmental ethic. In Green Politics. New York, NY: Pelgrave Publishers. Retrieved from http://site.ebrary.com/ 

Weeramantry, C. (n. d.). Sustainable development:  An ancient concept revived. http://vizedhtmlcontent.next.ecollege.com/pub/content/956ff924-e558-475d-9593-465270545d68/ENV330.W2.Reading.pdf

Environmental Justice/Environmental Racism

Discuss the relationship between environmental justice and environmental racism. Can efforts towards environmental justice overcome environmental racism? Why or why not?

Environmental justice:

According to the EPA website (2010, ¶ 5) environmental justice is when:

"...all people enjoy the same degree of protection from environmental and health 

hazards and equal access to the decision-making process to maintain a healthy 

environment in which to live, learn, and work.". 

In other words, no group of people should have to bear a disproportionate burden of pollution/waste that all people create throughout their lives.  In our readings, Cole and Foster (2001) produced evidence from the United Church of Christ's Commission for Racial Justice (CRJ) study that finds three out of five (p. 55) of African Americans and Latinos live in communities with uncontrolled toxic waste sites.  Likewise, the Social and Demographic Research Institute (SDRI) found similar instances where researchers could predict where a toxic waste site was based on minority populations in an area, i.e. African Americans and/or Hispanics.  Other problems discovered were the government's unequal enforcement concerning fines and cleanup.  This study showed that even if a white community had a lower income the fines were higher, cleanup faster, and faster listing for the EPAs Superfund.

Environmental racism:

Even though inequalities exist in these communities, there are some who claim minorities are exposed to higher toxins because of lifestyle choices, social status, or the free market.  People who believe these statements to be true are accused of environmental racism.  However, vehement opponents to the environmental justice movement claim that in many instances the results are unfounded.  In fact, Clegg (1998) opposes government intervention and suggests "free enterprise and personal responsibility...is what poor people need" (¶ 14) to improve their condition.  He and others like him claim they are opposed to racism, but are definitely opposed to environmental groups and government trying to intervene in a more equal distribution of toxic sites and pollution.

Conclusion:

It is interesting to note that those most opposed to environmental justice laws feel that regulation and laws stifle the free market and its ability to operate properly.  However, poorer neighborhoods may need jobs but the only opportunities offered are the chemical industry and toxic dumps no one else wants in their backyard (NIMBY).  Many of these facilities are needed because of our consumption habits.  Without a societal effort to change consumption habits, these types of facilities will continue to exist.  As the CRJ report suggests, reduction is a solution to disproportionate environmental impacts (Cole & Foster, 2001, p. 56), and most likely they are right.  As seen above many people oppose government intervention and blame minorities for their "lifestyle choices".  On the other hand, there are laws and regulations trying to distribute toxic waste sites more equally.  However, as long as our society consumes products that have toxic side-effects at any point from cradle-to-grave we will have environmental inequalities.

References:

Clegg, R. (1998, November 9). Polluting race relations:  The end of the environmental justice movement. The weekly standard. pp 31-33. Retrieved from Opposing Viewpoints, hosted by GCPL

.

Cole, L. & Foster, S. (2000, December). From the ground up:  Environmental racism & the rise of the environmental justice movement. Retrieved from http://site.ebrary.com/lib/ashford/docDetail.action?docID=10032503&ppg=67

Fracking Opinion

I'm wondering why I kept this in my draft file and didn't post it in December?  I must have had a brain burp....

A blogger from Texas who is opposed to unsafe hydrofracking, like I am, first posted this article, Hydrofracking Sure to Contaminate Water found here. 

The first commenter below this article points out that a NYCDEC is a "generic position" and claims he "once knew an environmental engineering technician" which apparently makes him an expert on Mr. Hetzler's job (which he equates with "one step above a general laborer...[and]...not qualified" to have an opinion/knowledge about fracking.)  In all fairness, there are probably hundreds of employees with this sort of position, but he fails to mention his educational background or authority to determine Hetzler's expertise in the field. 

When anyone starts with "I once knew a person who did <insert job here>" has a very weak beginning to an argument and I tend to dismiss what they have to say unless there is more to the assertion.  In a previous post, I have included links to the EPA and their preliminary findings about hydrofracking in WY, which I find more reliable than someone who knows someone else who did something....

ARTICLE:

As an environmental engineering technician with NYSDEC Region 5, I managed scores of groundwater remediation projects in the 1990s. I’ve reviewed countless hydrogeologic reports and seen thousands of lab results from contaminated wells. I’m familiar with the fate and transport of contaminants in fractured media, and let me be clear:

Hydraulic fracturing as it’s practiced today will contaminate our aquifers. Not might contaminate our aquifers.

Hydraulic fracturing will contaminate New York’s aquifers. If you were looking for a way to poison the drinking water supply, here in the Northeast you couldn’t find a more chillingly effective and thorough method of doing so than with hydraulic fracturing. My experience investigating and remediating contaminated groundwater taught me some lessons. There’s no such thing as a perfect well seal. Occasionally sooner, often later, well seals can and do fail, period.

No confining layer is completely competent; all geologic strata leak to some extent. The fact that a less-transmissive layer lies between the drill zone and a well does not protect the well from contamination.

A drinking water well is never in “solid” rock. If it were, it would be a dry hole in the ground. As water moves through joints, fissures and bedding planes into a well, so do contaminants. In fractured media such as shale, water follows preferential pathways, moving fast and far, miles per week in some cases.

In the absence of oxygen (such as under the ground), organic compounds break down infinitesimally slowly. Chemicals injected into the aquifer will persist for many lifetimes.

When contamination occurs—and it will occur— we will all pay for it, regardless of where we live. Proving responsibility for groundwater contamination is difficult, costly and time-consuming, and while corporate lawyers drag out proceedings for years, everyone’s taxes will pay for the subsurface investigations, the whole-house filtration systems, the unending lab analyses.

I’d love to see hundreds more jobs created. But not if it means hundreds of thousands using well water will be at a high risk of contamination. Not if it means every New Yorker will be on the hook for the cost for cleanup and for creating alternate water supplies. If your well goes bad, neither you, nor your children, nor their children will ever be able to get safe, clean water back. That’s too high a price.

Drill for gas, absolutely, but develop safe technologies first.

Paul Hetzler
Canton

Sister Rosetta Tharpe always makes me smile...

Is it hot out there or is it just me?

I promised myself that I would note when our seasonal birds and other critters show up in NE Ohio for this 2012 Spring.  Before that thought had time to leave my head, the warmer-than-usual winter petered out the first week in March.  Wow.  I kept waiting for our big March/April snowstorm that we usually get after a warm-up, but it didn't happen.  (By the time it did storm the air and ground were so warm hardly any stuck to the ground and most of it fell as rain.)  Usually about mid-March the Robins show up, then later the Red-Wing black birds follow, and in the middle of this the spring Peeps start their nightly chorus while my hyacinths, tulips, and other early plants start sprouting.

First, the hyacinths, tulips, irises, and rhubarb have been sprouting since mid-December.  Yes, that's right, in NE Ohio these plants were growing.  However, it wasn't a huge growth spurt since we did have below freezing nights.  We didn't have the usual layer of snow to insulate/protect the plants from the freeze/thaw cycles either which worried me a bit.  In fact, we've only reached 40% or our usual snowfall for 2011-2012 season.  Yes, I know, a weak la Nina formed in the fall (2011) and that has contributed to our warmer-than-usual winter but still, I haven't seen a winter like this in 15 years with tons of snow before and after that year.  Maybe the accelerated climate change has kicked in like the climatologist suggest?  As NPR reports, March 2012s claim to fame is 7,700 daily temperature records broken across the US, while the 2011/2012 winter is the 4th warmest on record.  Not to mention the earlier than usual forest fires Thom Hartmann mentioned the other day on his radio show and plenty of other climate change indicators that weren't supposed to show up until 2025 or later.

Back to the birds and other critters.  This year I heard my first Red-Wing black bird on March 2, 2012.  I thought I was imagining it, but soon found out they were back.  By the 10th the Robbins were bobbing around snagging worms and such--note that the RW black birds came back first.  The night before the RW black birds showed up, the peeps started their nightly chorus (almost deafening in my neck of the woods).  Most unusual, the Blue birds showed up the 3rd week of March when they usually aren't around until May when the Hummingbirds appear.  Speaking of which, I thought I saw a Hummingbird yesterday April 15th.  I'll have to keep an eye out to make sure, though.  Usually they fly right up to my face to let me know they're back and I should put out the feeders.  Don't worry, I only use organic sugar with no red dyes.  BTW, the Clematis is already 18" high and the chives are flowering, but how relevant is that since I can't remember the 2 springs before with these plants (thanks to AUs accelerated classes for 2 years straight :)? 

All these early birds make me wonder if there is some seasonal plant/insect that doesn't show up early if it is warm, but goes by the length of days, will leave some hungry.  On the up side, the maple syrup producers did well as my cousin told me.  I thought that the warmer weather would slow the sap flow, but silly me, they just started a little earlier this year.  To top it off, the freezing nights with warmer days really got the sap flowing.  I'll have to drive over some afternoon and pick up a 2nd or 3rd tap.  Love that darker stuff--the later it's tapped the better for me--great that I have relatives who make maple syrup, too. 

Off to batten down the hatches with our crazy, wild wind blowing everything around.

Flowback

Flowback is the wastewater produced by each and every fracking well all over the US (and other countries as well).  Fracking for natural gas is popping up all over the country, but the Marcellus shale drilling is of a particular concern for me because it's nearby, affects my drinking water, structural safety of my home and surrounding infrastructure, and what I've read about the most. 

These frack well sites can use an estimated 2-9 million gallons of fluid (mostly water) per well head is needed for one horizontal drill and 10-20 wellheads are found on each, taking about 5 acres of land per drill pad.  Frack fluid is injected into a well and roughly 1/2 of the flowback returns to the surface with the extracted natural gas/oil. 

The Marcellus Shale is known to contain natural gas and oil, but also "toxic metals, salts, and radionuclides" (Kargbo, Wilhelm, & Campbell, 2010) which are remnants from the Devonian age trapped in this geological formation.  Kargbo, Wilhelm, & Campbell (2010) go on to say that "...Devonian-age shales contain naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM), such as uranium (U)and thorium (Th) and their daughter products, 226Ra and 228Ra". 

In the Marcellus Shale area, there are not many injection wells available to dispose of the frack fluid (because of sub-surface instability from what, I'm not sure but can assume it has something to do with intensive natural gas/oil/coal extraction), so we rely heavily on wastewater treatment facilities which poses a bigger challenge to this area on how to keep these hazardous materials out of drinking water.  Needless to say, the industry is racing head-long into the unknown--aka ignoring and/or investing in sound science and research to prevent long-term pollution and expensive clean-up/remediation costs of fresh water drinking sources (costs which will be placed squarely on the shoulders of the tax payers through future Superfund sites requiring clean-up). 

Since there is no way with modern technology to bring only the natural gas/oil to the surface, the NORM, toxic metals and salts are brought to the surface in the flowback, too, along with the industry's secret cancer-causing additives to make the natural gas/oil flow out of the shale easier.  The flowback is transported to wastewater treatment facilities then expelled into surface streams, rivers, and watersheds where toxins can migrate into wells and aquifers.  This introduces technologically enhanced NORM (TENORM) into the surface environment.  In other words, the industry is taking NORM and other harmful stuff that was sequestered underground (several hundred million years ago) during/after the Devonian age and bringing it back to the surface environment to contaminate fresh water systems that the general population and wildlife need to survive. 

By the EPAs own admission, "many [wastewater treatment facilities] are not properly equipped to treat this type of wastewater", but the EPA plans to have a "proposed rule" in place by 2014 to ensure drinking water safety.  The EPA is also "evaluating industrial practices" of the design, operation, maintenance, and closure of holding pits and ponds that hold the flowback before it is transported to a wastewater facility and/or reused for fracking. 

Until I researched flowback, I wasn't aware that any company reused frack fluid although reuse is dependant on "levels of pollutants" and the proximity to a well that could reuse this fluid.  I would hope the industry would consider to use it on the other 9 to 19 wellheads on the same 5-acre pad as many times as they can so we can save a little water for minor uses like drinking and/or bathing :)   

The Green Dragon

Today is the Chinese New Year, so in my unusual way I'd like to celebrate with a post to raise awareness about the terrifying Environmental Movement that is taking the world by storm.  It is called the "Green Dragon" and is a danger to the world!  Take heed of my words!  Green dragons are the bane of human existence who spread death and destruction across the globe in their quest of all that is green.  They plunder the poor in their march towards clean air, fresh water, and their pursuit towards equitable and fair lives for all people of the Earth.  Beware!  The information shared is not for the faint of heart who fear all things green--much like Cloe my kitty--see Ms. Kitty catches a bird!!!:)

Resisting the Green Dragon is a 12-disc DVD collection for the low price of $49.99 designed to educate me about the Environmental Movement.  I'm told the Environmental Movement is "[w]ithout a doubt one of the greatest threats to society and the church today".  Whoa!  I'm confused I thought it was President Obama and the Democrats--thank goodness they offer a 12 minute preview that explains this new threat.  Just enter your password RESIST to view it here.  The preview was enough to scare the you-know-what out of me (could it be Satan?).  This short video explains that the Environmental Movement, headed by their god the Green Dragon, has become a "new religion" with its "twisted view" of nature that places--God forbid--humans on equal ground with nature.  The Green Dragon suggests that in order to have healthy people nature must be healthy, too.  Where will the madness end?  Our faith tells us we have a God-given right to dominate the earth and burn fossil fuels!  We should continue spending $600 billion a year buying overseas oil and leave our country in the hands of Big Oil in order to celebrate the glory of God.  It's His plan for us, don't you see?  We don't need CO2 levels below 350 ppm--after all 10% of what we exhale is CO2 and the trees need it!  How dare they tell us that breathing kills nature.  What nonsense.  We don't need those pesky mountain tops blocking our view of the ocean and land.  We should have an uncluttered view of God's plan for us--level those mountains, take the coal and build a sterile parking lot at the flattened top of those mountains as a monument of our superiority and dominance over nature.  We need a clear and unadulterated view of our deep sea drilling platforms and fracking wells that we have erected to show Him our awe and respect for all that He has provided.  We don't need clean air, oceans, or anything green because the earth is not fragile but a globe full of goodies just waiting for us to exploit, plunder, and pollute.  Best of all it will bounce back and continue to provide us with more!  It was created for us to care for in anyway we see fit.  We must resist logic, facts and reality in order to conform to the teachings of the Holy Trinity:  King Coal, Oil, and Natural Gas.  God is not nature and we should not entertain thoughts of religious communion with it for any reason. We must remain separate from this world and not allow any thoughts about how our dominance has destroyed nature or its natural balance.  This sort of critical thinking leads to our rights being taken away by the guv-ment, economic destruction, and forces us think about starving children in "third world" countries.  Worse of all, if we listen to the Green Dragon we'll come together as one to protect our biosphere and work together to solve the biggest crisis that we face today.  God wouldn't want any of us to worry about these minuscule problems, but about how we can plod through life with our blinders on ignoring the world and people around us. 

Now, let us pray and bow our heads to thank Big Oil, the Almighty Dollar, and the Prince of Wars for Oil for He shall provide us with all our needs. 

Amen.