The Good Human » Pollution

DOCUMERICA: EPA Photo Project Documenting Eco-Damage To Our World In The 60′s

david — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:30:14 +0000

Via The Atlantic, the National Archives has released 15,000 different images from an EPA project in 1971 to document how we interacted with the environment and how it affects our every day life. The project, called DOCUMERICA, allows us to see how bad the environment had gotten in the 1960′s, and The Atlantic combed through those images to pick out 46 images that starkly represent just how eco-issues affected life 40 years ago. I bet if we did this project today in 2012, the images would be even more telling of just how destructive we humans can be.

“As the 1960s came to an end, the rapid development of the American postwar decades had begun to take a noticeable toll on the environment, and the public began calling for action. In November 1971, the newly created Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a massive photo documentary project, called DOCUMERICA, to record these changes. More than 100 photographers were hired not only to document specific environmental issues, but to capture images of everyday life, showing how we interacted with the environment and capturing the way parts of America looked at that moment in history. By 1974, more than 80,000 photographs had been produced.”

Take a look at a few images from the collection:

Click on over to The Atlantic to see the remainder of these select photographs. They are a little haunting.

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Toxic Chemical Releases Up 16% Over Previous Year

david — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 19:34:57 +0000

The EPA has released their most recent Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) data (for 2010) and the data shows that the overall release of pollutants into our environment increased 16% from 2009. The TRI provides information each year on toxic chemical disposals and releases into the air, land and water, and during 2010 approximately 3.93 billion pounds of toxic chemicals were released into our environment. Companies must report their chemical disposals and releases each year to the EPA, but illegal dumps are not included in the report, for obvious reasons.

“We will continue to put accessible, meaningful information in the hands of the American people. Widespread public access to environmental information is fundamental to the work EPA does every day,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. “TRI is a cornerstone of EPA’s community-right-to-know programs and has played a significant role in protecting people’s health and the environment by providing communities with valuable information on toxic chemical releases.”

The top ten chemicals released into the environment in 2010 were:

1. HYDROCHLORIC ACID
2. SULFURIC ACID
3. HYDROGEN FLUORIDE
4. AMMONIA
5. BARIUM COMPOUNDS
6. ZINC COMPOUNDS
7. TOLUENE
8. COPPER COMPOUNDS
9. POLYCYCLIC AROMATIC COMPOUNDS
10. STYRENE

There are often discussions I enter into about how the recession should be slowing down the release of pollutants into our atmosphere, but this data from 2010 shows that the exact opposite is happening. If toxic releases are up 16% year over year during a downturn, imagine how high that number could rise if the economy turns around? If you want to check out the figures for your home state, you can visit the State Fact Sheet at the EPA site.

Image from BigStockPhoto

Ideas Needed – What Can We Do About Littered Cigarette Butts?

david — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 14:00:10 +0000

Smoking rates have declined steadily here in the United States, due to high taxes and the availability of health information, but the fact remains that 20.6% of our adult population still smokes cigarettes. That’s an estimated 46 million people discarding cigarette butts every day, and many of them are still throwing them out the window of their moving cars or dropping them on the sidewalk. Just yesterday morning I had one land on my windshield after being heaved out of a monster truck in front of me, and it got me to wondering — what could we all do to stop people from tossing their trash on the ground?

While smokers don’t seem to mind too much when they are inhaling the smoke, finished cigarette butts are not only not biodegradable, but their filters are made of cellulose acetate (a plastic) and they are full of nicotine, tar, arsenic, vinyl chloride, acetone, and mercury, among thousands of other chemicals. When thrown out a car window or dropped on the ground, these butts full of chemicals can leach into our aquifers and drinking water, find their way into rivers and streams, and even end up being eaten by small animals. The ingredients are toxic to wildlife, especially to saltwater and freshwater fish, and annually leave behind over 1.5 billion pounds of litter around the globe.

So what can we do about it, smokers and non-smokers alike?

Well, that’s what I was wondering and I wanted to ask for your input. There are all sorts of anti-smoking advertisements and campaigns, but we know that those don’t actually do anything to stop people from smoking. So is there anything we can do to at least clean up the act of smoking, so that those who choose to continue doing so will be responsible in the disposal of their trash? Look on any street corner and chances are it’s covered with old cigarette butts; we can do better, can’t we? I mean, you wouldn’t just drop a soda can or candy wrapper on the ground when you were done with it, so why is it OK to drop a cigarette butt? We may not be able to stop people from smoking, but is there anything we can do to educate smokers about how their trash is negatively impacting the planet and the rest of us?

If I can gather enough responses from you guys, I will put together a one-sheet of sorts which I will make available here on the site for everyone. And if you are so inclined, you can please pass that information along to your local city managers or waste management folks, encouraging them to develop a campaign to educate smokers on the dangers of littered cigarette butts. If we can’t get smokers to quit smoking for their own health, maybe we can encourage them to at least be responsible with their trash.

What do you think? Should we give it a go? I need your help to make it happen, so if you have some advice or ideas, please weigh in via the comment section after this post. I look forward to hearing what you have to say!

Photo from BigStock

Any Hope That U.S. Will Limit Greenhouse Gas Emissions?

david — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 13:00:39 +0000

Q: What’s the latest in regard to putting limits on greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.? Is there any hope that Obama can get something done?

Our best hope to date was 2009’s American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), a bill that called for the implementation of a “cap-and-trade” system to limit carbon dioxide emissions by capping overall emissions and allowing polluters to buy or sell greenhouse gas pollution credits—similar to what the European Union has been doing since 2005 to successfully reduce its own emissions—depending upon whether they were exceeding established limits or had succeeded in coming in below them.
According to the bill, U.S. businesses needing to pollute more could buy emissions credits on the open market; those able to reduce emissions could sell their pollution credits on the same trading floor. Thus there is a built-in incentive to reduce emissions: If you exceed pollution limits you have to keep buying costly credits; and if you can get below limits you can profit from the sale of credits for the difference.

Among the bill’s key provisions was a 17 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions below 2005 levels by 2020, with a mid-century goal of an 80 percent reduction. Also, billions of dollars would have gone to initiatives bolstering green transportation, energy efficiency and related research and development. The bill was approved by the House in June 2009 by a narrow 219-212 vote. But Senate Democrats decided they didn’t have enough votes to get a version of the bill passed, and tabled the discussion.

While ACES may not have made it into the law books, its passage by the House was significant as it represented the first time the legislative branch called for sweeping climate legislation. Also, the bill’s provisions served as a guideline for U.S. negotiators heading to Denmark later in 2009 for the COP15 international climate talks (although in the end nothing binding was agreed upon there).

Then, in May 2010 Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman unveiled their own cap-and-trade climate bill for the Senate. Dubbed the American Power Act, it aimed to reduce overall U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by similar amounts as ACES. But with the nation still reeling from the effects of BP’s Gulf oil spill—the American Power Act include provisions for offshore drilling—and Senate Republicans leery of any climate legislation, the bill failed to make it to a floor vote. Some point the finger at a handful of Democratic Senators from coal-producing states for not supporting their party colleagues. Others say Obama wasn’t advocating strongly enough despite his campaign rhetoric on the topic.

“The best one could plausibly hope for in the next Congress, assuming only modest Republican gains, is some sort of weak cap on utility emissions, possibly with some weak oil saving measures, though that would still require Obama to do what he refused to do under more favorable political circumstances—push hard for a bill,” writes commentator Joe Romm of Think Progress, a liberal political blog. Romm adds that it’s inconceivable to think the next Congress would even contemplate strong climate or clean energy legislation “without Obama undergoing a major strategy change and taking a very strong leadership role in crafting the bill and lobbying for the bill and selling it to the public.”

CONTACTS: ACES; Think Progress.

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