Coal and Oil... sources of pollution and contamination.

Coal and oil, especially fuel oil, diesel and gasoline, are the primary source of our pollution and contamination world wide. The number one user of energy in the world is the United States, however we are being challenged by China and India as these emerging economies...backed by populations of more than 1.3 Billion each... are challenging America's use of fuel resources and are both polluting at an ever increasing rate.

China and India, along with Russia, have the most polluted cities in today's world, and these economic engines are not looking to delay their growth just because of some pollution here or there.

American, however, lacks one of their keys for future success. We do not have a meaningful National Energy Policy ... America, with its short range focus, has failed to understand that we need to harness the resources that we have under our control while we put together the alternative energy tools that we need to create and employ for a truly bright future.

First step: Establish a National Energy Policy.
Next step: put the focus on our American energy Resources...Natural Gas, Oil reserves on land and at sea, Coal...especially clean coal innovations...
Then engage our Universities and Industry to find new sources of energy that produce effectively at a cost efficiency that exceeds expectations.

And at the same time...raise the bar for Water, Air and Land based EPA regulations for limiting pollution and chemical contamination.

Raise the Bar...for success tomorrow.

Do you? Have you?

What Does The Term ‘Organic’ Mean?

You know, when we are reading a menu in our favorite restaurant, or talking to an Organic Farmer, the term Organic means ‘pure’ or naturally grown without forced fertilization and pest killing agents… but when you say Organic to a chemist or research biologist you will find it means nothing of the sort…what it means to them is that the compound you are dealing with is a carbon based compound.

Organic in the chemistry field lends itself to carbon based products that come from Coal or Petroleum… or rather PetroChemicals that are synthetic in nature…man made and not found in nature. And what we are discovering is that these synthetics are not part of the balance of things and many of them…hundreds, and growing every day, in fact are now registered at some level as potential or proven carcinogens…the basis for cancers in animals or man. Seventy five years ago there were very few synthetics around, even fewer in the marketplace…and the cancer rates of most nations were very low. Today, with so many things being made from petroleum based chemistry, there are traces of these substances in almost all of our water and our air…worldwide…and we have no way to determine the impact of the chemistries that these synthetic products make when they further combine together in our surface water, our ground water…our air, our food chain… damn near everywhere you can imagine…and when we look into our own bodies we find traces of them in our soft tissue, in our blood, and in our organs.

These are pollutants, have no doubt, and they are getting worse. Breast cancer was almost unknown 120 years ago. Some say that is because we did not live as long as today…and there may be some validity to that…but not to the point that 25% of all women in developed nations are being exposed to it today…that is only four generations back… that’s amazing. Today we find that more than 40% of us…will be diagnosed with some type of cancer in our lifetimes. In fact it is the second highest cause of death in the United States and the number one cause of death for all of us younger than 85.

So with our misguided definition … we want things to be organic…and we think that will make an important change. Well perhaps it will, but we need to put a greater emphasis today on that Organic Compound definition… and strive for clean air and water, and the reduction of pollutants in our food chain if we want to improve the conditions that have proven scientifically to be causing cancers in humans.

Our first step? Well, our first step is to stop ignoring the indicators. We need to act to reduce pollution, and who knows…if we can reduce the organic compounds that we are putting into our air and water we may be able to get a handle on climate change.

Wouldn’t that be something.

North American Acid Rain

Though we think of acid rain most often when we are thinking of Greece or Italy, North America is impacted by acid rain as well. Acid rain is measured by evaluating the PH in the water... pure water has a PH of 7.0, while average rain water ...with dissolved CO2... measures 5.6 PH. The more acid it gets, the less PH... in 2000 measurements in the US showed that the most acidic rain collected was measured at 4.5.

http://www.epa.gov/acidrain/measure/index.html

Even though not as strong as the acid in European environments, North American acid rain is changing ecosystems and damaging the soil, plants and wildlife in our forests, lakes, streams and rivers and results in a range of problems, from depleted plant life and reduced oxygenation to all out fish kills.

US Title IV of the Clean Air Act mandates control of acid deposition, but how is this being managed?

The Acid Rain Program, a National program in the US, has as its goal to achieve significant environmental and public health benefits through reductions in emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO₂) and nitrogen oxides (NO_x)—the primary causes of acid rain. Reduced use of high Sulfur Coal in power generation is one key example of how acid rain reduction is being addressed.

Other examples of how individuals can help reduce airborne acid... limit or eliminate the trash burned in fires, things like magazines with heavy acrylic inks and plastic wrap add to the problem, and limit your use of fertilizer which contributes to nitrogen oxides in our waterways and evaporated into the atmosphere.

Two Points of View...Atrazine impacts life...Yes? No?

What's In Our Water?

According to the U.S. Geological Survey there are a significant number of pesticides, their break-down consituents and fertilizers in the lakes and streams of Central Florida. Further, there are an interesting number of pesticide mixtures that have not been studied... and this common occurrence of pesticide mixtures in the lakes means that the combined toxicity may be greater than that of any single pesticide compound.

Some of these pesticides have also been found in urban and residential areas in surface waters, indicating sources are not limited to just agriculture.

Because decades-long studies are difficult to conduct, the impact of chronic exposure to these mixtures is unknown, but what we should recognize is that these are toxic chemicals intended to kill pests, but that are just as likely to harm all animals in the chain...including humans.

Lakes in the area are not used for public drinking water, and none of the individual samples exceeded federal or state drinking-water benchmarks for nitrate or pesticide concentrations, but benchmarks have not been set for all of the pesticides detected in the USGS study, nor have combined levels been set.

Aquatic-life benchmarks exist for 10 of the 20 pesticide compounds found and no concentrations met or exceeded those benchmarks. Yet questions remain about the possible impacts of these substances. Benchmarks for some of these chemicals and for chemical mixtures are still in the process of development.

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the Southwest Florida Water Management District, and the USGS conducted this study as a 'regional reconnaissance' to look at what happens to currently-used pesticides and their break-down products known as 'degradates', after they are applied to the land surface.

The compounds most frequently found include norflurazon and its degradate, bromacil, simazine degradates, diuron and its degradate, aldicarb degradates, metalaxyl, and 2,4-D. The lakes in citrus areas also were enriched with chemicals used as citrus fertilizers.

This study is unique in that very few studies have looked for pesticides in small to medium-sized lakes, or tested as many pesticide break-down products. Since the water resources in the area are so interconnected, this kind of information helps scientists understand where these chemicals go, how they break down and if they are posing threats to our water resources.

More than 200 lakes occur in the Lake Wales Ridge, located in Florida's Polk and Highland counties. Many of the region's lakes are 'flow-through' lakes, meaning that water seeps in and out of the lakes and is connected with water found in aquifers near the surface.

Water from the lakes can also flow into deeper groundwater systems such as the Upper Floridan aquifer, which is the region's principal drinking-water source. This makes it critical to understand what happens to pesticides that are currently being used in the region, the scientists said.

Now the twist! Many of these pesticides, like simazine and atrazine, are common agricultural tools here in the US but have been banned in other regions (ex: atrazine in the EU). Are we the ones being safe, or are we the ones missing the point.

Testing shows that these chemicals generate cancer in laboratory animals, and we know that with the increase of pesticide usage (DDT in the 50s and others after DDT was eliminated) we have seen an increase in a wide range of cancers... more than a 50% rise in cancer overall for Baby-Boomer Americans who were young and developing physically when exposure to these chemicals began.

What we need to recognize is that, just like the laboratory animals, we are being impacted by these chemicals and we need to improve their handling, control exposure to them, and limit or eliminate them when we identify these risks, not abide by industry advice that promotes their use even beyond scientific evidence that they threaten our way of life through increased toxic exposure.

Sustainability Starts Simple

When you were a kid your parents always told you to turn off the lights and don’t run the water… AND YOU STILL ARE NOT LISTENING!

Our lights are on all the time, I even know people who leave their outside lights and hall lights on when they go to sleep. So is our TV…our radio…our computer…and because we want instant-on we have power-strips that keep everything in ‘hot standby’…In fact a big waste is all those chargers for phones, iPods, computers, and more. Did you notice that those chargers are warm? That’s because they have power to them and they eat up more than $100 in electrical power every year…that’s every house…every condo, every apartment…every year! That’s hundreds of millions of dollars in waste by all of us every year…and that’s just the start.

What about water… we pump it, clean it, distribute it, process it, we heat it… we pay for it, AND WE WASTE IT!

We run the water to get it warm, to get it cold, to rinse off dishes going into the dish washer, water the grass (even during rain storms)… we let the hose run while washing the car, the shower run while we get ready to jump in…the sink run while we are shaving, washing, brushing teeth… heck we let it run just to let it run… water is perhaps the most endangered natural resource in the world. Eighty percent of the world’s surface I covered by water, less than five percent of that is non-salt…and only ten percent of that is potable. That means that millions of humans get ill each year from dirty water…and we let it run just to let it run…and again, we pay for it and we throw it away. DON’T LET THE WATER RUN!

We are in a struggle for meaningful sources of renewable energy and clean water…and the winner of this race may very well control the fate of mankind. We need to solve these problems in a way that keeps the environment and the economy in balance…we need to engage Sustainable Practices in all that we do, and we need to do it now… and our first steps… listen to your parents…turn out the lights and don’t run the water.