Finite Circuit
February 2012
45 posts
MIT: China's pollution costs $112B in annual health care →
content.usatoday.com
“China’s unprecedented growth is carrying a steadily steeper price tag as its air pollution hikes the nation’s health care costs, finds a new study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Although China has made substantial progress in reducing its air pollution, MIT researchers say its economic impact has jumped from $22 billion in 1975 to $112 billion in 2005. The costs result from both lost labor and the increased need for health care because ozone and particulates in air can cause respiratory and cardiovascular diseases.
“The results clearly indicate that ozone and particulate matter have substantially impacted the Chinese economy over the past 30 years,” Noelle Selin, an assistant MIT professor of engineering systems and atmospheric chemistry, said in announcing the findings that appear in the February edition of the journal Global Environmental Change.
The study, by researchers at the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, said pollution’s economic impact has grown, because population growth increased the number of people exposed to it and higher incomes raised the costs associated with lost productivity.”
Read the rest at USA Today
Coca-Cola Hired Stratfor to Monitor Peta activists at Winter Olympics →
ibtimes.co.uk
Coca-Cola hired the Stratfor intelligence firm to monitor Peta animal activists at the 2010 Vancouver WinterOlympics, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange revealed.
The whistle-blowing site has started publishing more than five million emails hacked by Anonymous from the server of Stratfor. Among them, internal email exchanges between the company’s vice-President Fred Burton and other analysts reveal Coca Cola’s concerns over activism during the Olympics in Canada.
Burton even claimed to be in possession of an FBI classified investigation on Peta operatives. “I’ll see what I can uncover,” he says in a message.
“Coca-Cola just sent me a long list of questions regarding Peta/Animal Activism and the upcoming Olympics in Vancouver,” reads an email by analyst Anya Alfano to Burton. “I’m not entirely clear on how much we can task the public policy group at this point—is there any guidance you can give me on that front? Coke has asked for a short teleconference with one of our analysts to discuss this issue.”
Stratfor’s research was aimed at discovering how many Peta, which stands for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, were in Canada, how many inclined on activism and what sort of attacks has the group carried out in North America.
“Our client is looking forward toward the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver and is somewhat concerned that Peta affiliates might be interested in carrying out direct action against Olympic sponsors and events during that time frame,” reads another email by Alfano to Burton.
Talking at a press conference held at the Frontline Club in London, Assange also attacked Thomson Reuters news agency, claiming it has lost its traditional independence and balance.
“Reuters is a confederation partner of Stratfor along with others news companies with a US agenda,” he said. “But Reuters is meant to be independent. Something happened when Reuters merged with Thomson, which was not a news agency but an information provider.”
Yeah, PETA is scum, but this is still creepy shit.
TransCanada to Build Texas Segment of Keystone XL Pipeline →
businessweek.com
TransCanada Corp. will proceed with building a $2.3 billion segment of its Keystone XL oil pipeline from Oklahoma to the Texas coast so that it isn’t delayed by U.S. approval for the rest of the line.
The company, based in Calgary, expects the segment to begin carrying crude from the Cushing, Oklahoma, storage hub to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast as soon as mid-year 2013, according to a statement today. TransCanada is separating the Cushing line from its application to President Barack Obama for approval of a Keystone expansion that will bring crude into the U.S. from Canada’s oil sands.
“We remain committed to building this overall project in a timely and efficient manner and to meet demand of shippers,” said TransCanada Chief Executive Officer Russ Girling in an interview today. Shippers are making multi billion dollar commitments spanning decades and “they haven’t wavered from Keystone,” he said.
Texas Landowner Group Forms To Fight Keystone Pipeline
“President Obama’s decision to halt construction of the Keystone tar sands pipeline has not stopped plans for segment passing through East Texas. And KERA’s Shelley Kofler reports a group of landowners has organized to fight back.”
Texas landowners thwarted the ambitious Trans-Texas Corridor, and Texas landowners just might be able to stop the construction of the last leg of the Keystone XL Pipeline project. (It’s enough to give Ron Paul a case of cognitive dissonance.)
Engineers have found a way to cut the CO2 and energy footprint of cement by 97 percent - and the recipe's much cheaper, too. →
tgdaily.com
A Drexel University team has created an alkali-activated cement based on an industrial byproduct, slag, and simple limestone, and which doesn’t require heating to produce.
[…]
In contrast to ordinary Portland cement, Drexel’s cement is made of up to 68 percent unfired limestone, a plentiful, cheap, and low-carbon dioxide resource. To this base, a small amount of commercial alkali chemical is added along with the iron slag byproduct.
In Portland cement the substitute for this mixture, called clinker, is produced by firing a number of ingredients in a kiln, thus requiring more energy and generating more carbon dioxide.
“Our results and the literature confirm that it performs as well or better than OPC,” says Dr Michel W Barsoum.
This seems too good to be true.
We’ll see what happens.
Featured Articles Movies Gallery Media Polls Support Shop About Contact MILLIONS OF POUNDS OF TOXIC POISON TO FLOOD US FARMLAND →
truththeory.com
by Cassandra Anderson
The EPA announced that it has completed the first part of its study on dioxin, after more than 25 years of stonewalling.
Dioxin is the most caustic man-made chemical known. Dioxin is a general term for hundreds of chemicals that are produced in industrial processes that use chlorine and burning. Disturbingly, it has a half-life of 100+ years when it is leached into soil or embedded in water systems. Dioxin was the most harmful component in Agent Orange (the recipe for Agent Orange is 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T herbicides).
The EPA says that air emissions of dioxin have decreased by 90% since the 1980′s, but dioxin is dangerous at any level. The study appears to omit any analysis of dioxin transmission in water and land. The danger is growing because Dow AgroScience has received preliminary USDA approval for its 2,4-D herbicide resistant GMO corn. This means that dioxin contaminated 2,4-D herbicide will drench US farm land and pollute water supplies if the crops are widely planted.
Tell Walmart: Don't sell Monsanto's potentially toxic GMO sweet corn →
bit.ly
This spring, Monsanto’s GMO sweet corn — their first product for direct human consumption — will be getting planted for the first time.Then it will be sold, unlabeled, in a grocery store near you.
What would it take to stop it? It would take the largest food retailer in the country rejecting Monsanto’s untested, potentially toxic corn.
Tell Walmart: Don’t carry Monsanto’s GMO Sweet Corn!
In response to pressure from more than 250,000 CREDO Activists and others last fall, Trader Joes, Whole Foods and General Mills all committed not to sell Monsanto’s sweet corn.1
But not Walmart.
Walmart, wrote to us that “nothing is more important than the safety and satisfaction of our customers.” But that’s just not consistent with selling this unlabeled GMO sweet corn, which contains three genetic modifications — including the insecticide Bt — and hasn’t been tested to prove it is safe for humans to eat.2
Walmart could make a powerful statement for consumer safety by rejecting Monsanto’s GMO sweet corn, but they won’t do it unless we put very public pressure on the company.
Tell Walmart: Don’t carry Monsanto’s GMO Sweet Corn!
This corn is Monsanto’s first foray into designing GMO foods that could wind up whole on your plate. If it’s successful, we can be sure that it will just be the beginning for Monsanto, who already produces roughly 90% of GMO seeds around the globe.
As the largest food retailer, and even thelargest seller of organic foods, Walmart can set an important precedent that could keep Monsanto’s GMO sweet corn, and any future GMO foods, from taking root.
If Walmart really means that nothing is more important than their customers safety then they need to take a stand now.
1. “Food companies petitioned to ban new Monsanto GMO corn,” Reuters, 10/27/11
2. “Monsanto’s GMO Corn Linked To Organ Failure, Study Reveals,” Huffington Post, 3/18/10
“
Stronger hurricanes, bigger floods, more intense heat waves, and sea level rise have been getting many of the headlines with regards to potential climate change impacts, but drought should be our main concern. Drought is capable of crashing a civilization. To illustrate, drought has been implicated in the demise of the Mayan civilization in Mexico, the Anasazis of the Southwest U.S., and the Akkadians of Syria in 2200 B.C. The Russian heat wave and drought of 2010 led to a spike in global food prices that helped cause unrest in Africa and the Middle East that led to the overthrow of several governments. It’s likely that global-warming intensified droughts will cause far more serious impacts in the coming decades, and drought is capable of crashing our global civilization in a worst-case scenario, particularly if we do nothing to slow down emissions of carbon dioxide.
Extreme weather years like 2010 and 2011 are very likely to increase in frequency, since there is a delay of several decades between when we put heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere and when the climate fully responds. This is because Earth’s oceans take so long to heat up when extra heat is added to the atmosphere (think about how long it takes it takes for a lake to heat up during summer.) Due to this lag, we are just now experiencing the full effect of CO2 emitted by the late 1980s; since CO2 has been increasing by 1 – 3% per year since then, there is a lot more climate change “in the pipeline” we cannot avoid.
We’ve set in motion a dangerous boulder of climate change that is rolling downhill, and it is too late to avoid major damage when it hits full-force several decades from now. However, we can reduce the ultimate severity of the damage with strong and rapid action. A boulder rolling downhill can be deflected in its path more readily early in its course, before it gains too much momentum in its downward rush. For example, the International Energy Agency estimates that every dollar we invest in alternative energy before 2020 will save $4.30 later. There are many talented and dedicated people working very hard to deflect the downhill-rolling boulder of climate change–but they need a lot more help very soon.
” —“Expect the Unprecedented”: Weather Underground Meteorologist Jeff Masters On Our Shifting Climate(via solitaryforager)
Willie Nelson Joins 300,000 Activists in Suit Against Monsanto | →
commondreams.org
via Common Dreams Feb. 17, 2012
Willie Nelson joins a plaintiff group of over 300,000 members in a lawsuit against big-ag giant Monsanto challenging the company’s patents on genetically modified seed.
Democracy Now! reports today:
The singer Willie Nelson has joined with 300,000 other activists in a lawsuit against the U.S. agricultural giant Monsanto, citing the company’s practice of suing small farmers whose fields have been contaminated by Monsanto’s genetically modified seeds. The suit was filed as part of the “Occupy the Food System” campaign protesting the corporate takeover of small farms and the use of harmful pollutants like Monsanto’s “Roundup” herbicide.
The Organic Seed Growers & Trade Association (OSGATA) explains the lawsuit background on its website:
The case, Organic Seed Growers & Trade Association, et al. v. Monsanto, was filed in federal district court in Manhatten on March 29, 2011, on behalf of 60 family farmers, seed businesses and organic agricultural organizations, challenging Monsanto’s patents on genetically modified seed. On June 1, 2011, we amplified our OSGATA v. Monsanto complaint by bringing on an additional 23 Plaintiffs to bring the total to 83. Our plaintiff group now represents over 300,000 members.
