I've often wondered if EPA actually stands for Environmental Pillaging Act, so contrary to environmental protection are the policies and recommendations that often come from this government organization.
However, in a victory for environmentalists, the US Appeals Court ruled against not allowing states to tighten up air quality standards.
From 1990 when the Clean Air Act was introduced, to 2006, states were allowed to monitor industrial facilities, making sure that they weren't breaching any pollution level laws. Then W and his administration decided that ensuring pollution levels don't exceed acceptable limits was a bad idea and introduced new rules kyboshing the monitoring, essentially leaving polluting facilities unchecked. (Even for the most hardened skeptic this seems to lack basic common sense non?)
The tide turned however, when yesterday the US Appeals court re-instated the mandatory monitoring of industrial facilities, returning power to the states to regulate. According to the Wall Street Journal, the agency has a poor track record in overturning appeals court decisions so let's hope that trend continues. In the spirit of the Olympics - enviros 1 - polluters - 0.
Democracy is utterly dependent upon an electorate that is accurately informed. In promoting climate change denial (and often denying their responsibility for doing so) industry has done more than endanger the environment. It has undermined democracy.
There is a vast difference between putting forth a point of view, honestly held, and intentionally sowing the seeds of confusion. Free speech does not include the right to deceive. Deception is not a point of view. And the right to disagree does not include a right to intentionally subvert the public awareness.
On Monday, the State Department’s public comment period closed for the Keystone XL pipeline draft environmental impact statement. Over one million comments were submitted by citizens opposed to the tar sands pipeline. Then came the most damning comment of them all: from the Environmental Protection Agency.
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I thought this site was
I thought this site was about CO2 "pollution" and yet the post is about air quality and shows towers belching out soot. Does the desmog blog deal with actual literal smog sometimes?
RE: I thought this site was
The thick billowing white clouds are, most likely, water vapor that has crystallized in cold air. The lighter white translucent emissions are probably a mixture of sulfates, nitrous-oxide emissions, and particulates combined with invisible and odorless carbon-monoxides and carbon-dioxide emissions.
It's the ecology (not the economy), stupid!
The time is coming when many people will follow the exemplary behavior of the US Court of Appeals by speaking out loudly and clearly for something, for anything at all to do with the preservation of life as know it and Earth, even though it is not politically convenient and economically expedient to do so, even though thousands of greedy kings and self-proclaimed masters of the universe eschew such open expressions as well as maintain that “silence is golden.”
Soon people will be heard speaking out often in many places for something, for anything at all that does not have to do with the unbridled and soon to become unsustainable growth of the global political economy.
The silence regarding the threat of rampant economic globalization is deafening. How much longer will it continue?
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001