In New York City, people have different ways of connecting. It's a pre-Twitter version of Tribes. There are individuals you know from the building, office mates, dog friends, politicos, even store owners. One guy I regularly talk to fits into the latter two categories. I'm not sure how our relationship got started -- probably with a random comment. Now whenever I go into his establishment, we do a brief rundown on national and international events. After a full review of this week's topics (which featured a few doozies), we settled back into our familiar positions.
He is a self-avowed cynic who believes the world is going to hell in a hand basket. Best description -- shades of Bogart as Richard Blaine in Casablanca -- before he decides to rejoin the fight. A middle-age man with a seven-year-old daughter, he likes to boast that he is raising her as a "skeptic."
I am in the mold of the Streisand character, Katie Morosky, from The Way We Were -- constantly insisting that people have to speak up about what is wrong.
The powers that be thrive on a defeatist populace giving up. "You didn't send Obama to the presidency," he told me flatly. "The money people did. You just voted for him." Great, I thought as I walked out of his place. Not exactly what I wanted to hear early in the morning, on the first sunny day after ninety-six hours of continuous rain.
The bottom line is, I don't' agree with him.
Yes, there are all kinds of things that go on in the world that I don't understand -- about decisions people make at the highest levels --for economic gain or to benefit themselves. However, I don't want to cede to the '70s version of paranoia that the game is rigged, so we all might as well pack up our bags and go home quietly.
There's too much at stake.
This week I took part in a Mom's Clean Air Force webinar on Clean Air. What I learned from the presenting speakers on the call was information about how mercury is poisoning both our air and our water -- big time. Even if you don't live right near a coal plant (the safest state is Idaho), the wind drifts. I've already alerted readers to how they can get the story on their air quality. For those of us in urban areas, it's not good news.
An EPA graph that was presented during the call showed how in other sectors, specifically Hospital Incineration and Municipal Waste Combustors, there have been huge strides in reducing mercury emissions. Why have coal-powered plants lagged behind when there are facilities that have made changes through the use of a technology called Activated Carbon Injection (ACI)? Stats from these power plants show that on the average, tested boilers were able to reduce mercury emissions by 90 percent.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the EPA is trying to move forward to Reduce Toxic Air Emissions From Power Plants. Members of Congress (I won't tell you what color their hats are) are pushing back, trying to strip the EPA of its powers. A favorite strategy is to pull the "fiscal card," as in "It's bad for the economy."
During the webinar, many people got into my Twitter stream through the Green hash tag. They wanted additional information and asked, "What can we do? How can we learn more?" The EPA website is an excellent source for current information on their activities. There are PDF downloads of rulings, as well as facts sheets.
I'm not leaving the fight for clean air, safe water, and a non-toxic environment to the cynics. Cue the Frank Capra script, even if his films were often dismissed as "Capracorn." I think "the small people" can make a difference.
As Yogi Berra said, "It ain't over 'til it's over."
This article was written for the Moms Clean Air Force blog.
Graph Courtesy of the Environmental Defense Fund.
Source: EPA National Emissions Inventory data for Hazardous Air Pollutants (1990); National Air Toxics Assessment (2005)
Follow Marcia G. Yerman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mgyerman
Interesting EPA says the U.S. is only responsible for 3% of the mercury emissions. Quote from the link:
"The U.S. in the Global Context
The U.S. is the third largest emitter of anthropogenic mercury although its emissions, estimated to account for roughly three percent of the global total, are far lower than emissions from China, the largest source globally. In the U.S. and globally, coal combustion is the largest source of anthropogenic mercury emissions. (United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), The Global Atmospheric Mercury Assessment: Sources, Emissions and Transport (PDF), Geneva, 2008) (44 pp., 6.8M, about PDF)."
Check this link out on the reductions of mercury that have occurred since the 50's:
http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/powersystems/pollutioncontrols/overview_mercurycontrols.html
Another quote:
"Coal-fired power plants contribute only a small part of the total worldwide emissions of mercury. The estimated 48 tons of mercury they emit annually is about one-third of the total amount of mercury released annually by human activities in the United States."
"On February 14, 2002, the Bush Administration announced its Clear Skies Initiative for multipollutant controls. The proposal required significant emission reductions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and mercury through an allowance-based cap-and-trade program. Specifically for mercury, the Clear Skies Initiative calls for a two-phase reduction in emissions below 1999 levels"
I thought Republicans never do anything good for the Environment?
Hemphasis.net ~ Hemp Fuel & Energy - Hemphasis ~ Unrivaled Hemp ...
Hemp can produce 10 tons of biomass per acre every four months. Enough energy could be produced on 6% of the land in the U.S. to provide enough energy for our entire ...
www.hemphasis.net/Fuel-Energy/fuel.ht
Maybe we need to acknowledge the futility of making change happen through the existing "democratic" system. Maybe we need to acknowledge our current powerlessness in order to find our way to a genuine "power to the people!"
For the most part, rich and well-to-do people don't care one iota for anything else but themselves and their creature comforts. That is why we are stuck in this forever limbo.
So let's call what we're all working for The Great Renewal. We don't want a little renewing, nor a big or BIGGER renewal. We want a Great Renewal.
Spread the word, use the phrase so it comes into common language. We all know what we want.
Back to coal: Ok, here's a resource with which we're basically familiar, you dig a hole, take the black stuff out of the ground, set it on fire, and presto! You get heat, with which you can do stuff like run power plants, locomotives, whatever you've got, there, and people keep doing it, 'cause it's familiar, and relatively easy way of generating energy. But, it's not the only way home.
I say if you don't like how people are doing business NOW, then get 'brass tacks' detailed on how they could do differently, and clearly illustrate the benefits. We'd all like cleaner air, stands to reason, but it's just as important to keep the political environment unpolluted by conflicts of interest, false pretenses, and so forth. I think clean coal could be achieved by superheating exhaust gases with hydrogen/oxygen afterburning, because everything basically turns into carbon if you get it hot enough, and you could probably devise a process to augment steam production in there somewhere also, basic stuff, nothing fancy, nobody selling 5 million dollar air filters.
I also think that before long, we'll be able to retire King Coal, keep it as a 'bunker fuel' against the day that the whereverstanians decide it's time to cut off our oil supply, again, playing some kind of international business game and trying to bankrupt the United States. Better to have a little black lung and a healthy economy and government for, by, and of the People of the United States, than otherwise....
Which alternate reality are you from? Because that's not how it works in this reality. You can heat mercury all you want, combine it with all the hydrogen or oxygen that you want, and it will still be mercury and it will still be toxic.
I am in. Can you also make gold out of lead?