Category Archives: environment

Young: Tar Sands are Canada’s Hiroshima **edited

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Neil Young is finishing up his “Honor the Treaties” concerts in Canada.  He compared what is happening to Hiroshima, which irked a few people.

He is being compared to Jenny McCarthy, whom has spoken out on vaccines causing autism.

McCarthy, a former model/actress, vehemently claims childhood vaccinations cause autism and other disabilities, despite those claims having been disproven by rigorous scientific research.

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…disproven by rigorous scientific research….

bwahahahahahahahaha *snort*

Well, as I posted recently, scientific research has a few flaws in it that the vaccine apologists, as Dr. Cutler refers to them, choose to ignore.

I hope that Neil Young considers being compared to Jenny McCarthy a compliment, because I do….much as I do when I’m called a bitch for speaking up for myself or others…

People who diminish others have little facts to back their claims up…that’s why they attack the person instead of the person’s arguments.  Ad hominem.

**edited to add:  I just wanted to say that Global News pushes vaccines.  They had article after article on scaring people into getting vaccination, and that the flu season was horrible, and that they were running out of vaccines.  Very lopsided reporting.

Indiana and the West Virginia spill

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Update:  Indiana actually noticed that there was a chemical spill upriver!  /just a little sarcasm, folks

Reading this, though, Indiana just seems….passive.  Cincinnati is taking a proactive stance in shutting off the water intake.

And, I have to wonder as I’m reading this, how will they separate the West Virginia chemicals from the toxins already in the Ohio River?  Will they be able to tell which are our chemicals and which are Freedom Industries?  /just a little snarky

Meanwhile, Louisville, Kentucky  is business as usual.  I just shake my head at the laissez-faire attitude  “we will treat the water and make it smell and taste good.”  WTH?

I want water that is free of chemicals, not just “taste good”.  Charcoal is fine for removing impurities, but it doesn’t remove everything.

I found a couple of websites advocating bamboo charcoal for water filtration here and here.  I haven’t tried these, but they do look promising…and since bamboo is sustainable, all the better.  Finally, there this site on a primitive charcoal filter.

Reverse osmosis is supposed to remove much more–but it also removes needed minerals.  Some sites suggest putting a high quality salt (that hasn’t had the minerals removed as they do with sodium chloride, or table salt) back in as a way to counteract it.

I had a tough time finding much information that wasn’t a company website, but this was the best one to explain what reverse osmosis removes.

 

Geoengineering: Insane and Delusional

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A report here on Al Gore speaking out on geoengineering.  I totally agree.  The Earth is a magnificent living, breathing, organism that can take care of herself quite well, thank you, without any *help* from us.

What we need to do is put on our big adult pants and scale down the polluting.  It means stop giving industry the right to pollute what belongs to all of us.  Well, that’s not accurate, either, because it doesn’t really *belong* to us, but rather, we are borrowing it while we are here.

It’s not ours to do with as we please, but a gift to be cherished and given back….what  a wonderful humble idea…

…meanwhile, that 15 MILLION pounds of toxins into Indiana waterways keeps flashing in my head….

Ohio River and the West Virginia spill

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So…the spill in West Virginia in the Elk River has gone into the Ohio River and is headed our way…so I went looking to see how the authorities are dealing with it…

I found that the Cincinnati folk are right on this–

When I looked for Indiana authorities’ action on it…nothing.  No surprise there.  The Indiana Dept. of Environmental (MIS-) Management allows businesses three years between inspections.  West Virginia could happen here. (and probably already has, but without nary a peep from anyone who knows about it.)

But I did find this disturbing report.  Indiana is guilty of dumping 15 MILLION pounds of toxins into the waterways.  Good Grief!

Here’s yet another disturbing report of BP once again poisoning a body of water from the Whiting, Indiana, refinery…you know, the petcoke we’ve talked about.  This time,  it’s our wonderful Lake Michigan they’re dumping mercury into….where is the media coverage here?  *crickets*

If you don’t think two pounds of mercury sounds like a lot, keep in mind it only take a thermometer of mercury to poison a 20-acre lake.

(Of course, I take exception to this article ignoring amalgams as sources of mercury along with vaccines.  And ignoring GMO’s as impacts on the gut, allowing heavy metal poisoning.)

…and it’s not just the water they’re poisoning…

Young speaking out on Canadian Tar Sands

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Neil Young is trading pointed remarks with the Canadian government over the tar sands oil.

Good for him.   I’m glad someone with some media attention is speaking out for the indigenous.

 

Moving the pet coke

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Well, of course….they’re dumping pet coke in Chicago…and Whiting, Indiana….

“Petcoke tends to have higher metal content than coal – like nickel, vanadium and selenium,” added Geertsma. “Coal can have higher mercury content, so they’re both bad in terms of toxic heavy metals content.”

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The report says that Canadian exports of petcoke to the U.S. more than doubled between 2010 and 2012, and BP Whiting’s expansion will triple its petcoke production to 6,000 tons per day.

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And I got my answer to where the petcoke piles were moved to–Ohio.

 

More on Fukushima **edited

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The comments on the last blog have some good links:

Nearly a third of all babies born after 3/11/11 are more likely to have thyroid issues.  If you recall, radiation interferes with the thyroid.  A good page here on what happens to the body.

More here.

Another link to a comments page about nuclear fallout and its affects on those in the military:

We think there are 150,000 more Atomic Veterans across the U.S. who do not know that their oath of secrecy has been recended, since 1963, and who also may not know that they may be entitled to VA benefits. The National Association of Atomic Veterans ( NAAV ) was formed in 1979 to assist Atomic Vet’s in accessing the VA system, for the purposes of getting treatment and compensation for a host of health issues precipitated by their exposure to ionizing radiation particles while proudly serving their country, as Mr. Beatty did, at Operation Crossroads… We continue to get phone calls, weekly, from A-vets who have recently been made aware of our organization, and who are in need of assistance in these areas. We look forward to hearing from anyone who may read this article…… Our website is: http://www.naav.com

R J Ritter – Nat. Commander
NAAV, Inc.
Member: Veteran’s Advisory Board on (radiation) Dose Reconstruction.

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Pass the word–perhaps this will help someone affected and not knowing where to go for help.

~~A side story on the chemical spill in West Virginia…criminy, if this isn’t nature slapping us in the face, warning us that we’re inept in dealing with this stuff, I don’t know what is…nature can only endure so much.

The attitude that the river will “take care of it” is utter bullshit.  It’s just going to go somewhere else and cause health issues for the unfortunate ones.

Meanwhile, the Koch brothers have a pile of petcoke right next to the river in Detroit…**edited:  I stand corrected. It has been removed….but the report fails to tell us where the pile was moved to..?  Wanna bet it was to some poor neighborhood?

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Fukushima lawsuit

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The tragedy of Fukushima continues to reveal more illness.  Navy first responders have come forward with radiation related sickness.

Nuclear energy will never, ever be safe.  This accident proves that beyond a doubt.  Holy crap, I don’t think we’ve even begun to see all of the devastation.

More bad news for orcas

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This is a disturbing report on our stupidity and carelessness and its impacting ecology, and specifically the orcas.

Here’s a Puget Sound indigenous group trying to help the orcas.

Of course, thinking of the west coast, my mind wandered towards the impact of Fukushima.  A member of the mercury support group has stated that she felt much worse after moving to the west coast.  She left after a year.

From the article:

Barrett-Lennard says the southern resident orca pod, which is found in the Salish Sea between Vancouver Island and the B.C. mainland, has lost seven matriarchs over the past two years, and he’s noticed a lack of vocalizations from the normally chatty mammals.

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More here.  This is even more sobering in detail.  There is an animated video of the radiation trail towards the United States and Canada.  Be sure to click on the Laura James video –a picture says a thousand words.  It made me nauseous looking at all the dead and dying sea stars.

They also make note that it is happening in Maine and New Jersey, so they question the Fukushima connection…but perhaps the radiation didn’t stop at the West Coast, but has traveled inland, as they say?

They also make note that the moose population is dying off–so much so that Wisconsin called off its moose hunt this past year.  The deer population, as I’ve blogged about, is suffering and dying, too.  And nobody questions GMO’s and their possible impact on these animals.