Posts Tagged ‘environment’

Did You Hear the One Where #California has Record #Drought & #Wildfires Simultaneously?

Posted: September 30, 2014 in Frackishima
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by @anarchyroll
9/29/2014

I wonder how many of the 300-400,000 people who attended the recent People’s Climate March in NYC were from California. I wonder this because in the continental United States, nowhere else is being nearly as hard hit by the real-time, negative effects of climate change as the state of California.

California is simultaneously experiencing record drought and record wildfires.

The LA Times has two separate archived databases on their website listing all stories written about the historic drought and wildfires that have been ravaging the state. Both sections are definitely worth checking out to see just how far-reaching the effects of both of these catastrophic events each have.

Some of the numbers found in the archive of stories are simply astounding;

  • 100% of the state effected by the now 3 year drought
  • 5,000 fires reported/responded to since January 1st, 2014
  • 14 residential communities on the verge of being completely waterless
  • $200 million and counting spent on to contain wildfires 9 months into 2014

The droughts and wildfires in California have been getting steadily worse over the past half decade. Each year for the past decade has been hotter than the previous. Are we to believe these things aren’t connected? It is easy to be a climate denier when the state you live in isn’t burning around you while at the same time your community has lost access to freshwater.

Perhaps the water utility of Detroit can send some of the water they are saving from shutting access to it off from residents and send it to one of the two disasters occurring in California due to a lack of water.

Evens Stevens Paradigm Won’t Cut it in the #ClimateChange Fight for the Future

Posted: September 22, 2014 in Frackishima
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by @anarchyroll
9/21/2014

The #PeoplesClimate marches/rallies that occurred across the globe are a great representation of the good news/bad news holding pattern that pro environment supporters have been stuck in for decades. The good news is the #PeoplesClimate was so big, involving so many people, in so many of the world’s biggest cities that it literally could not be ignored by the press or anyone on the internet on 9/21/2014. The bad news is that tangible, global, legislative action is unlikely to occur for at least another full year.

This good news/bad news paradigm has most recently been demonstrated in regards to the two most talked about environment issues of the last quarter century; the ozone layer and the deforestation of the Amazon.

The good news is that scientists have discovered that the ozone layer is starting to heal. How awesome! Certainly no negative spin to put on this story. Since the 1970s attention has been brought to this issue in hopes of reversing the now notorious hole in the ozone layer that has been a direct contributor to global warming and rising skin cancer rates.

Ready for the bad news?

The Amazon rainforest is getting slashed and burned at a 30% increase. Deforestation is right there with industrial pollution as the greatest causes of global warming and climate change. We need rainforests to sustain the planet, but captains of industry seem to think we need grazing land for cattle and industrial logging more.

Good news, bad news unfortunately isn’t going to cut it, why? Because we are playing from behind. Pro environmentalists can’t keep scoring field goals while polluters and deforestrers are scoring touchdowns. It’s great that more people are aware of the negative effects of climate change, the fact that it’s man-made, and we must do something to reverse it. The problem is that this has happened because the negative effects of climate change are being felt more and more every single day. We have let so much wrong get done that the Earth is irreversibly changing all around us quicker, in real-time. It’s great to have good news to report but wildfires, droughts, and other natural disaster devastation is only going up. Is it too late? The good news is that in this fight, there is literally no reason to quit, because there is nothing else as worthy of fighting for as the future of the planet we inhabit.

Agricultural Hormone Waste is the New #Water #Pollution

Posted: August 29, 2014 in Frackishima
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by @anarchyroll
8/28/2014

When people think of water pollution, what comes to mind? Maybe visions of sewage run offs, industrial plants, oil spills, etc?

I was certainly surprised to learn that “industrial agriculture is among the leading causes of water pollution in the United States today.”

Farms? Really? Must be corporate farms then right? Wrong. Only 4% of farms in the United States are corporate farms.

So the lonely people using FarmersOnly.com need to get their shit together. Literally, manure stored in silos and lagoons spilling into streams, rivers, and other bodies of water during storms. But animal waste/byproduct isn’t half as bad as the hormones and antibiotics that are seeping into fresh water supplies.

That’s right, it’s not just hipsters who want grass-fed beef for their steaks and burgers. You see folks, farmers pump hormones and antibiotics either into the animals directly or into their food supply so they’ll grow faster and won’t get sick before they’re slaughtered. This means farmers can make more money by having a higher quantity of physically larger meat and poultry sources. This is why there are so many fast food places with cheap burgers and chicken sandwiches and why organic, grass-fed beef and poultry is more expensive. Animals fed grass are smaller and take longer to mature.

Now the vast majority of ‘Mericans don’t care about what their meat is fed before they eat it. They want more chicken nuggets and bigger burgers as cheap and as often as possible. How else can every fast food place have a dollar menu after all?

However, the hormones and antibiotics that are getting into the rivers and streams are starting to mutate the wildlife.

If the fish are getting mutated, what is happening/going to happen to human beings who come into contact with this water?

Global #Water Scarcity is Just #Business as Usual

Posted: July 30, 2014 in Frackishima
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by @anarchyroll
7/30/2014

“Insurmountable water crisis” jumps off the page, don’t you agree?

Massive droughts won’t just be for California anymore by 2040 unless societies move away from water intensive power production. Does that mean hydroelectric power is a no go? No, it means the opposite. It turns out that the largest usage of water in the industrialized world is the water used to cool  (coal and nuclear) power plants.

Yes we need electricity, but you know what we need more than electricity? You guessed it, we need to be able to live, and we can’t do that without fresh, drinkable water.

Reducing pollution seems like less and less of a hippy issue when we’re talking about an “insurmountable” water shortage in less than three decades. If three decades seems like a long time, worry not, because there are seven states running out of water in the continental United States right now.

A global shortage from which there is no going back in three decades, a national shortage going on currently, sounds like commercial/industrial conservation should be on the menu. Instead, businesses in the US and the UK are doubling down on fracking which in addition to poisoning fresh water reserves, also uses massive amounts of freshwater as part of its process.

Fracking has been viewed as the light at the end of the tunnel in regards to energy concerns. But in the face of a national and global water scarcity both now and in the future, fracking is nothing more than a freight train. Cheap energy creating economic booms are useless if we are all dying of thirst.

Poisoning the #Water for 300,000 is Worth $11,000

Posted: July 16, 2014 in Frackishima
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by @anarchyroll
7/15/2014

Did you know you could poison the drinking water for 300,000 people and the only penalty you’ll face will be an $11,000 fine?

Freedom Industries is the company responsible for the West Virgina Chemical Spill that took place in January. 10,000 gallons of the chemical MCHM (used in coal production) spilled into a river that was the main source of fresh drinking water for 300,000 civilians in West Virgina across nine counties in the western part of the state. They have been fined $11,000 by the Labor Department of the federal government.

Freedom Industries has since filed for bankruptcy, and a bill regulating chemical tanks has been passed in the wake of the spill. But $11,000 as a penalty for leaving 300,000 people without drinkable water for ten days?

My attention is pulled towards stories that involve mass poisoning of fresh water. A vast minority of the amount of water on planet Earth is drinkable. We can’t survive as a species without fresh water. Yet we seem content with having the essence of life poisoned at a rate that could be classified as habitual and doing virtually nothing about it. What does that say about us?

Poisoning the essence of life should at least carry a penalty similar to a DUI. I know people who have gotten DUI’s who have had to pay more than $11,000 when it was all said and done. Is drinking and driving a vehicle on an empty road in the middle of the night worse than poisoning water for 300,000 people?

40 people were sent to the hospital from drinking or simply being exposed to the contaminated water. If I did something that sent 40 people to the hospital, would I not face a penalty more severe than an $11,000 fine?

There is no law without order and no order without law. If people can get away with stealing, murder, and rape then it has been shown throughout history that people will murder, steal, and rape vastly more than if there are immediate and severe consequences for those evil actions.

I certainly classify poisoning water as an evil action, do you?

If we continue to let companies and corporations break the law without having to worry about the consequences everyday people have to worry about, why do we think they’ll do the right thing and follow the laws/rules? Do we think that for profit corporations will engage in a thought and decision-making process in a way that is evolved beyond human nature?

The Supreme Court has said that corporations are people. If companies and corporations are people, then shouldn’t we  punish them for hurting people the way we punish individuals for hurting people?

 

 

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