UN: Clouds of pollution threaten glaciers, health

By TINI TRAN and JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writers

BEIJING – A dirty brown haze sometimes more than a mile thick is darkening skies not only over vast areas of Asia, but also in the Middle East, southern Africa and the Amazon Basin, changing weather patterns around the world and threatening health and food supplies, the U.N. reported Thursday.

The huge smog-like plumes, caused mainly by the burning of fossil fuels and firewood, are known as "atmospheric brown clouds."

When mixed with emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for warming the earth's atmosphere like a greenhouse, they are the newest threat to the global environment, according to a report commissioned by the U.N. Environment Program.

"All of this points to an even greater and urgent need to look at emissions across the planet," said Achim Steiner, head of Kenya-based UNEP, which funded the report with backing from Italy, Sweden and the United States.

Brown clouds are caused by an unhealthy mix of particles, ozone and other chemicals that come from cars, coal-fired power plants, burning fields and wood-burning stoves. First identified by the report's lead researcher in 1990, the clouds were depicted Thursday as being more widespread and causing more environmental damage than previously known.

Perhaps most widely recognized as the haze this past summer over Beijing's Olympics, the clouds have been found to be more than a mile thick around glaciers in the Himalaya and Hindu Kush mountain ranges. They hide the sun and absorb radiation, leading to new worries not only about global climate change but also about extreme weather conditions.

"All these have led to negative effects on water resources and crop yields," the report says.

Health problems associated with particulate pollution, such as cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, are linked to nearly 350,000 premature deaths in China and India every year, said Henning Rohde, a University of Stockholm scientist who worked on the study.

Soot levels in the air were reported to have risen alarmingly in 13 megacities: Bangkok, Beijing, Cairo, Dhaka, Karachi, Kolkata, Lagos, Mumbai, New Delhi, Seoul, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Tehran.

Brown clouds were also cited as dimming the light by as much as 25 percent in some places including Karachi, New Delhi, Shanghai and Beijing.

The phenomenon complicates the climate change scenario, because the brown clouds also help cool the earth's surface and mask the impact of global warming by an average of 40 percent, according to the report.

Though it has been studied closely in Asia, the latest findings, conducted by an international collaboration of scientists, reveal that the brown cloud phenomenon is not unique to Asia, with pollution hotspots seen in North America, Europe, South Africa and South America.

More specifically, researchers found, brown clouds are forming over eastern China; northeastern Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Myanmar; Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam; sub-Saharan Africa southward into Angola, Zambia and Zimbabwe; and the Amazon Basin in South America.

The enormous cloud masses can move across continents within three to four days. Although they also form over the eastern U.S. and Europe, winter snow and rain tend to lessen the impact in those areas.

An international response is needed to deal with "the twin threats of greenhouse gases and brown clouds and the unsustainable development that underpins both," said the lead researcher, Veerabhadran Ramanathan, a professor of climate and ocean sciences at the University of California in San Diego.

One of the most serious problems, Ramanathan said, is retreat of the glaciers in the Himalaya and Hindu Kush and in Tibet. The glaciers feed most Asian rivers and "have serious implications for the water and food security of Asia," he said.

Monsoon rains over India and southeast Asia decreased between 5 and 7 percent overall since the 1950s, the report says, naming brown clouds and global warming as a possible cause. Likewise, they may have contributed to the melting of China's glaciers, which have shrunk 5 percent since the 1950s. The volume of China's nearly 47,000 glaciers has fallen by 3,000 square kilometers (1,158.31 square miles) in the past 25 years, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Soot winds up on the surface of the glaciers that feed the Ganges, Indus, Yangtze and Yellow rivers, which makes the glaciers absorb more sunlight and melt more quickly and also pollutes the rivers, the researchers say.

But the U.N., which began studying the problem six years ago, still finds "significant uncertainty" in understanding how brown clouds affect conditions regionally, Ramanathan cautioned.

JUST PASSING THE INFO ALONG TO YOU... AND HOPE YOU DO THE SAME.

France's Nuclear Waste Crisis... DON'T ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN IN THE U.S.

When people debate about nuclear energy, the point that other countries like France have "successfully" harnessed nuclear power always arises BUT the pro-nuclear party NEVER mentions the nuclear waste crisis France has and will continue to face...

The nuclear waste crisis in France
briefing document May 30th 2006

Since the origins of the French nuclear industry some 50 years ago, the management of nuclear waste has been largely neglected. Even today, large quantities of waste remain in unconditioned and unstable form, inventories of historical dump sites are lacking or were lost and one of the largest dump sites in the world near the La Hague reprocessing plant is leaking into the underground water. Now evidence is emerging that a new nuclear dump site in the Champagne region of France is leaking radioactivity into the ground water threatening contamination of tritium and at a later stage other radionuclides.

The French nuclear waste authority ANDRA has only a partial inventory of the multitude of existing waste categories, as large quantities have not yet been declared by the main waste producers EDF and Cogema, including spent nuclear fuel or waste from the uranium enrichment industry. Even French government regulators are expressing their concerns over the conditions at both dump sites.

New nuclear projects threaten to make a crisis into an even greater nuclear catastrophe...

The nuclear power and reprocessing industry have created large volumes of waste, of which many are stored in an unstable condition. They have also illegally dumped tens of thousands of cubic meters of waste in France, without an option to ever take them back. The European liberalization of the electricity market and the partial privatization of EdF have raised the question of who is going to pay. In 2004, in a first case, EdF has reached an agreement to transfer the financial liabilities for the waste it generated at the Marcoule reprocessing plant, in return for a one-off payment likely to be more than a billion of euros lower than the real disposal cost.

A deal heavily criticized by the French Court of Auditors and currently under investigation by the European Commission for illegal state aid. For almost 20 years, Greenpeace has consistently and successfully challenged these dangerous practices. A major breakthrough has been to halt reprocessing contracts of foreign clients with Cogema-La Hague, thereby effectively reducing the discharges of liquid radioactive waste and the transports of highly radioactive waste.

Furthermore, in a landmark ruling, the French Supreme Court in December 2005 condemned Cogema for illegal storage of foreign reprocessing waste in France. But still the nuclear waste crisis in France is growing. The French parliament is currently debating a revision of the nuclear waste legislation. This risks maintaining current practices of EdF and foreign electricity companies to dump the liability of their nuclear waste on French citizens, while maximizing their privatized benefits. As no solution has been found for a sound management of nuclear waste, problems are meanwhile transferred to future generations. This is the real crisis of nuclear waste.

View the article in its entirety here.

Radioactive Waste Leaks Into Aquifer In France

Radioactive waste leaks into aquifer
By Wendy Frew Environment Reporter
May 24, 2006

RADIOACTIVE waste from a storage site in Normandy, France, is leaking into groundwater used by dairy cattle, says a report by a French laboratory, ACRO.

The aquifers showed levels of radioactivity, on average, more than seven times the European safety limit, said the report, published yesterday. Scientists from ACRO and Greenpeace have surveyed the contamination leaking from the low- and intermediate-level nuclear waste disposal plant at La Hague.

In the aquifer near the site, radioactivity was 90 times above the safety limit during 2005, the report said.

Greenpeace said the report followed news that a proposed Electricite de France nuclear reactor was unable to withstand the impact of a commercial aircraft.

The nuclear waste contaminating the Normandy environment was produced by reactors operated by Electricite de France and overseas customers of the reprocessing company.

Greenpeace has criticised the French Government for not seriously dealing with what it says is France's nuclear waste crisis.

The director of ACRO, Dr David Boiley, said mismanagement was damaging the environment.

"Repeated incidents have led to a constant release and, as a consequence, the groundwater and many outlets are highly contaminated with tritium [a radioactive form of hydrogen]," Dr Boiley said.

"We must note that for a long time there has been a lack of information regarding this chronic pollution, and even now a precise assessment of its impacts still needs to be done," he said.

"As far as the future situation, it could worsen in the long run because there is no guarantee that the wrappings of the older wastes, which also contain more hazardous elements, will last for long periods of time."

What You Don't Learn In History Class: Nuclear Blasts In Mississippi

JUST THOUGHT THIS WAS REALLY INTERESTING READ (and a bit concerning):

Nuclear Blasts in Mississippi
Written by: Stephen Cresswell

At 10:00 a.m. on October 22, 1964, the United States government detonated an underground nuclear device in Lamar County, in south Mississippi. Residents there felt three separate shocks, and watched as the soil rose and behaved like ocean waves. Hunting dogs howled in terror, and two miles from the test site the blast shook pecans off the pecan trees. This nuclear test, and the one that followed two years later at the same Mississippi site, were the only nuclear explosions on U.S. soil east of the Rocky Mountain states.

Atomic bombs were in the news in October 1964. Only one week before the Mississippi nuclear test, newspapers had reported that Communist China had detonated its first atomic bomb. For residents in Lamar County, however, no news story was watched more closely than the plans for nuclear testing in Mississippi.
Background of Nuclear Testing

The world’s first nuclear test came during World War II at Alamogordo, a remote location in the New Mexico desert on July 16, 1945. Three weeks after this successful test, the United States dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan, one over Hiroshima and one over Nagasaki, killing some 220,000 residents of those cities and leading to Japan’s surrender. President Harry S. Truman defended his decision to use nuclear bombs by saying that he hoped the bombs would convince Japan to surrender.

Ironically, after World War II was over, the United States became allied with its former World War II enemies, but became locked in a bitter Cold War with its former World War II ally, the Soviet Union. Four years after America’s first testing of a nuclear device, the Soviets tested their first bomb. In the coming years, the United States built some 70,000 nuclear warheads, and the Soviet Union vowed to build a similar number. By the time of the nuclear testing in Mississippi in 1964, Great Britain, France, and China had joined “the nuclear club.”

As a part of the rivalry between Communist and non-Communist nations during the Cold War, nuclear experts developed new types of nuclear weapons, and insisted that it was necessary to test these new designs. Many citizens around the world, however, expressed concern that such testing would lead to medically harmful “fallout” — radioactive particles that would drift to earth and enter people’s bodies, potentially causing leukemia and other diseases. In 1963, the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union signed a Partial Test Ban Treaty, agreeing not to test nuclear devices in the atmosphere or under water. The treaty did not address underground testing, because of disagreements and uncertainty over how to verify that nations were not testing weapons underground.
Project Dribble

A number of nuclear testing experts said it was not a good idea to prohibit underground testing, because some nations might cheat by secretly testing nuclear weapons underground. In most cases, seismographs (the device used to measure earthquakes) could detect underground nuclear tests. The United States wanted to know more about underground testing and how it could be detected, and designed Project Dribble, which included the two Mississippi detonations, to investigate the possibility that cheating nations could hide their underground tests in some way.

Nuclear scientists investigated several potential test sites in Mississippi, but finally selected a site just north of Baxterville in Lamar County, about 28 miles southwest of Hattiesburg. Geologically, the area was called the Tatum Salt Dome, a vast supply of dense salt located about 1,000 feet below ground level. Salt domes deep beneath the surface of south central Mississippi are the dried remains of a sea that covered much of the state in the Mesozoic Era. The plan was to detonate one nuclear bomb about 2,700 feet down, in solid salt. This would be the 1964 blast, code-named Project Salmon. It was believed Project Salmon would blast a huge cavity in the salt. Then the second blast, Project Sterling, would involve detonating a smaller nuclear bomb inside the cavity left in the salt by Project Salmon. Scientists believed that because the bomb would be detonated in a cavity rather than in solid rock, the shock waves would be muffled and the test might not be detectable by seismographs and other measuring devices.

So in 1964 officials of the Atomic Energy Commission came to Mississippi and began preparing the Tatum Salt Dome site for Project Salmon. A hundred Lamar County residents found work at the site, primarily driving trucks and heavy equipment, or providing food for the project employees. The nuclear test was scheduled for September 22, 1964, but the wind direction was not right until October 22. On that date about 400 residents were evacuated from the area, and were paid $10 per adult and $5 per child for their inconvenience. The zone from which citizens were evacuated stretched five miles downwind of ground zero, and about half that distance in directions that were not downwind of the test. Click here to see the Mississippi segment from the Peter Kuran film “Atomic Journeys.” (YouTube site accessed July 2008.)

Most residents later reported that the shock of the explosion was much stronger than they had been led to believe. The editor of the Hattiesburg American, although almost thirty miles away, reported that he felt the newspaper building sway for nearly three minutes. At the test site, creeks ran black with silt-laden water, and by seven days after the blast, more than 400 nearby residents had filed damage claims with the government, reporting that their homes had been damaged or that their water wells had gone dry.

Horace Burge lived about two miles from the site of the explosion, and returned home to his three-room house to discover considerable damage caused by the blast. The fireplace and chimney were badly damaged, and bricks littered his living room. Broken dishes and jars were all over his kitchen floor, and the shelves fell down inside his refrigerator and broke several glass containers. His electric stove was covered with ash and pieces of concrete. The pipes under his kitchen sink had burst, leading to flooding inside the house.

Within days, the United States government began reimbursing local residents for the damage done to their homes. After the blast, reporters from the Hattiesburg American interviewed many local residents who said they didn’t want this nuclear testing to be done in their neighborhoods, but who added that there was nothing they could do about it. In an editorial, the Hattiesburg American lectured its readers that such tests were necessary for the future security of the United States.

After seismic analysis, the government scientists reported that Project Salmon had been a success, with the bomb delivering the same force as 5,000 tons of TNT. The Project Salmon blast was about one-third as powerful as the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945. The bomb blasted a void in the salt as predicted, a spherical cavity that was about 110 feet in diameter.

The Project Sterling blast, on December 3, 1966, was considerably weaker than the blast two years earlier, as it was intended to be. Instead of the force of 5,000 tons of TNT that Project Salmon had developed, Project Sterling’s bomb had the force of 350 tons of TNT. Observers two miles away from the blast reported they barely felt a bump. Like Project Salmon, Project Sterling was labeled a success. Because it was detonated in a cavity in the salt, its force, as measured by seismographs, was about 100 times weaker than would have been expected with the same sized bomb placed in solid rock or salt. Thus U.S. government officials reported that Mississippi’s two nuclear blasts, as a part of Project Dribble, helped prove that in fact the seismic effect of a nuclear blast could be greatly reduced if such a blast were set off in a large cave. This suggested it might be possible for a nation to cheat on a future nuclear test ban by hiding a nuclear test. It also helped teach atomic scientists how to detect and measure such hidden blasts.

Though Mississippi’s part in nuclear testing was over by 1966, the Tatum Salt Dome site did see two additional tests by the Atomic Energy Commission as a part of Project Miracle Play. Project Miracle Play was similar to Project Dribble in that it too was designed to detect underground testing, but this time the two blasts were conventional bombs instead of nuclear. Mississippi’s two explosions in Project Miracle Play in 1969 and 1970 were fueled by a mixture of oxygen and methane.
After the 1960s

Since the 1960s, much has changed. The United States has reduced its nuclear stockpile considerably, to about 10,000 warheads, and Britain and France have also reduced their stockpiles. The Cold War has ended, and few nations remain Communist. The former Soviet Union split apart, and the nation of Russia inherited the nuclear warheads that formerly belonged to the Soviet Union. These Russian nuclear stockpiles are considerably smaller than those during the height of the Cold War. The United States has not tested a nuclear weapon since 1992, and the other major nations of the world have also gone years without nuclear testing, or planning any nuclear tests for the future.

On the other hand, the United States expresses concern that nations such as Iran might soon develop and test nuclear weapons, or that a terrorist group might turn to nuclear warfare, including possibly a conventional bomb that would spread radioactive material. Further, North Korea claims to have detonated a nuclear bomb in 2006, though some claim this small explosion was not really a successful nuclear test. And, in July 2008, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that North Korea had shut down its nuclear weapons-making nuclear reactor. Aside from the possibility that the enemies of the United States might obtain nuclear weapons, many citizens express concern that even if new nations, or groups, do not develop nuclear weapons, the world will always be in danger of nuclear explosions because 36,000 atomic bombs still exist.
Health and safety at Tatum Salt Dome

With any nuclear test there is the danger of health problems developing among the people and other living things near the test site. At the Mississippi nuclear test site, one fear in 1964 was that these underground explosions would “blow out” during the tests, sending dirt, gasses, and radioactive material high into the air. Government officials said this was unlikely, pointing out that the 2,700-foot shaft had been filled with gravel and an enormous concrete plug. After the 1964 blast, scientists reassured Mississippians by reporting that all radiation had been contained underground. They said the soil, water, and air in the area was not made radioactive.

Unfortunately, the site did become contaminated after the blast. Two months after the 1964 test, nuclear researchers drilled a hole down into the void left by the blast in order to lower instruments into the cavity. In drilling the hole, the drill bit brought radioactive soil and water up to the surface. The same thing happened in 1966. Several times the U.S. government came in to attempt to clean up the Tatum Salt Dome site.

In 1972, buildings at the site were bulldozed and sent to the government’s Nevada Test Site, where considerable radioactive material was already in storage. Most of the other radioactive material at the Tatum Salt Dome site (primarily soil, rock, and water) were put back down into the test cavity, where it remains today in solid or sludge form. Some of the radioactive liquids were injected into “Aquifer Number 5,” a vein of salty water located about 2,500 feet underground at the Tatum Salt Dome site. U.S. government officials erected a large stone monument at the site, with a brass plaque warning future generations not to drill or dig in the vicinity of this test site.

Some Lamar County residents complained of lingering health effects in the decades after the blast. Some argued that the number of cancer deaths in the Tatum Salt Dome area is higher than national averages. Federal officials maintain that there is no health risk associated with living near the Tatum Salt Dome site, but the government did pay at least one former Mississippi employee of Project Dribble for unspecified health damages. Around 2000, the government built a water pipeline to help residents near the Tatum Salt Dome get drinking water from far away from the test site, in hopes of calming residents’ fears about their drinking water.
On to the future

Most Lamar County residents have already forgotten Mississippi’s two nuclear explosions, and younger citizens of Mississippi typically have never heard of Project Dribble. The debate about the future of nuclear weapons, though, will continue. Many people will argue that nuclear weapons are an important part of a diversified defense strategy for the nations that possess them, while others believe that nuclear weapons make the world a very unsafe place, with the potential to wreak tremendous harm to the environment and to end human society as we know it.

Stephen Cresswell, Ph.D., is professor of history at West Virginia Wesleyan College and the author of an earlier Mississippi History Now article, “Was Mississippi a Part of Progressivism?” He is the author of Rednecks, Redeemers, and Race: Mississippi after Reconstruction, 1877-1917, a book in the Mississippi Historical Society’s Mississippi Heritage Series.

Posted August 2008

Source (original article includes the author's sources):
http://mshistory.k12.ms.us/index.php?id=293 THIS ARTICLE WAS ALSO INCLUDED ON DATELINE WASHINGTON.

THE TESTING SITE CIRCA 2006: http://www.mensetmanus.net/salmon-sterling-site/

In southern Mississippi two underground atomic explosions during the mid-1960s occurred near the town of Hattiesburg. A decade and a half later, an Associated Press dispatch noted, Governor Cliff Finch urged families nearby to evacuate "after the University of Mississippi reported that scientists had found radioactive and deformed toads, frogs, and a lizard above the Tatum Salt Dome, a shelf of salt used in the 1960s for nuclear explosions." Tests of one frog detected radioactivity one thousand times normal.[138] -From the book "Killing Our Own" By Harvey Wasserman & Norman Solomon

China: Nuclear device exploded in Sichuan (underground installation; during May 12 earthquake)

Posted on Monday, June 02, 2008 8:57:38 PM by TigerLikesRooster:

Nuclear device exploded in Sichuan
By Boxun

Jun 1, 2008 - 6:46:34 PM

Lu Shishen, who reported the cover up of the earthquake forecast, said that there was a strong nuclear explosion in Sichuan during the earthquake.

Xinhua reported yesterday that an explosion of “volcano was observed in the earthquake”, people said that concrete debris was burst out of the crack during the quake.

Experts tested the debris and found it is radioactive, according to Lu Shishen’s report.

Full report in Chinese:

http://news.boxun.com/news/gb/china/2008/06/200806020720.shtml

UNDERGROUND NUCLEAR TESTING CONTAMINATES DRINKING WATER AND POLLUTES TESTING AREAS WITH A PLETHORA OF RADIOACTIVE CARCINOGENS.

Hey, Californians, time to stop watering the sidewalk!!

Calif. to cut water deliveries to cities, farms
By SAMANTHA YOUNG, Associated Press Writer

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – California said Thursday that it plans to cut water deliveries to their second-lowest level ever next year, raising the prospect of rationing for cities and less planting by farmers.

The Department of Water Resources projects that it will deliver just 15 percent of the amount that local water agencies throughout California request every year.

Since the first State Water Project deliveries were made in 1962, the only time less water was promised was in 1993, but heavy precipitation that year ultimately allowed agencies to receive their full requests.

The reservoirs that are most crucial to the state's water delivery system are at their lowest levels since 1977, after two years of dry weather and court-ordered restrictions on water pumping out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. This year, water agencies received just 35 percent of the water they requested.

It's facts like these that make me angry whenever I see a sprinkler head spouting water all over the sidewalk or on the street instead of on the grass. Californians waste more water than they can afford.

Here are some tips on how you can make a difference by being more water conscious. Access to clean water may not be limited in your state now, so let's keep it that way!! These tips are EASY to follow and make a BIG difference.

HOW YOU CAN HELP SAVE WATER:
1. Turn off the faucet while you are brushing your teeth.
2. Take shorter showers.
3. Don't use the hose to "sweep" your patio... that's what a broom is for.
4. Fix all leaky faucets or fixtures.
5. Soap up your dishes without the water running then rinse them.
6. Put a brick or large stone in the water chamber of your toilet. It'll reduce the amount of water your toilet uses.
7. If you absolutely HAVE to water your grass, do so at night so the water won't evaporate during the day.
8. Collect rain water to water plants.
9. Take showers instead of baths.
10. Educate others on how they can also conserve water. It's simple. The more people who are more water conscious, the more water we save!!

You Have A Voice So Use It.

I'm on the late bus but I just found out that New Jersey Governor Corzine wants to build another nuclear power plant in New Jersey so like every concerned 20-something New Jerseyian (HA!) I just took the time to write the following email to Corzine:

Governor Corzine,

I'm writing to you because I do not think you understand the hazardous implications of nuclear power. Nuclear power is the most unsafe, COSTLY form of power. As of 1995, the nuclear power plant in Toms River, NJ leaked 421 tons of radioactive waste. This plant continues to contaminate our water supply. Do you have plans or intentions of cleaning this hazardous site?

Nuclear waste never goes away nor is there any "safe" way to store the waste. Nuclear power plants contaminate our water supply and land, cause and give off radiation which is a known carcinogen. I know you think nuclear power is the answer to lower CO2 emissions but radiation as is FAR worse than carbon dioxide.

I urge you to research the dangers of nuclear power. It's not a coincidence that cancer, mercury poisoning and autoimmune disease rates are higher near nuclear power plants. Please help protect New Jersey's health.

Hopefully, one day the government will embrace CLEAN technology like solar and wind instead of adding to our arsenal of nuclear waste.

I hope this message did not fall on deaf ears,

Jena Ardell

NOTE: You can also contact Governor Corzine by writing to the Office of the Governor, P.O. Box 001, Trenton, New Jersey 08625-0001, or by calling (609) 777-2500.

If you are also concerned about the dangers of nuclear energy now is the time to allow decision makers to hear your voice. Please write a similar message to your governor, explaining the dangers of nuclear power. Be sure to let him or her know how much money your state WON'T be saving between the cost to build the plant, train and hire workers, mantain the plant and the costly cleanup that will be necessary after one or more of the reactors leak (and trust me, they all leak) radioactive waste into your water supply.

An email or letter takes only minutes to write and your opinion is important, especially if it has the power to make someone rethink their actions. Your health is at stake.

McCain proposes 100 new plants in the U.S.

Published: June 23, 2008 12:00AM

Nearly three decades after the Three Mile Island disaster, Sen. John McCain is proposing an American nuclear renaissance.

As part of a weeklong focus on energy security, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee said Wednesday that he wants 45 new nuclear plants to be built in the United States by 2030 and another 55 in later years.

Currently, there are 104 reactors in this country, and they supply a fifth of the nation’s electricity; many of the new plants proposed by McCain would replace existing ones. That’s because no new nuclear plants have been built in the United States since the 1970s, and many of the facilities still operating are nearing the end of their useful lives.

As are a growing number of Americans, McCain embraces nuclear power as a clean, safe alternative to traditional energy sources that emit greenhouse gases. It’s an unqualified enthusiasm that brings to mind Homer Simpson’s memorable prayer thanking God “for nuclear power: the cleanest, safest energy there is. Except for solar, which is just a pipe dream.”

If McCain is elected president, he will attempt to end a long-standing American aversion to nuclear generated power, which sets this country apart from the rest of the world.

In contrast with the United States, France gets nearly 80 percent of its power from nuclear plants and has a robust building program, as do Japan and Finland. Britain is encouraging companies to build new reactors, and Italy recently lifted the ban on nuclear plants it imposed after the Chernobyl meltdown in the former Soviet Union two decades ago. Across the world, more than 100 new plants are either in the planning or construction stages, roughly half of them in rapidly developing nations such as China and India.

The United States should be in no rush to join the parade. Despite McCain’s glowing assessment and the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, nuclear power still has serious shortcomings.

Modern nuclear plants are certainly safer than their Chernobyl-era predecessors, but accidents remain a problem. The Union of Concerned Scientists recently reported that 41 U.S. reactors have been shut down at least 51 times for more than a year because of safety problems.

While security has been improved since Sept. 11, nuclear plants remain worrisome targets for terrorists. They are also sources of waste that can be used to create weapons-grade plutonium.

Meanwhile, the question of how to dispose of the radioactive waste from existing U.S. reactors, much less the new facilities proposed by McCain, remains unanswered. Radioactive waste from nuclear plants can remain highly toxic for thousands of years, and no permanent storage facilities have been built in the United States — or anywhere else in the world. Congress long has struggled to build a U.S. disposal site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but relentless opposition by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid promises to delay its opening for another decade — and perhaps longer.

It’s also unclear that nuclear power can play a timely role in fighting climate change. Because many of the new nuclear plants proposed by McCain would replace existing ones, it would take many more than the 45 new plants that he proposes by 2030, or the 100 he proposes in the long term, to achieve major reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases.

Nuclear plants also take large amounts of time and money to build. Current licensing and testing requirements would delay construction for at least five years, and new nuclear plants require investments of between $5 billion and $10 billion — investments that Wall Street is unlikely to make without huge federal taxpayer subsidies.

McCain’s Democratic opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, has a more realistic and safer view of nuclear power. While he acknowledges nuclear power may prove necessary to meet aggressive climate goals, he says it should not be expanded until the challenges of cost, safety, disposal and nuclear proliferation have been addressed.

SCARY.

Florida Power & Light Co. shut down a nuclear unit at its Turkey Point plant near Miami Friday because of a small leak of reactor coolant.

It was turned off "to repair a connection between two small pipes that lead to a valve. The valve is used for equipment testing when the unit is offline for refueling," said FPL spokesman Mayco Villafana.

~view the original post here

a reply from a medical doctor:

Another example of the safety of nuclear power. The company monitors operations properly, As we all know there has never been an accident that has endangered human lives, including 3 mile island. Nuclear is the finest example of alternate energy sources that already supplies 20% of our electricity and solves the greenhouse gas process, since it doesn't give off any, and at the same time puts a stop to our rediculous money transfer relations with the oil producers.
Three cheers for the company!

my response:

Not to point fingers, but ARE YOU SERIOUS?! nuclear power is the most dangerous form of energy. Do some research and you will find an alarming amount of nuclear reactors that continue leak radioactive waste into our water supply... the contamination is NEVER FULLY CLEANED UP (thank your government) and the contamination CONTINUES to cause cancer many years after a plant is shut down.

I urge you to research the Hanford Site (The reactors have leaked so much radioactivity into the air, land and water that the contamination caused by the Three Mile Island nuclear accident seems trivial by comparison); Santa Susana; Three Mile Island and Cherynoble.

IF HARMFUL RADIOACTIVE WASTE LEAKING INTO OUR WATER SUPPLY ISN'T ENDANGERING HUMAN LIVES... YOU ARE AN IGNORANT FOOL. and your a doctor?! scary.

Public Offender: Exelon Corporation

WASHINGTON, March 16, 2006:
Near Braceville, Ill., the Braidwood Generating Station, owned by the Exelon Corporation, has leaked tritium into underground water that has shown up in the well of a family nearby. The company, which has bought out one property owner and is negotiating with others, has offered to help pay for a municipal water system for houses near the plant that have private wells.

In a survey of all 10 of its nuclear plants, Exelon found tritium in the ground at two others. On Tuesday, it said it had had another spill at Braidwood, about 60 miles southwest of Chicago, and on Thursday, the attorney general of Illinois announced she was filing a lawsuit against the company over that leak and five earlier ones, dating to 1996. The suit demands among other things that the utility provide substitute water supplies to residents.

In New York, at the Indian Point 2 reactor in Buchanan, workers digging a foundation adjacent to the plant's spent fuel pool found wet dirt, an indication that the pool was leaking. New monitoring wells are tracing the tritium's progress toward the Hudson River.

Indian Point officials say the quantities are tiny, compared with the amount of tritium that Indian Point is legally allowed to release into the river. Officials said they planned to find out how much was leaking and declare the leak a "monitored release pathway."
Nils J. Diaz, the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said he would withhold judgment on the proposal until after it reached his agency, but he added, "They're going to have to fix it."

This month, workers at the Palo Verde plant in New Mexico found tritium in an underground pipe vault.

The Union of Concerned Scientists, which is critical of nuclear power safety arrangements, said recently that in the past 10 years, tritium had leaked from at least seven reactors. It called for a systematic program to ensure there were no more leaks.

Tami Branum, who lives close to the Braidwood reactor and owns property in the nearby village of Godley, said in a telephone interview, "It's just absolutely horrible, what we're trying to deal with here." Ms. Branum and her children, 17-year-old twin girls and a 7-year-old boy, drink only bottled water, she said, but use municipal water for everything else. "We're bathing in it, there's no way around it," she said.

Ms. Branum said that her property in Godley was worth about $50,000 and that she wanted to sell it, but that no property was changing hands now because of the spill.

A spokesman for Exelon, Craig Nesbit, said that neither Godley's water nor Braidwood's water system was threatened, but that the company had lost credibility when it did not publicly disclose a huge fuel oil spill and spills of tritium from 1996 to 2003.

Mr. Diaz of the regulatory agency, speaking to a gathering of about 1,800 industry executives and government regulators last week, said utilities were planning to apply for 11 reactor projects, with a total of 17 reactors. The Palo Verde reactor was the last one that was ordered, in October 1973, and actually built.

As the agency prepares to review license applications for the first time in decades, it is focusing on "materials degradation," a catch-all term for cracks, rust and other ills to which nuclear plants are susceptible. The old metal has to hold together, or be patched or replaced as required, for the industry to have a chance at building new plants, experts say.

Tritium, a form of hydrogen with two additional neutrons in its nucleus, is especially vexing. The atom is unstable and returns to stability by emitting a radioactive particle. Because the hydrogen is incorporated into a water molecule, it is almost impossible to filter out. The biological effect of the radiation is limited because, just like ordinary water, water that incorporates tritium does not stay in the body long.

But it is detectable in tiny quantities, and always makes its source look bad. The Energy Department closed a research reactor in New York at its Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, largely because of a tritium leak.

And it can catch up to a plant after death; demolition crews at the Connecticut Yankee reactor in Haddam Neck, Conn., are disposing of extra dirt that has been contaminated with tritium and other materials, as they tear the plant down.

One GIANT Step Backward

The world's first full-scale nuclear reactor, built in 13 months to produce plutonium for an atomic bomb during World War II, is now a National Historic Landmark, the federal government announced Monday.

"Building the B Reactor was a feat of engineering genius. So, too, was the construction a testament to the excellence of working Americans," said Lynn Scarlett, deputy secretary of the Department of Interior. "There was no wiggle room for error."

-SO THEN WHY DID IT LEAK AND CONTAMINATE TRILLIONS OF GALLONS OF GROUNDWATER?!!!!-

History buffs, former weapons workers and local officials have been seeking recognition for the plant for six years to help save it from being dismantled or permanently cocooned as part of the cleanup of the highly contaminated complex in south-central Washington state.

-GOES TO SHOW YOU HOW NAIVE THE GENERAL POPULATION IS. IT'S A SHAME BUILDING A TOURIST ATTRACTION IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN CLEANING UP NUCLEAR WASTE-

Hanford and B Reactor were the centerpiece of the Manhattan Project, a top-secret effort to build an atomic bomb in the 1940s. More than 50,000 workers moved to the Tri-Cities of Richland, Kennewick and Pasco for the massive project on the banks of the Columbia River.

-AND BECAUSE OF THIS SITE, THE COLUMBIA RIVER IS HIGHLY POLLUTED-

Construction began on June 7, 1943, six months after physicist Enrico Fermi turned the theory of nuclear power into the reality of the Atomic Age. Eight more reactors were built at Hanford to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons, leaving a legacy of pollution that has made Hanford the nation's most contaminated nuclear site, with cleanup costs expected to top $50 billion.

-CLEANUP HAS BEEN PUT OFF FOR DECADES AND THE SITE STILL CONTINUES TO CONTAMINATE THE AREA-

Five reactors have been dismantled and cocooned, a process in which buildings around the reactors are removed, all but the shield walls surrounding the reactor cores are leveled and the cores are sealed in concrete.

The B Reactor was shut down in 1968 and decommissioned. Under a cleanup schedule managed by the Department of Energy, dismantling could have begun as early as 2009. However, the department said it would maintain the reactor while the National Park Service decides whether it should be preserved and made available for public access.

Hank Kosmata, president of the B Reactor Museum Association in Richland, noted that achieving National Historic Landmark status for Reactor B took longer than building it.

-AND WAITING FOR THE U.S. GOVERNMENT TO CLEAN UP ITS "LANDMARK" CONTINUES TO TAKE EVEN LONGER!!-

About 2,000 people have visited the complex this year. Next year, Energy Department officials plan to expand the number of tours of the building without impeding cleanup, said Jeffrey Kupfer, acting deputy secretary.

-YES, THE BEST PLACE TO VISIT IS ALWAYS A CONTAMINATED NUCLEAR REACTOR. HURRY, BOOK YOUR TOUR NOW!!-

story from the AP.
comments from me.

I do not want to make this a political post... but if you're planning on voting for McCain this November, you better be prepared to lobby against his "alternative energy" plan which consists of embracing NUCLEAR POWER, the most unsafe energy. Research how many nuclear power plants or reactors have leaked. The amount of contamination produced by nuclear power is astonding. The most recent case was discovered and publicized earlier this month when The United States has admitted that a nuclear-powered submarine steadily leaked radiation at three Japanese ports, as well as the Pacific island of Guam and Pearl Harbor in Hawaii FOR OVER TWO YEARS. If you are wondering why cancer rates are rising, look no further.

Abandoned nuclear reactors generate new surge of tourism

By Hugo Martin Tribune Newspapers
11:25 PM CDT, August 23, 2008


HANFORD, Wash. — A platoon of double-crested cormorants took flight from the eastern shore of the Columbia River, skimming the sun-sparkled surface as two slender white egrets stood in the nearby shallows, hunting small fish hiding in the reeds.

Twenty kayakers, mostly tourists from the Pacific Northwest, paddled along, letting the steady current do most of the work. They coasted past mule deer grazing on the shore, coyotes stalking the sandy beaches and cliff swallows buzzing the nearby white bluffs.

But the main attraction was on the western shore: several bland, industrial-gray structures and towering smokestacks, a collection of buildings that gave birth to America's Atomic Age.

Welcome to the Hanford Reach, where one of the last free-flowing stretches of the Columbia River encounters America's most contaminated nuclear site.

Along this flat, mostly treeless scrubland, the U.S. government built nine reactors from 1943 to 1963, including the historic B Reactor that produced the world's first weapons-grade plutonium for the nuclear bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, in World War II.

The reactors have leaked so much radioactivity into the air, land and water that the contamination caused by the Three Mile Island nuclear accident seems trivial by comparison.

Yet merchants and tourism directors here in southern Washington state see the river and the shuttered reactors as a growing tourist draw.

Imagine a theme park next to Chernobyl's nuclear power plant. As odd as it may sound, the idea seems to be working at Hanford.

The popular kayak tours are one example. Pat Welle, owner of Columbia Kayak Adventures, who leads two or three groups each month past the nuclear sites, said her business has more than doubled since she started it in 2004. A jet boat tour operator plans to add a second boat, and the river plays host to several bass fishing tournaments each year.

"I think the attraction is the unique combination of scenery — the white bluffs and the wildlife — and that odd collection of nuclear sites," Welle said.

The reactors have long been shut down, but the surrounding land rumbles with bulldozers, dump trucks and crews in radiation suits working on a $2 billion-a-year cleanup project — the most expensive such project in the world, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

The irony is that although the reactors contaminated hundreds of acres, government restrictions on access left the surrounding lands largely undisturbed for more than 40 years, allowing wildlife to flourish.

The effort to make the Hanford Reach a tourist hot spot got a boost in 2000 when then- President Bill Clinton proclaimed 195,000 acres along the river and around the nuclear site a national monument. About 60,000 people now visit annually, including anglers, hikers, birders and history buffs.

That number is likely to grow under a plan by the National Park Service to upgrade boat launches and picnic sites and to open the B Reactor for regular public tours. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne is also expected to approve a recommendation this month to declare the B Reactor a national historic landmark.

The story began in 1942 when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began searching for a plutonium production site for the then-secret Manhattan Project. With large tracts of land and access to large volumes of water to cool the reactor, the Hanford area along the Columbia River seemed perfect.

America's first large-scale nuclear reactor was built in about a year. Most workers at the B Reactor were clueless about what they were developing until the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Later, a headline in the local paper announced: "Peace! Our Bomb Clinched It!"

During the next 20 years, the federal government built eight more reactors along the Columbia River in a 586-square-mile area known as the Hanford site.

In 1948 a dike at a reactor waste pond broke, dumping 28 pounds of uranium into the Columbia River.

Today, scientists and biologists extensively test almost every creature along the river, whether a tadpole or a deer.

Hong Kong smog

Air pollution is causing 10,000 premature deaths a year in Hong Kong, Macau and southern China's Pearl River Delta, according to a report published on Thursday.

Respiratory diseases caused by the worsening smog is estimated to be costing 440,000 hospital bed days and 11 million doctor visits and costing the region's economy 6.7 billion yuan ($964 million) a year.

The estimates are contained in a report on the effects of poor air quality by the Hong Kong-based think tank Civic Exchange published in newspapers Thursday.

The survey was conducted over nine months by health, science and public policy experts who based their findings on air pollution from 2003 to 2006.

Smog in Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta has worsened considerably in the past decade, largely because of vehicle emissions and pollution from neighbouring industrial southern China.

Previous reports have warned that the air pollution in Hong Kong is causing thousands of premature deaths and that foreign investors are avoiding the former British colony because of its smog.

~FROM BLOG: Living In Hong Kong - Life of a Filipino web developer in Hong Kong. With descriptions of typical Hong Kong living, food, economics, entertainment, politics and just about everything else.

It's the year 2008, why the hell is the most technologically advanced country still dependent on COAL?!!

KEEP AN EYE ON THE SKY

Google Chemtrails
Originally uploaded by zachbrock.

During the past two weeks, I was pleased when the amount of chemtrails above Los Angeles dwindled BUT today was full-fledge government exotic weapon warfare on our immune systems!! There were TONS of chemtrail lines and circles in the sky and PEOPLE ARE STILL CLUELESS. (if you're not aware of CHEMTRAILS yet, please google "chemtrails" or read this)

SCIE CHIMICHE A MATERA - ChemTrails in Matera (Basilicata) - Italy
Originally uploaded by WhiteIron.

Chemtrails over Sussex - Summer, 2006 - 0117
Originally uploaded by libertyville.

If you've been living in a naive bubble than you probably haven't noticed the U.S. government is trying to DELIBERITLY poison you by releasing a cocktail of fungus, aluminium, barium, titanium and magnesium into the sky from large jets. These plumes of chemicals are usually dismissed as "contrails" but if you have an ounce of common sense and average eye sight, you will see UNLIKE CONTRAILS, CHEMATRAILS DO NOT DISSAPATE - THEY SPREAD, often covering miles of sky with wispy-looking plumes that slowly spread to resemble clouds, but they are not clouds!! Look carefully and you will see a pinkish prism or rainbow of chemicals in the plumes. Real clouds are not reflective, nor do they form multiple straight lines or cross-hatching patterns - as chemtrails do when they are being spread.

The sad part is the government is blantently poisoning us in BROAD DAYLIGHT and we are still naive and allow it to happen.

Chemtrails
Originally uploaded by art_es_anna.

11-16-07 bad spray day 037
Originally uploaded by unawareinla.

11-16-07 bad spray day 049
Originally uploaded by unawareinla.

This isn't a conspiracy theory. IT IS HAPPENING ALL OVER THE GLOBE:
Germany has already admitted to using chemtrails in order to "manipulate weather" and "disrupt radar signals."

The U.K. government admitted to "conducting a series of secret germ warfare tests on the public," including spraying public with harmful toxins.

Chemtrails making news in the United States who claims it is using the chemicals for "weather modification."

Think you're safe?! Let's take a look at what the toxic ingredients can do to your health:
*Fungus eats nutrients that are used to rebuild our immume system.
*Aluminium crosses the blood brain barrier, causes Alzheimer's disease and short term memory loss.
*Barium, in addition to being a known carcinogenic, knocks potassium out of the body.
*Titanium and magnesium combined together causes blood clots.

IF YOU ARE TRYING TO LIVE A HEALTHY LIFE, DIRECT YOUR ATTENTION TO THE SKY AND BE CONCERNED ABOUT THE QUAILITY OF THE AIR YOU BREATHE.

Check out this WEBSITE containing scary ongoing evidence of chemtrails from 2003-2007 and here's the US NAVY CHEMTRAIL PATENT from 1974!!

WHAT CAN YOU DO???
*Educate others and spread the word about chemtrails.
*Keep an eye on the sky, take photos and collect evidence of chemtrails above your town/city
*File a Class Action lawsuit for public endangerment... here's how. TIP: Do not use the word “chemtrails.” Instead, focus on air safety, and the health, serenity and safety of those on the ground.
*Contact ALL local and national media.
*Contact environmental agencies or form your own group or organization.

WHEN FACED WITH ADVERCITY:
*When told by authorities that these plumes are “harmless” contrails, remind them that the supposedly “safe” artificial clouds caused by normal condensation trails can be seen as dangerous air pollution that robs the blue skies essential to good health and life, while altering weather and climate by drastically changing a region’s atmospheric heat balance. Then point to your temperature/humidity records to prove that the plumes you’re citing cannot be contrails because the upper air is too warm and too dry for any such artificial clouds to form – unless massive amounts of particulates are added to the air for moisture to coalesce around. The smaller the particles, the more clouds are formed. And the greater the human health hazard that results.


If you'd like to really research the topic, exclude the term "chemtrail" and search for "exotic weapons." There are bills that were passed by congress to allow the US government the right to test "exotic weapons" on civilians. "Chemtrails" are included as "exotic weapons."

Here is an excerpt of the bill. You could also research it yourself:
H. R. 2977

To preserve the cooperative, peaceful uses of space for the benefit of all humankind by permanently prohibiting the basing of weapons in space by the United States, and to require the President to take action to adopt and implement a world treaty banning space-based weapons.

SEC. 7. DEFINITIONS.

(B) Such terms include exotic weapons systems such as--

(i) electronic, psychotronic, or information weapons;

(ii) chemtrails;

(iii) high altitude ultra low frequency weapons systems;

(iv) plasma, electromagnetic, sonic, or ultrasonic weapons;

(v) laser weapons systems;

(vi) strategic, theater, tactical, or extraterrestrial weapons; and

(vii) chemical, biological, environmental, climate, or tectonic weapons.

(C) The term `exotic weapons systems' includes weapons designed to damage space or natural ecosystems (such as the ionosphere and upper atmosphere) or climate, weather, and tectonic systems with the purpose of inducing damage or destruction upon a target population or region on earth or in space.

YAY, LA... NO MORE PLASTIC BAGS IN 2010!!!!

LOS ANGLES (AFP) - The city of Los Angeles announced it will ban all plastic bags from retail stores as of July 1, 2010, following similar anti-pollution regulations already enforced in San Francisco.

The second-largest US city behind New York, Los Angeles, with its four million population, will ban plastic bagging in all supermarkets, grocery and retail stores, the Los Angeles City Council said in its new regulation.

After July 1, 2010, all store customers must provide their own bags or purchase bags made of paper or other biodegradable material from the store for 25 cents (0.25 dollar), it added.

The goal is to rid the city of some 2.3 billion non-biodegradable plastic bags that are distributed each year and end up polluting waste dumps for a long time.

San Francisco, 600 kilometers (373 miles) north of here, also in California, in 2007 became the first US city to ban plastic bags from its stores.

Both city regulations are intended to pressure state lawmakers who are considering a bill to eliminate plastic bags across the state by 2012.

Several countries around the world have already adopted laws banning plastic bags, which often end up killing animals that swallow or get caught up in them.

HECK YES. :)

DANGERS OF AMALGAM/MERCURY FILLINGS: A VIDEO BLOG

HARMFUL EFFECTS OF AMALGAM/MECURY FILLINGS:


PART 2:


VISIBLE MECURY VAPORS COMING FROM AMALGAM FILLINGS:

MERCURY, FOUND IN CHILDHOOD VACCINES, CAUSES AUTISM.

"In June 2000, a group of top government scientists and health officials gathered for a meeting at the isolated Simpsonwood conference center in Norcross, Georgia. Convened by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the meeting was held at this Methodist retreat center, nestled in wooded farmland next to the Chattahoochee River, to ensure complete secrecy. The agency had issued no public announcement of the session -- only private invitations to fifty-two attendees. There were high-level officials from the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration, the top vaccine specialist from the World Health Organization in Geneva and representatives of every major vaccine manufacturer, including GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Wyeth and Aventis Pasteur. All of the scientific data under discussion, CDC officials repeatedly reminded the participants, was strictly "embargoed." There would be no making photocopies of documents, no taking papers with them when they left.

The federal officials and industry representatives had assembled to discuss a disturbing new study that raised alarming questions about the safety of a host of common childhood vaccines administered to infants and young children. According to a CDC epidemiologist named Tom Verstraeten, who had analyzed the agency's massive database containing the medical records of 100,000 children, a mercury-based preservative in the vaccines -- thimerosal -- appeared to be responsible for a dramatic increase in autism and a host of other neurological disorders among children. "I was actually stunned by what I saw," Verstraeten told those assembled at Simpsonwood, citing the staggering number of earlier studies that indicate a link between thimerosal and speech delays, attention-deficit disorder, hyperactivity and autism. Since 1991, when the CDC and the FDA had recommended that three additional vaccines laced with the preservative be given to extremely young infants -- in one case, within hours of birth -- the estimated number of cases of autism had increased fifteenfold, from one in every 2,500 children to one in 166 children.

THE GOVERNMENT AND VACCINE MANUFACTURES KNOW VACCINES ARE CAUSING DAMAGE TO THOUSANDS."

SOURCE: JEFF (AKA: VACCINETRUTH ON YOUTUBE.COM), THE FATHER OF TWO VACCINE-INDUCED AUTISM CHILDREN

Robert Kennedy Jr talks about the cover up regarding vaccines and Autism:


Jenny McCarthy debates doctors on vaccines and autism on Larry King Live 4-2-08:


Autism Risk Linked To Distance From Power Plants, Other Mercury-releasing Sources (article from Science Daily).

Parenting website explores the dangers of vaccinations.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:
*SPREAD THE WORD!!!!
*CONTACT YOUR LOCAL CONGRESSMAN/WOMAN
*CONTACT DRUG MANUFACTURERS
*CONTACT THE EPA
*CONTACT THE FDA
*DEMAND CHANGE!!!!

SPOTLIGHT ON: ACTIVIST SEVERN CULLIS-SUZUKI

Think back to what you were doing when you were twelve years old... chances are, unless you're Severn Cullis-Suzuki, you weren't lobbying for a cleaner environment or starting your own environmental organization...

In 1992, at the age of 12, Cullis-Suzuki raised money with members of ECO, the Environmental Children's Organization (a group she founded) to attend the Earth Summit in Rio De Janeiro. Along with group members Michelle Quigg, Vanessa Suttie, and Morgan Geisler, Severn presented environmental issues from a youth perspective at the Summit, where she received a standing ovation for a speech to the delegates. The group also addressed delegates at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (source: wikipedia).

see the moving speech she gave when she was twelve!! how sad is it that the world has only gotten worse???

here's a quote from Cullis-Suzuki from a 2002 article in TIME:

"...In the 10 years since Rio, I have learned that addressing our leaders is not enough. As Gandhi said many years ago, "We must become the change we want to see." I know change is possible, because I am changing, still figuring out what I think. I am still deciding how to live my life. The challenges are great, but if we accept individual responsibility and make sustainable choices, we will rise to the challenges, and we will become part of the positive tide of change.But in the 10 years since Rio, I have learned that addressing our leaders is not enough. As Gandhi said many years ago, "We must become the change we want to see." I know change is possible, because I am changing, still figuring out what I think. I am still deciding how to live my life. The challenges are great, but if we accept individual responsibility and make sustainable choices, we will rise to the challenges, and we will become part of the positive tide of change.But in the 10 years since Rio, I have learned that addressing our leaders is not enough. As Gandhi said many years ago, "We must become the change we want to see." I know change is possible, because I am changing, still figuring out what I think. I am still deciding how to live my life. The challenges are great, but if we accept individual responsibility and make sustainable choices, we will rise to the challenges, and we will become part of the positive tide of change."

Severn Cullis-Suzuki now:

Cullis-Suzuki is still an environmental activist. She earned Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Yale University and continues to promote sustainable living.

here are some words of wisdom from her father, fellow activist David Suzuki:

"If we don't see that everything is interconnected, then any action has no consequences or responsibility. Most of us live in cities, in a human created environment, and many people ask me: "well, who needs nature?" So, people tell me they care about the environment, yet they drive huge SUVs and never reflect on their impact on climate or weather. We buy fresh fruits and vegetables in Canada in the middle of winter, but we never reflect on the Earth cost of shipping them from halfway around the world. So the challenge is to reconnect ourselves to the world. Everything is connected to everything else." ~taken from SASS magazine fall 2004

Want to improve your sustainable living??? Take David Suzuki's Nature Challenge.

Further proof that one person CAN make a difference by impacting social change. What have you done for the earth lately???

Childhood Cancer Most Prominent in Northeast

Here is an abbreviated version of the article posted 2 hours ago by AP Medical Writer Lindsay Tanner:

CHICAGO - Surprising research suggests that childhood cancer is most common in the Northeast, results that even caught experts off guard. But some specialists say it could just reflect differences in reporting.

The study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is based on data representing 90 percent of the U.S. population. It found that cancer affects about 166 out of every million children, a number that shows just how rare childhood cancers are.

The highest rate was in the Northeast with 179 cases per million children, while the lowest was among children in the South with 159 cases per million. Some experts suggested that could mean cases were under-reported in the South and over-reported elsewhere.

The rates for the Midwest and West were nearly identical, at 166 cases per million and 165 per million, respectively.

A total of 36,446 cases were identified in the study, which analyzed 2001-03 data from state and federal registries. The research appears in the June edition of Pediatrics, released Monday.

Dr. Rafael Ducos, a children's cancer physician at Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans, said the South's low rates were perplexing and might simply reflect
under-reporting there and over-reporting in other regions.

"I'm at a loss to explain it," he said.

Environmental factors might play a role, including exposure to radiation, said lead author Dr. Jun Li of the CDC. Radiation has been linked with the most common types of childhood cancer — leukemia, lymphoma and brain cancers.

Radiation sources include X-rays, nuclear plant emissions and natural sources such as radon gas. But Li said research is needed to determine if these sources vary enough by region to affect childhood cancer rates.

Dr. Lindsay Frazier, a cancer specialist at Children's Hospital Boston and Dana Farber Cancer Institute, said pollution and housing stock that's older than anywhere else in the nation might help explain the Northeast's higher rates.

"As a parent raising a family in the Northeast, this does not at all increase my concern for my family or for my neighbors," Levy said, adding, "First and foremost, these are still very rare diseases in children."

Regional differences in rates for some specific cancers have been found in adults, but these are likely due to personal habits and lifestyle factors, Ward said. For example, lung cancer rates are high in the South because smoking is generally more popular there, she said.

But it generally takes years of exposure to lifestyle factors such as smoking before
cancer develops, she said, so this wouldn't explain children's rates.

I don't mean to sound cocky, but it doesn't take a scientist to figure out why there are higher cancer rates in the northeast portion of the United States. It is really alarming that of the scientists involved in these studies, none of them could come to the conclusion I came to immediately after reading this article. Why aren't science geniuses also blessed with the common sense gene???

HERE IS WHY THERE ARE HIGHER RATES OF CANCER IN THE NORTHEAST:


GET A LOAD OF THE PROPAGANDA THE GOVERNMENT WAS FEEDING PEOPLE IN THE 1950s. Just hide in a shelter for two weeks and rinse off fruit before eating it -- BAHAHAHA!! this one is even better:

But I regress...

Back to my point: I hope you noticed the part about the "down winds" when the map was shown in the first video. If not, here it is:


As you can see, all pollution and yes, particles from the HUNDREDS of nuclear bomb tests that have occurred in Nevada since the 1940s... get whisked to the east coast from the west by down winds. So it's no wonder why there are higher cancer rates in the northeast. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that virtually every person who has lived in the United States since 1951 has been exposed to radioactive fallout. And the fallout hovers over the east coast longer than the west coast.

I also have a problem with the author's ending statement: "...lung cancer rates are high in the South because smoking is generally more popular there, she said. But it generally takes years of exposure to lifestyle factors such as smoking before cancer develops, she said, so this wouldn't explain children's rates." ARE YOU SERIOUSLY A MEDICAL WRITER?! AND DID YOU REALLY SPEAK WITH A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL??? Smoking wouldn't explain the children's rates?!? Nobody besides myself factored in second hand smoke (oh, the irony) nor the probability of carcinogens the child faced while in the womb?!!

THIS IS COMMON SENSE. Articles like these make me livid because it proves tax payers are funding USELESS scientific studies run by clueless scientists. Not all scientists are clueless and not all scientific studies are useless, i know, but most scientists and companies are polluting the earth by creating even MORE household chemicals (that ad agencies convince you that you need) which work their way into our water supply and contaminate our drinking water.

Low Impact Ways to Become Low-Impact.

SIX small actions even the busiest humanoid can do to make a positive impact on the earth.

Consider this your new to-do list...

1. UNPLUG ELECTRONICS AND APPLIANCES: An easy, yet easily forgotten concept. Did you know your tv, radio, computer, VCR/DVD player and cell phone charger continue to draw electricity even when they're turned off?? FACT: The wasted electricity of leaving electronics and appliances plugged in is equivalent to continuously leaving a 100-watt light bulb on. Unplugging these items when not in use will reduce your environmental impact while reducing your electricity bill. Solution: Use power strips. The on/off switch will allow you to unplug your tv, VCR/DVD player, computer and printer at the same time.
2. STOP OD-ING ON NAPKINS: Same concept applies to toilet paper. It's not that difficult to "spare a square". (YES, although highly criticized, Sheryl Crow was on to something!!) My boyfriend and I lay out our wet paper towels on our kitchen counter and by the time we need another, our old paper towels are dry and ready to use again!! (We also use a large bath towel for our "kitchen towel" so we rarely have to rely on paper towels). FACT: If everyone in the US used ONE fewer napkin a day, we could save more than a BILLION pounds of napkins from landfills each year. Imagine the difference you can make if don't use any!!
3. STOP USING PLASTIC CUPS AND PLASTIC PLATES: Not only is plastic the most popular landfill material, but it's also been linked to cancer and Alzheimer's disease. Make a safer switch to reusable glass or ceramic mugs, cups and plates. Concerned with the amount of water and detergent you'll need to use to wash reusable dishware?? Turn off the water while scrubbing and use eco-friendly natural detergents like these.
4. SKIP THE WRAPPING PAPER: It's only on a package for a matter of minutes anyway. FACT: According to hotfact.com, Americans throw away up to 25% more garbage (five million tons more than the daily 3.5 pounds of garbage we usually throw away) between Thanksgiving and the New Year. About four million of those tons are made up of wrapping paper and shopping bags. Instead of wrapping paper, reuse newspapers (the comic section is always a favorite) and don't forget to recycle afterward!!
5. PLAY GAMES: Improve yourself while helping improve the lives of others simply by visiting http://www.freerice.com where you play a game to end world hunger while improving your vocabulary!! The concept: for every correct response, the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) will distribute 20 grains of rice to countries in need. "In addition to providing food, the World Food Program helps hungry people to become self-reliant so that they escape hunger for good. Wherever possible, the World Food Program buys food locally to support local farmers and the local economy." How it's possible: the money generated by the advertisements on the bottom of your game screen is used to buy the rice. Awesome.
6. CHOOSE CANVAS: The paper vs. plastic dilemma is solved by using reusable canvas bags!! Most grocery stores will offer small refunds if you bring your own bags. FACT: Using reusable bags saves 12 million barrels of oil and 14 million trees each year. If those facts aren't enough incentive, remember that canvas bags are sturdier and you will never have to worry about the handles ripping off while you carry your groceries.

All facts were found in the April 2008 edition of Women's Day. Kudos to them!! Some facts were also originally obtained by Deirdre Dolan at The Daily Green.

Contrary to popular belief, the beach isn't your ashtray.

Trash on beach
Originally uploaded by julie_kitty.

As an avid beach goer, you can imagine my disgust when I discovered an AP article titled "Group finds 6 million pounds of trash on world's beaches."

The original article was written by Josef Hebert, but here is my Cliff Notes version:

6 million pounds of GARBAGE was found on 33,000 miles of shoreline worldwide IN ONE DAY, providing a "global snapshot of the ocean trash problem."

On average, the 378,000 volunteers collected 182 pounds of trash for every mile of shoreline in 76 countries, including the U.S. (both ocean coastlines and beaches on inland lakes and streams) and found cigarette butts, food wrappers, abandoned fishing lines and plastic bags... all of which threaten seabirds and marine mammals.

"This is a snapshot of one day, one moment in time, but it serves as a powerful reminder of our carelessness and how our disparate and random actions actually have a collective and global impact," Vikki Spruill, president of the Ocean Conservancy said in an interview.

The most extensive cleanup was in the United States where 190,000 volunteers covered 10,110 miles and picked up 3.9 million pounds of debris on a single Saturday last September, according to the report. That's 390 pounds of trash per mile!!!

"It represents a general carelessness we have. ... We're the bad guys. Trash doesn't fall from the sky. It actually falls from our hands," said Spruill.

A third of the debris found came from smokers.

The volunteers collected and cataloged nearly 2.3 million cigarette butts, filters and cigar tips. And they found 587,827 bags; more than 1.7 million food wrappers, containers, lids, cups, plates and eating utensils; and nearly 1.2 million bottles and beverage cans.

Divers also scoured waters offshore, collecting about 160,000 pounds of debris from cigarette waste and food containers to more threatening items: abandoned fishing lines, plastic bags, rope, fishing nets and abandoned crab and lobster traps.

The International Coastal Cleanup also focused attention on the damage these items can do...

The volunteers came across 81 birds, 63 fish, 49 invertebrates, 30 mammals and 11 reptiles and one amphibian that all had become entangled in various debris including fishing line, rope or plastic bags, balloon ribbons and strings, building material, vehicle tires, wire, and beverage six-pack holders.

What bothers me the most is all out our environmental problems are self-induced. The only reason there was 6 million more pounds of garbage on our world's beaches is because people were TOO LAZY to properly dispose of their trash. This could have EASILY been prevented had those people took the 5 extra steps to the nearest trash can OR carried their garbage home with them.

WHAT YOU CAN DO: BE RESPONSIBLE AND PICK UP AFTER YOURSELF. IF YOU CARRY IN, CARRY OUT... DON'T LEAVE YOUR GARBAGE BEHIND!!!!

This study is further proof that one person does make a difference. Don't ever assume your ONE measely cigarette butt/plastic bag/balloon isn't going to matter if it's left behind. That ignorant train of thought is what contributed to there being over 6 MILLION pounds of trash on our beaches. If you want to reduce pollution, reduce laziness.

as if you needed another reason to become a vegetarian...

i don't understand why ignorant people give vegetarians such crap about not eating meat, especially after SEEING what goes on in slaughter houses. very rarely do i ever eat meat, but i'm thinking i just ate my LAST piece of meatloaf. :(












and if the inhumane treatment doesn't bother you, this should:

"The EPA has declared that concentrated animal feeding operations are one of the chief causes of water pollution in the United States. An estimated 35,000 miles of rivers and groundwater sources in 17 states have been polluted by waste from hogs, chickens and cattle. The U.S. livestock industry produces 2.7 trillion tons of waste each year ..." -- OXFAM

so you're drinking traces of chemicals, pesticides AND animal feces (not to mention perscription drugs). and we wonder why so many people have cancer, alzheimers, birth defects, etc.

to further your disgust.

HOW YOU CAN HELP:
# 1 refuse to stay silent, spread the word that animal cruelty is still a major issue
#2 become a vegetarian and promote vegetarianism
#3 write to your congressperson and senators (not sure where to begin, START HERE!!)
#4 research PETA.com for ways to help end animal cruelty.

one tall glass of mood stabilizers and sex hormones... coming right up.

overmedicated americans = an overmedicated drinking supply. in a society where we over-medicate every one (including household pets) and inject steriods and antibiotics into our food supply (via chickens and cattle) it's no surprise these drugs are contaminating our already endangered water supply. educate yourself, then read on to find out how you can make a difference and help protect our water supply.

i tried to make a cliff's notes version of the article published by the AP MARCH 10, 2008, but there was just too much i didn't want to omit. but i did highlight and bold sections i thought were most astonding:

A vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.

Concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are far below the levels of a medical dose but the presence of so many prescription drugs — and over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen — in so much of our drinking water is heightening worries of long-term consequences to human health. Especially since researchers have found alarming effects on human cells and wildlife.

In the course of a five-month inquiry, the AP discovered that drugs have been detected in the drinking water supplies of 24 major metropolitan areas — from Southern California to Northern New Jersey, from Detroit to Louisville, Ky.

How do the drugs get into the water?

People take pills. Their bodies absorb some of the medication, but the rest of it passes through and is flushed down the toilet. The wastewater is treated before it is discharged into reservoirs, rivers or lakes. Then, some of the water is cleansed again at drinking water treatment plants and piped to consumers. But most treatments do not remove all drug residue.

Members of the AP National Investigative Team reviewed hundreds of scientific reports, analyzed federal drinking water databases, visited environmental study sites and treatment plants and interviewed more than 230 officials, academics and scientists. They also surveyed the nation's 50 largest cities and a dozen other major water providers, as well as smaller community water providers in all 50 states.

Here are some of the key test results obtained by the AP:

_Officials in Philadelphia said testing there discovered 56 pharmaceuticals or byproducts in treated drinking water, including medicines for pain, infection, high cholesterol, asthma, epilepsy, mental illness and heart problems. Sixty-three pharmaceuticals or byproducts were found in the city's watersheds.

_Anti-epileptic and anti-anxiety medications were detected in a portion of the treated drinking water for 18.5 million people in Southern California.

_Researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey analyzed a Passaic Valley Water Commission drinking water treatment plant, which serves 850,000 people in Northern New Jersey, and found a metabolized angina medicine and the mood-stabilizing carbamazepine in drinking water.

_A sex hormone was detected in San Francisco's drinking water.

_The drinking water for Washington, D.C., and surrounding areas tested positive for six pharmaceuticals.

_Three medications, including an antibiotic, were found in drinking water supplied to Tucson, Ariz.

The situation is undoubtedly worse than suggested by the positive test results in the major population centers documented by the AP.

The federal government doesn't require any testing and hasn't set safety limits for drugs in water. Of the 62 major water providers contacted, the drinking water for only 28 was tested. Among the 34 that haven't: Houston, Chicago, Miami, Baltimore, Phoenix, Boston and New York City's Department of Environmental Protection, which delivers water to 9 million people.

The AP's investigation also indicates that watersheds, the natural sources of most of the nation's water supply, also are contaminated. Tests were conducted in the watersheds of 35 of the 62 major providers surveyed by the AP, and pharmaceuticals were detected in 28.

The New York state health department and the USGS tested the source of the city's water, upstate. They found trace concentrations of heart medicine, infection fighters, estrogen, anti-convulsants, a mood stabilizer and a tranquilizer. City water officials declined repeated requests for an interview.

In several cases, officials at municipal or regional water providers told the AP that pharmaceuticals had not been detected, but the AP obtained the results of tests conducted by independent researchers that showed otherwise. For example, water department officials in New Orleans said their water had not been tested for pharmaceuticals, but a Tulane University researcher and his students have published a study that found the pain reliever naproxen, the sex hormone estrone and the anti-cholesterol drug byproduct clofibric acid in treated drinking water.

Rural consumers who draw water from their own wells aren't in the clear either, experts say.

The Stroud Water Research Center, in Avondale, Pa., has measured water samples from New York City's upstate watershed for caffeine, a common contaminant that scientists often look for as a possible signal for the presence of other pharmaceuticals. Though more caffeine was detected at suburban sites, researcher Anthony Aufdenkampe was struck by the relatively high levels even in less populated areas.

He suspects it escapes from failed septic tanks, maybe with other drugs. "Septic systems are essentially small treatment plants that are essentially unmanaged and therefore tend to fail," Aufdenkampe said.

Even users of bottled water and home filtration systems don't necessarily avoid exposure. Bottlers, some of which simply repackage tap water, do not typically treat or test for pharmaceuticals, according to the industry's main trade group. The same goes for the makers of home filtration systems.

Contamination is not confined to the United States. More than 100 different pharmaceuticals have been detected in lakes, rivers, reservoirs and streams throughout the world. Studies have detected pharmaceuticals in waters throughout Asia, Australia, Canada and Europe — even in Swiss lakes and the North Sea.

For example, in Canada, a study of 20 Ontario drinking water treatment plants by a national research institute found nine different drugs in water samples. Japanese health officials in December called for human health impact studies after detecting prescription drugs in drinking water at seven different sites.

In the United States, the problem isn't confined to surface waters. Pharmaceuticals also permeate aquifers deep underground, source of 40 percent of the nation's water supply. Federal scientists who drew water in 24 states from aquifers near contaminant sources such as landfills and animal feed lots found minuscule levels of hormones, antibiotics and other drugs.

Perhaps it's because Americans have been taking drugs — and flushing them unmetabolized or unused — in growing amounts. Over the past five years, the number of U.S. prescriptions rose 12 percent to a record 3.7 billion, while nonprescription drug purchases held steady around 3.3 billion, according to IMS Health and The Nielsen Co.

"People think that if they take a medication, their body absorbs it and it disappears, but of course that's not the case," said EPA scientist Christian Daughton, one of the first to draw attention to the issue of pharmaceuticals in water in the United States.

Some drugs, including widely used cholesterol fighters, tranquilizers and anti-epileptic medications, resist modern drinking water and wastewater treatment processes. Plus, the EPA says there are no sewage treatment systems specifically engineered to remove pharmaceuticals.

One technology, reverse osmosis, removes virtually all pharmaceutical contaminants but is very expensive for large-scale use and leaves several gallons of polluted water for every one that is made drinkable.

Another issue: There's evidence that adding chlorine, a common process in conventional drinking water treatment plants, makes some pharmaceuticals more toxic.

Human waste isn't the only source of contamination. Cattle, for example, are given ear implants that provide a slow release of trenbolone, an anabolic steroid used by some bodybuilders, which causes cattle to bulk up. But not all the trenbolone circulating in a steer is metabolized. A German study showed 10 percent of the steroid passed right through the animals.

Water sampled downstream of a Nebraska feedlot had steroid levels four times as high as the water taken upstream. Male fathead minnows living in that downstream area had low testosterone levels and small heads.

Other veterinary drugs also play a role. Pets are now treated for arthritis, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, allergies, dementia, and even obesity — sometimes with the same drugs as humans. The inflation-adjusted value of veterinary drugs rose by 8 percent, to $5.2 billion, over the past five years, according to an analysis of data from the Animal Health Institute.

Ask the pharmaceutical industry whether the contamination of water supplies is a problem, and officials will tell you no. "Based on what we now know, I would say we find there's little or no risk from pharmaceuticals in the environment to human health," said microbiologist Thomas White, a consultant for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.

Recent laboratory research has found that small amounts of medication have affected human embryonic kidney cells, human blood cells and human breast cancer cells. The cancer cells proliferated too quickly; the kidney cells grew too slowly; and the blood cells showed biological activity associated with inflammation.

Also, pharmaceuticals in waterways are damaging wildlife across the nation and around the globe, research shows. Notably, male fish are being feminized, creating egg yolk proteins, a process usually restricted to females. Pharmaceuticals also are affecting sentinel species at the foundation of the pyramid of life — such as earth worms in the wild and zooplankton in the laboratory, studies show.

"It brings a question to people's minds that if the fish were affected ... might there be a potential problem for humans?" EPA research biologist Vickie Wilson told the AP. "It could be that the fish are just exquisitely sensitive because of their physiology or something. We haven't gotten far enough along."

With limited research funds, said Shane Snyder, research and development project manager at the Southern Nevada Water Authority, a greater emphasis should be put on studying the effects of drugs in water.

"I think it's a shame that so much money is going into monitoring to figure out if these things are out there, and so little is being spent on human health," said Snyder. "They need to just accept that these things are everywhere — every chemical and pharmaceutical could be there. It's time for the EPA to step up to the plate and make a statement about the need to study effects, both human and environmental."

While Grumbles said the EPA had analyzed 287 pharmaceuticals for possible inclusion on a draft list of candidates for regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act, he said only one, nitroglycerin, was on the list. Nitroglycerin can be used as a drug for heart problems, but the key reason it's being considered is its widespread use in making explosives.

Our bodies may shrug off a relatively big one-time dose, yet suffer from a smaller amount delivered continuously over a half century, perhaps subtly stirring allergies or nerve damage. Pregnant women, the elderly and the very ill might be more sensitive.

Many concerns about chronic low-level exposure focus on certain drug classes: chemotherapy that can act as a powerful poison; hormones that can hamper reproduction or development; medicines for depression and epilepsy that can damage the brain or change behavior; antibiotics that can allow human germs to mutate into more dangerous forms; pain relievers and blood-pressure diuretics.

Some experts say medications may pose a unique danger because, unlike most pollutants, they were crafted to act on the human body.

"These are chemicals that are designed to have very specific effects at very low concentrations. That's what pharmaceuticals do. So when they get out to the environment, it should not be a shock to people that they have effects," says zoologist John Sumpter at Brunel University in London, who has studied trace hormones, heart medicine and other drugs.

And while drugs are tested to be safe for humans, the timeframe is usually over a matter of months, not a lifetime. Pharmaceuticals also can produce side effects and interact with other drugs at normal medical doses.

"We know we are being exposed to other people's drugs through our drinking water, and that can't be good," says Dr. David Carpenter, who directs the Institute for Health and the Environment of the State University of New York at Albany.

article source: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,336286,00.html

HOW YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE:

#1 DO NOT FLUSH UNUSED PERSCRIPTION AND OVER-THE-COUNTER DRUGS DOWN THE TOILET OR DRAIN!! the drugs will find their way into your drinking water.

#2 DO NOT DISCARD USUSED PERSCRIPTION AND OVER-THE-COUNTER DRUGS IN WITH YOUR REGULAR TRASH!! they will only wind up in a landfil and contaminate ground water.

#3 INSTEAD: return unused perscription and over-the-counter drugs to your pharmacist or drug store for proper disposal or dispose of them at local hazardous waste drop-off sites.

#4 VOICE YOUR CONCERN: contact Benjamin H. Grumbles, assistant administrator for water at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

You can send mail to:
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Water (4101M)
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20460

or leave a comment at: http://www.epa.gov/water/comments.html

#5 CONTACT Thomas White, a microbiologist consultant for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. who thinks "Based on what we now know, I would say we find there's little or no risk from pharmaceuticals in the environment to human health" and tell him otherwise.

#6 CONTACT Mary Buzby — director of environmental technology for drug maker Merck & Co. Inc. support her theory there is a concern and inspire her to take action within her company.