They are stopping many factories and cutting down on travel during the Olympics.
Air quality is a major problem in many cities, not just those in China. Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Cairo, Seol, Karachi, Jakarta and Sao Paul all have a lot of air pollution.
Many rivers are very polluted. And many wetlands and forests are being destroyed, too.
The problems are not limited to the air.
When we buy stuff from China and other 3rd world countries, in some senses, it is like we are exporting our pollution to China. Of course, with electronic waste, we literally export it.
Bullcrap! The technology exists to clean the environment in China. All it takes is money, and the government has a $1.3T surplus. What are they spending it on? Military spending and space projects! (SOURCE: The BBC) Instead of spending it on clean technology. Why? THEY DON'T HAVE TO! They are the major benefactor of the Kyoto Agreement. And they are lobbying HARD to be excluded from the next round of agreements scheuled to take place in 2012.
OK, I'll cede on the electronic waste. Countries like China and India and Pakistan are taking all the computer circuit boards they can, and extracting the gold from them. But they aren't doing it in any environmentally friendly way.
I looked into doing this in the 90's. It is extremely difficult to do properly; you can't just set up some tanks and drums in your garage. And you're constantly monitored by the EPA. Back then, it cost $250 to extract $300 worth of gold.
China and India don't have these constraints, and in a lot of cases they do the work out in the open, in the 'living room', or wherever.
The technology exists. We are also able to require that everything sold in the US be made only in factories with proper safety, environmental and worker conditions.
China needs to build a good infrastructure, including roads, airports, trains, power plants, houses, internet connections, too. If it is a choice
One argument that many 3rd world countries have is that they should be allowed to pollute the same amount as the US does (per capita). And the the US and Europe have increased the CO2 concentrations in our atmosphere up the most.I have to say this is a fair argument.
But, AFAIK, only the US exports its electronic waste.
That's true. I think they just melt the plastic in an open container, and the lead, gold and other metals sink to the bottom.
Not to mention a nightmare for the people around the containers, including the young family members.
It is my understand that all of them are imported, NO US manufacture is making the bulbs because of the EPA regulations on mercury make it too costly.
As too "licking the bulbs," mercury is not a problem in its liquid state. Mercury has been used for a long time as a medicine. Inhaling Mercury VAPORS is the problem.
Naturally the environuts want even stronger regulations over mercury in the liquid state as well. If these nuts ever get their way they will drive up the cost of producing steel and electricity in the US, because the blast furnaces that produce Iron to make steel use coke and over 52% of the electricity generated in the US is generated using coal and there is mercury in coal.
Just as the price of everything we buy is going up, since the first of the year, because it is now costing railroads and truckers a dollar more per gallon to buy the new "cleaner" diesel fuel for the trains and the trucks (that get 6 MPG) that move EVERYTHING. Ironically even the gasoline, propane and heating oil we buy is affected by the price of diesel fuel for the truck that brings the stuff to the gas station and your home.
We all want sensible environmental regulations but it is sad what we are doing to our county. When will our Senators and Congressmen stop bowing at the feet of these overzealous environuts?
Inhaling mercury vapors is a much, much bigger problem than liquid mercury. However, liquid mercury is also hazardous.
In CFL's, the mercury is in a vapor form. So, when the glass breaks, the mercury is released into the air.
In addition, I am sure the inside surface of the glass is contaminated with mercury. That's why the EPA suggests ventilating and not using a vacuum for cleaning up the glass (the same would apply to regular flourescent lamps). A vacuum cleaner seems to be the ideal way to get any mercury vapors into the air.
Liquid mercury can be absorbed throught the skin and cause allergies and other skin problems; ingesting it can cause renal and gastrointestinal damage. Liquid mercury is dangerous, though not as dangerous as mercury vapors.
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Good. I don't like mercury vapors in the air I breath.
I am sure that the record high prices of crude oil has nothing to do with it. ;-)
The price of the fuel to deliver heating oil and propane is not that much.
A much bigger reason why diesel is so expensive is that there is a limited ability to refine diesel from crude oil in the US. When the demand for diesel goes up, so does the cost of diesel. And, of course, the cost of crude oil is at record highs, too.
The main thing the environmental regulations did was decrease the amount of sulfur in diesel.
You have yet to show that any of the senators or Congressmen are nuts or that the environmental regulations they want are overzealous. What about Congresswomen? Do they count?
Even President Bush wants to limit the CO2 output of the US because of global heating.
You are correct, of course we have been exporting our pollution everyday. We have been for thirty years or more and our jobs along with it, and it will only continue to get worse if we do not soon wise up.
Back in day several of us were discussing government. One said the government FINNALY did something GOOD for the people and the country, they passed the Environmental Protection Act. Like the Disability Act, passed later, the act did NOT define what should be regulated. The law merely set up the EPA giving it the power to regulate pollution. As with the Disability Act the Congress abdicated it Constitutional responsibility to the political bureaucrats and its power to make law, to the courts. IE the right to regulate the gas that "feeds" everything we eat!!
The alternative is to have over 52 different environmental regulations in the US (one for federal governmental operations, one for each of the states and for Wash. D.C.), including hundreds of different formulations. Or to have pollution and greenhouse gases getting worse and worse (even Pres. Bush acknowledges global warming and our need to limit CO2).
Personally, I think having one set of rules for things like drug purity (FDA), pollution, defense and health insurance is a good idea rather 52 sets.
One thing you have to remember is that "they" is really "us." We need to act as if the government is "of the people," including doing things like hiring the best candidates (e.g., looking at the issues, finding out what the candidates are really about, not just 30 second sound bites, and making an informed vote) and writing to the elected representatives (easy and cheap with the internet).
Blame that on the federal government, as well. Because farmers now get a subsidy for the corn, used to make ethanol, they are planting more corn and less wheat. The result is they both cost the consumer more for the product made for both.
When will voters learn there is NO FREE LUNCH, somebody eventually pays the cost of doing business and for the taxes the producers pay. Whenever a optician tells you his going to "GIVE" you something, free healthcare comes to mind, remember governments do not have any money, they take it from YOU first. Vote for the other guy, WBMA!!
I'm not sure what's going on with tinyurl lately, but they're not keeping links alive very long. Not my fault.
The article came from Australia. If I can find it again, I'll post the URL. The gist was that all foods using grain, such as pet or human, are going up due to the use of these crops for bio-fuel. The cost of a loaf of bread has little or nothing to do with Chinese grain.
I doubt that Science Diet uses any from China. At their cost, I'd be surprised.
Oh - that; was a aprt of ther TIME link I posted before - last week?
China was involved w/their (Hills SD) pet food production in some way; one or two of their foods (canned, IIRC vs. kibble) were involved with that huge pet food recall. Yes, SD has always been an expensive food, but the price went up farther, soon after the toxic pet food fiasco.
I've already tried switching them in the past - to Nutro (when it was considered one of the better foods). Nope, they both threw it up, even when I intro-ed it slowly, mixing it in w/their SD. And then later, when Royal Canin became available over here. No problems w/ the RC at first, but they eventually decided they didn't really like it. So went back to their tried & true SD varieties. Basically,dogs seem snarfle just about anything up - I don't think it remains in their mouths long enough to process the taste! Cats... can be finicky. I'm going to leave well enough alone.
Can't prove it by me, my oldest brother was a photographer he worked with mercury most of his life, he died at age 79, thirty years ago. My father worked with mercury in a steel mill for nearly forty years, he died in 1951 at age 78, long before the EPA
You seem to have a lot of free time, do a search and see if you can find any scientific explanation for how a gas, the comprises only four hundreds of one percent of ALL the gasses in the atmosphere, can effect the average world temperature, one way or another. I have not been able to find one.
You might also search for what the was level of O2 andCO2 were during the
165 million years the dinosaurs roamed the earth, and what type of animals flourished and what happened to growth of the vegetation after the relative
02 content when up and the relative C02 content went down.
Definitions:
MAN: Male and Female
BOV>> It is my understand that all of them are imported, NO US manufacture is
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