November 24, 2009
BBC News - US will announce target for cutting carbon emissions
Breaking news! Good stuff and very much needed: "The target is expected to be in line with figures contained in legislation before the Senate - a reduction of about 17-20% from 2005 levels by 2020."
With funding scant, intersex fish in Potomac remains mystery - washingtonpost.com
Oh Jen's soapbox time.
Many of you probably have not heard why I really went to law school. There are side stories on the rationale, but it really comes down to the book "A Civil Action." The nonfiction novel details how Jan Schlichtmann stumbled onto a toxic tort case, goes bankrupt as he files Anderson v. Cryovac but ends up winning. It is kinda Erin Brockovich but without the boobs.
Why was this book so meaningful to me? I am a science geek, but couldn't handle getting Bs and Cs in college in hard bio classes. Policy was my thing so I got an undergrad in something that I didn't have to go to classes for (yes I am a slacker). Law school was my way of getting ready to use my interests, skills and knowledge to save the world. Only after law school I realized how hard that was and so I am settling for changing it. But that doesn't stop my absolute frustration with toxic torts - they still happen and we as Americans are letting it!
So here is a Story from the Washington Post about male smallmouth bass in the Potomac (a river I would never swim in) that are found to have eggs in their testes. If we have chemicals in our water that make male fish have female traits, gotta wonder what it is doing to other animals and humans drinking from the river and tributaries. Today, here's another story in my parents' state of Michigan:
Tests indicate city water supplies are free of Dow dioxin; neighborhood recontaminated. The EPA has tested Saginaw Bay-area municipal water supplies and found them free of toxic dioxin, but the soil in a residential area 22 miles downstream from Dow’s Midland complex has been recontaminated with dioxin. Michigan Messenger, Michigan.
http://michiganmessenger.com/30699/tests-indicate-city-water-supplies-are-free-of-dow-dioxin-neighborhood-recontaminated
I know I am all about "boiling the ocean" and fixing everything at once, but it is all interrelated. Much of this chemical run off comes from our use and dependence on oil - plastic products; oil refining derivatives (including aspirin - did you know that; we don't get it from birch bark but from oil); and other related products. I often wonder if we really did a study to see what the long term effect of plastic use is on health if we won't find out the root cause to most of America's current health issues.
So, really soon once I figure out how the heck I can do it, I am going to go on a plastic free eating diet. No Ziploc bags. No Tupperware. Only ceramics and glass and metal. Its gonna be hard as we have embraced plastic as our friend and integral to how we eat, but check it out next time in the food aisle when you are getting Lunchables and deli meat. We gotta stop. And consumption leads to trash which emits carbon. The plastic itself is made of oil which emits carbon. When it all comes down to it - a reduced carbon diet should also be a healthy diet. More to come as I investigate this more. Cherrios - you are my continued lobbying target. Take the cereal out of the plastic sleeve!
For more on plastics effect in our lakes, rivers and oceans - check out Strange Days on Planet Earth, Troubled Waters. I cried and cried and cried.
Many of you probably have not heard why I really went to law school. There are side stories on the rationale, but it really comes down to the book "A Civil Action." The nonfiction novel details how Jan Schlichtmann stumbled onto a toxic tort case, goes bankrupt as he files Anderson v. Cryovac but ends up winning. It is kinda Erin Brockovich but without the boobs.
Why was this book so meaningful to me? I am a science geek, but couldn't handle getting Bs and Cs in college in hard bio classes. Policy was my thing so I got an undergrad in something that I didn't have to go to classes for (yes I am a slacker). Law school was my way of getting ready to use my interests, skills and knowledge to save the world. Only after law school I realized how hard that was and so I am settling for changing it. But that doesn't stop my absolute frustration with toxic torts - they still happen and we as Americans are letting it!
So here is a Story from the Washington Post about male smallmouth bass in the Potomac (a river I would never swim in) that are found to have eggs in their testes. If we have chemicals in our water that make male fish have female traits, gotta wonder what it is doing to other animals and humans drinking from the river and tributaries. Today, here's another story in my parents' state of Michigan:
Tests indicate city water supplies are free of Dow dioxin; neighborhood recontaminated. The EPA has tested Saginaw Bay-area municipal water supplies and found them free of toxic dioxin, but the soil in a residential area 22 miles downstream from Dow’s Midland complex has been recontaminated with dioxin. Michigan Messenger, Michigan.
http://michiganmessenger.com/30699/tests-indicate-city-water-supplies-are-free-of-dow-dioxin-neighborhood-recontaminated
I know I am all about "boiling the ocean" and fixing everything at once, but it is all interrelated. Much of this chemical run off comes from our use and dependence on oil - plastic products; oil refining derivatives (including aspirin - did you know that; we don't get it from birch bark but from oil); and other related products. I often wonder if we really did a study to see what the long term effect of plastic use is on health if we won't find out the root cause to most of America's current health issues.
So, really soon once I figure out how the heck I can do it, I am going to go on a plastic free eating diet. No Ziploc bags. No Tupperware. Only ceramics and glass and metal. Its gonna be hard as we have embraced plastic as our friend and integral to how we eat, but check it out next time in the food aisle when you are getting Lunchables and deli meat. We gotta stop. And consumption leads to trash which emits carbon. The plastic itself is made of oil which emits carbon. When it all comes down to it - a reduced carbon diet should also be a healthy diet. More to come as I investigate this more. Cherrios - you are my continued lobbying target. Take the cereal out of the plastic sleeve!
For more on plastics effect in our lakes, rivers and oceans - check out Strange Days on Planet Earth, Troubled Waters. I cried and cried and cried.
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