EnvironmentalChemistry’s Recent Comments

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  GE's running chunk of coal ads

  One thing that has really been irritating me on the coal issue besides the coal-to-liquids boondoggle, which I've written extensively about on my site, is GE's TV commercial showing everyone running after a guy in chunk of coal costume running down the street. It is promoting their "clean coal" technology.  It just seems like a massive piece of marketing fraud.  Cleaner coal technologies is not the same as clean.  

  While I'm happy to see cleaner technologies come out because it will be a long time before we can totally wean ourselves off of fossil fuels, people should not be duped into believing that coal can be made clean or that it isn't bad for the environment. Coal is an environmental problem all the way from it being mined through it being burned.  CO2 isn't just produced from coal energy when it is burned, it is also released by all the equipment used to mine and transport coal. We also shouldn't forget all the other environmental impacts from mining tailings and mercury getting into our lakes and streams because of coal fired power plants.  Here in Maine it isn't even safe to eat the fish anymore because of mercury pollution caused by the burning of coal in Midwestern states. On Coal exec whines about regulations on his ability to destroy the earth and his workers posted 2 years, 4 months ago 11 Responses

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  Re: What is natural?

  Wiscidea's question is a good question that I have been thinking about for a few days now while working on my deck garden (tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, bell peppers and hot peppers in railing planters).  For instance I was thinking about fertilizer, often times the base chemical compound that the plants need is absolutely identical at a molecular level between the man made "chemical" fertilizer and the organic fertilizer. Now yes I am over simplifying this and yes there are things in a good organic compost that a good chemical fertilizer just doesn't have, but follow a long for a second.

  Not all man made/altered things are bad just as not all natural things are healthy or safe (go eat some unmodified rape seed or find the wild ancestor to modern corn).  Maybe what is most important about the "natural" or "organic" labels is that this may be the easiest way for the consumer to know that they are avoiding pesticides, herbicides, growth hormones, etc. which might not be so good for us and have bad consequences for the environment.  

  In the case of my fertilizer example, the concern about chemical fertilizers shouldn't be about the affect it will have on the plants in my garden, but rather the environmental impact of the total life cycle of the fertilizer.  On one hand my organic compost is made from waste blueberries, salmon and mussels, thereby turning waste into a usable product.  On the other hand my chemical fertilizer is probably produced by mining ancient seabed deposits that are rich in the chemicals plants need, which has a very heavy environmental impact on the area being mined.  Furthermore the chemical fertilizer is much more likely to be over used and flow into waterways messing them up.

  By the same token, the genetically modifying of rape seed has produced a vegetable oil source that is healthier than traditional alternatives and has very desirable cooking traits like a high smoke point. Also many of the crops we grow and eat did not exist in nature until man created them through selective breeding (this includes corn, carrots, etc.). It is through man's manipulation of plants and animals over eons that has given us plants and animals that are as productive as they are today and thus given us the ability to feed all the mouths of the world when politics doesn't get in the way.

  Maybe what we should be concerned about as individuals isn't so much where the dividing line is between natural and "artificial" so much as what are the environmental impacts, how much energy is consumed and what are the health consequences.  Personally, I'm more concerned about drinking organic raw milk or wild caught Atlantic salmon (tends to be mercury laden), than I am about eating cloned meat or rape seed that has been genetically modified for human consumption.On And also: ew posted 2 years, 4 months ago 3 Responses