Monday, 17 Mar 2003

Senior Citizen Diss-count

Anti-war protestors have accused President Bush of placing too little value on human life. Now the Bush administration is trying to literally devalue not Iraqi lives but American ones. The White House is pushing federal agencies to cut the dollar value they place on a human life when determining the costs and benefits of policy changes, such as curbing emissions from power plants. The U.S. EPA generally bases its calculations on a value of $6.1 million per human life, but the administration argues that the lives of old or sick people should be valued at considerably less -- in one recent assessment, as low as $96,000. This sort of shift could benefit industry while leading to weaker public health protections on everything from toxic-waste cleanup to food labeling. Some religious conservatives are joining environmentalists in crying foul. "In general, if you're valuing one life over another, we've got lots of problems here," said Walt Grazer of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Breathing Sleazy

The U.S. EPA assured New Yorkers that the smoky, dusty air around Ground Zero was safe to breathe in the days immediately following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, but an independent federal investigation has found plenty of evidence to the contrary. In making its claims, the EPA assumed a cancer risk level 100 times greater than what is normally considered "acceptable" for public exposure to toxic air pollutants, investigators from the EPA's Office of the Inspector General found. More than 50 percent of Ground Zero workers given health screenings almost one year after the attack continued to suffer from lung, nose, throat, and ear ailments, according to a recent study by the Mount Sinai Medical Center. Investigators are also looking into evidence that the White House dictated much of the content of EPA press releases in the wake of 9/11.

Ontario Clean-air Scenario

In Ontario, Canada, the three major political parties have agreed to shut down all five of the province's coal-burning power plants by 2015, the biggest success so far in an anti-coal campaign that is gaining momentum in Canada. Enviros will be particularly glad to get rid of the Nanticoke power plant on the northern shore of Lake Erie, which has earned the distinction of being Canada's top air polluter, spewing out frightening amounts of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and mercury, not to mention as much carbon dioxide as 4 million average Canadian drivers. "[Coal is] a 19th-century fuel that has no place in 21st-century Ontario," said Jack Gibbons of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance. The country could make huge strides toward meeting its Kyoto emission-reduction goals by closing down coal plants and replacing them with natural gas plants or renewable energy -- far easier and more effective, activists argue, that convincing millions of Canadians to make significant lifestyle changes.

No More Take-out Sushi

Japan's landfills are filling up fast, prompting the national government to launch an initiative intended to cut the nation's waste stream in half by 2010, from 56 million tons per year to 28 million. In this densely populated archipelago, locals don't take kindly to plans for new landfills and they don't like the idea of incineration, which can result in deadly dioxin emissions. Already several offshore islands have been created from landfill material, but that's not exactly a sustainable solution. The Japanese will have to resort to good ol' recycling and conservation, including curbing their weakness for elaborate packaging. "If we are going to deal with this problem, society itself must change," said an official at the Environment Ministry.

We Shall Call Them Mini-cells

President Bush predicts that his grandkids will be part of the first generation that will learn to drive in fuel-cell vehicles, but society may not have to wait for First Twins Jenna and Barbara to settle down to family life before we'll see some benefits from fuel cells. By the end of this decade, miniature fuel cells, or "minicells," could be commonly used as an efficient and potentially eco-friendly power source for laptops, cell phones, and other electronic gadgets. "Every big electronics company in the world is working on fuel cells in one way or another," said Jerry Hallmark of Motorola. While it's tough to make fuel cells that can compete on a cost front with internal combustion engines, it may be far easier to design fuel cells that can best batteries. Toshiba could begin marketing a small fuel cell for laptops in Japan next year.