Thursday, 21 Oct 2004

Easter-Funny

Might Bush tackle climate change in a second term?

What are the odds that President Bush, if re-elected, would defy expectation and forthrightly address the snowballing challenge of global climate change? Gregg Easterbrook thinks they're pretty good, as he wrote in The Washington Monthly last month. Leading climate expert Michael Oppenheimer is not so anxious to bet on that horse, as he writes in Soapbox -- today on the Grist Magazine website.

The Traffic is Murder Out There

Traffic causes heart attacks

Being stuck in traffic could substantially raise your chances of having a heart attack -- and it's not just the stress. The particulate pollution that hovers over traffic is the likely culprit, says a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine, though "we can't exclude that there is an interaction between stress and pollution," says lead author Annette Peters. And before you greenies start feeling smug, note that it doesn't matter whether you're in a car, aboard public transportation, or riding a bike; as long as you're breathing the stuff, you're at risk. So, although the researchers do recommend reducing stress -- for instance, remembering that the jackass jabbering on his cell phone while cutting you off will reap his due karmic punishment -- they acknowledge that the only real way to meliorate the problem is an overall reduction in air pollution.

You Can Fuel Some of the People Some of the Time ...

Fun figures (really!) on Bush and Kerry's energy agendas

Both presidential candidates have made a big deal out of their energy plans -- Bush's languishing in Congress, Kerry's languishing on his website. If you snooze at the very thought, perk up! We've distilled the dry wonkery of energy policy and politics down to a couple dozen bite-size facts and figures, sure to satisfy -- in Counter Culture, today on the Grist Magazine website.

Hispanic Attack

Hispanics in U.S. hit hard with environmental problems

Hispanics living in the U.S. suffer disproportionately from the effects of environmental problems like dirty water, air pollution, and exposure to pesticides and contaminants such as lead and mercury, according to a new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council. The report points to Hispanics living in shantytowns along the U.S.-Mexico border and in urban areas near sources of toxic pollution like power plants, as well as those working on farms (nearly 90 percent of U.S. farm workers are Hispanic). "They're just being doused with chemicals," said Dianne Saenz of Physicians for Social Responsibility. Part of the problem is that many Hispanics are poor, and poor people always get the short end of the environmental stick, but to make matters worse, most information available to the public about environmental concerns is in English. NRDC calls for stronger rules on air and water pollution and use of hazardous pesticides, plus specific outreach efforts to and targeted research on Hispanic communities.

The Truck Stops Here

New electrical hook-ups at truck stops prevent diesel pollution

Long-haul truckers, hardy though they may be, occasionally need rest. Traditionally they have pulled into truck stops and taken naps with their trucks idling, to avoid, you know, freezing to death. Unfortunately, idling diesel trucks produce emissions that likely cause asthma, bronchitis, lung cancer, heart disease, and premature death, both in the truckers themselves and those who live around the truck stops. Now, a truck stop in New Jersey has installed a system that will allow truckers to turn off their trucks, hook up a long yellow tube to a truck window, and receive heat, cooling, satellite TV, and even internet access. New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bradley M. Campbell says that if the systems become common and diesel emissions are substantially reduced, "we can save more lives, avoid more premature deaths than if we were to prevent every homicide and motor vehicle accident in the state." Here we pat ourselves on the back for resisting the urge to use a bad "keep on truckin'" joke.