Free Republic

BERKELEY, Calif., June 4, 2012 – Solar cells do not offset greenhouse gases or curb fossil fuel use in the United States according to a new environmental book, Green Illusions (June 2012, University of Nebraska Press), written by University of California – Berkeley visiting scholar Ozzie Zehner. Green Illusions explains how the solar industry has grown to become one of the leading emitters of hexafluoroethane (C2F6), nitrogen trifluoride (NF3), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6). These three potent greenhouse gases, used by solar cell fabricators, make carbon dioxide (CO2) seem harmless. Hexafluoroethane has a global warming potential that is 12,000 times higher...

President Obama speaking at a Safeway distribution center in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, while speaking about fuel standards: "So for decades, the fuel efficiency standards of our cars and trucks was stuck in neutral even as other kinds of technology leapt forward," Obama said. "And that left families and businesses and our economy vulnerable to fluctuations in oil prices. Every time oil prices shot up the economy got hurt. Our automakers were in danger of being left in the dust by foreign automakers. Carbon pollution was going unchecked, which was having severe impacts on our weather."

Editor's Note: This column was co-authored by Roger Bezdek. The Environmental Protection Agency, other government agencies and various scientists contend that fossil fuels and carbon dioxide emissions are causing dangerous global warming and climate change. They use this claim to justify repressive regulations for automobiles, coal-fired power plants and other facilities powered by hydrocarbon energy. Because these rules are costing millions of jobs and billions of dollars, a federal Interagency Working Group (IWG) devised the “social cost of carbon” concept – which attaches arbitrary monetary values to the alleged impacts of using hydrocarbons and emitting carbon dioxide. SCC estimates...

I say “probably” because I haven’t had time to research the factual claims behind the legislation. But if anyone thinks conservatives are against all government action, then this might be a time to set the record straight. If the facts are correct then I think if is quite likely that the NY legislature is doing exactly what it needs to do. In that case, I hope other states, or even the Federal Government follows their example. Here is Newser.com’s summary:

The pollution that reaches the West Coast is largely a by-product of production of consumer goods for the U.S. and Europe. It’s the first study to measure exactly how much of the Chinese pollution reaching the U.S. West Coast is from the production of items for the U.S., like cell phones, televisions, and electronics. “We’ve outsourced our manufacturing and much of our pollution, but some of it is blowing back across the Pacific to haunt us,” said U.C. Irvine Earth system scientist Steve Davis, a co-author of the study. “Given the complaints about how Chinese pollution is corrupting other countries’...

WASHINGTON – The recent nationwide cold snap isn’t just making Americans uncomfortable. It’s turning some into lawbreakers. The shocking news of state and local regulations that make it illegal to warm up your frozen car is hitting home in Texas, Maryland, Ohio, West Virginia, Colorado, Wisconsin, South Carolina – even some cities in Minnesota. Who knew it could be illegal to run back inside while your car is warming up in winter – in a practice sometimes called “puffing”? Many Americans are getting first-hand experience this brutal winter with the latest manifestation of what some call the “Nanny State.” The...

The farm-to-table process in China starts in villages like this one in the agricultural heartland. Food from the fields of Ge Songqing and her neighbors ends up in their kitchens or in the local market, and from there goes to other provinces. The foods are Chinese staples: rice, cabbage, carrots, turnips and sweet potatoes. But the fields are ringed by factories and irrigated with water tainted by industrial waste. Levels of toxic heavy metals in the wastewater here are among the highest in China, and residents fear the soil is similarly contaminated. Though they have no scientific proof, they suspect...

Chinese air pollution has been in the headlines for some time now. Earlier this year Beijing announced a massive program that would need 1.7 trillion yuan in investment over the next five years to tackle its smog problem. While headlines about cancer villages and the other side effects of China's pollution debacle continue, and Beijing does seem to be taking the issue seriously, Chinese state media is searching hard for a silver lining. Citing a report from a nationalist newspaper, South China Morning Post points to an article that tries desperately to put a positive spin on China's air pollution....

Here are the world’s worst cities for air pollution, and they’re not the ones you’d expect. In 2010, some 223,000 people around the world died from lung cancer caused by exposure to air pollution, the World Health Organization (WHO) said yesterday. And more than half of those deaths are believed to have been in China and elsewhere in East Asia. Here are the world’s worst cities for air pollution, according to the WHO. + air-pollution-by-city Exposure to air pollution is getting worse in parts of the world, especially industrializing countries, according to the WHO. The WHO’s key announcement yesterday was...

A Portland, Oregon man urinated in a Mt. Tabor reservoir Wednesday causing the city to take it’s critical water supply off line and dump millions in gallons of water. According to The Oregonian, officials saw five people throwing objects into the reservoir, while one person began to urinate into it through the fencing. Police did not cite the 21-year-old or his friends, but the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office may press criminal charges after surveillance video and police reports are reviewed. [Snip] An administrator for the Water Bureau, David Shaff, said that because of this incident, roughly 7.8 million gallons...

The Earth Justice website paints a bleak picture of strip mining which has “devastated Appalachia,” claiming that “in the past few decades, over 2,000 miles of streams and headwaters that provide drinking water to millions of Americans have been permanently buried and destroyed. An area the size of Delaware has been flattened. Local coal communities routinely face devastating floods and adverse health effects.” If so many miles of streams that provide drinking water to millions had been buried, how do these millions get their drinking water? I also wonder if the cancer rate and lung-related illnesses are higher in these...

Environmental advocates in states along the Mississippi River have won a round toward a long-term goal of having federal standards created to regulate farmland runoff and other pollution blamed for the oxygen-depleted “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico and problems in other bodies of water. In a ruling Friday, U.S. District Judge Jay Zainey in New Orleans gave the Environmental Protection Agency six months to decide whether to set Clean Water Act standards for nitrogen and phosphorous in all U.S. waterways or explain why they’re not needed. The EPA describes the nutrients on its website as “one of America’s...

How often do whales clean their ears? Well, never. And so, year after year, their ear wax builds up, layer upon layer. According to a study published Monday, these columns of ear wax contain a record of chemical pollution in the oceans. The study used the ear wax extracted from the carcass of a blue whale that washed ashore on a California beach back in 2007. Scientists at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History collected the wax from inside the skull of the dead whale and preserved it. The column of wax was almost a foot long. "It's kind...

MARTIN COUNTY — Algae found in the St. Lucie River is toxic, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection confirmed Tuesday. Martin County health officials have warned residents to stay out of the water. Check back for developments. Read more: http://www.wptv.com/dpp/news/region_martin_county/toxic-algae-confirmed-in-st-lucie-river-health-officials-warn-to-stay-out-of-water#ixzz2bEpjxEuk

For the past several years, those seeking to strangle the world economy by denying it access to carbon have tried to gain support for their initiatives by inventing a concept called “the social cost of carbon.” According to this notion, the use of carbon imposes a cost on society through global warming, and therefore regulations to restrict the use of carbon create benefits that can be measured in dollar terms. Pursuant to this strategy, the Environmental Protection Agency in 2010 hired a crowd of consultants to generate estimates that would be useful for the cause. This they dutifully did, producing...

Former Electric-car Engineer: Electric Cars Pollute More Than Gas The New American 12 July 2013 Is the only "green" aspect of electric cars the money some companies make off them? If former plug-in advocate and General Motors engineer Ozzie Zehner (shown) is correct, this is exactly the case. Author of the book Green Illusions, Zehner once built his own hybrid car that could run on electricity or natural gas. And, he writes in a recent article entitled "Unclean at Any Speed," he was convinced cars such as his "would help reduce both pollution and fossil-fuel dependence." But he now...

Pollution is killing the world; a strong statement, but true. Certain levels of pollution are considered acceptable by many, such as vehicle exhaust fumes, but large levels of pollution must be controlled. Unfortunately the general attitude towards pollution in many countries, especially the US, is pretty lax. People do go to jail for crimes against the environment, but it is very rare, with soft fines usually the main form of punishment. In Europe environmental regulations are far tougher, and jail terms and hefty fines are far more common. Yet still pollution continues. Maybe in order to fully dissuade companies from...

A Mongolian neo-Nazi group has rebranded itself as an environmentalist organization fighting pollution by foreign-owned mines, seeking legitimacy as it sends Swastika-wearing members to check mining permits. Tsagaan Khass, or White Swastika, has only 100-plus members but it is one of several groups with names like Dayar Mongol (Whole Mongolia), Gal Undesten (Fire Nation) and Khukh Mongol (Blue Mongolia), expanding a wave of resource nationalism as foreign firms seek to exploit the mineral wealth of the vast country, landlocked between Russia and China. From an office behind a lingerie store in the Mongolian capital, the shaven-headed, jackbooted Tsagaan Khass stormtroopers...

The shocking minutes relating to President Putin’s meeting this past week with US Secretary of State John Kerry reveal the Russian leaders “extreme outrage” over the Obama regimes continued protection of global seed and plant bio-genetic giants Syngenta and Monsanto in the face of a growing “bee apocalypse” that the Kremlin warns “will most certainly” lead to world war. According to these minutes, released in the Kremlin today by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation (MNRE), Putin was so incensed over the Obama regimes refusal to discuss this grave matter that he refused for three...

Breathing Emission Particles Turns HDL Cholesterol From 'Good' To 'Bad' Article Date: 18 May 2013 Academic researchers have found that breathing motor vehicle emissions triggers a change in high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, altering its cardiovascular protective qualities so that it actually contributes to clogged arteries. In addition to changing HDL from "good" to "bad," the inhalation of emissions activates other components of oxidation, the early cell and tissue damage that causes inflammation, leading to hardening of the arteries, according to the research team, which included scientists from UCLA and other institutions. The findings of this early study, done in mice,...