Your average second-grader knows that 1,300 is not the same as 50,000…..and that 400 is not the same as 7,000.
But the man who heads the US EPA evidently does not know this.
EPA chief Scott Pruitt was all over the airwaves the last few days, defending the United States’ backing out of the Paris climate change accord by saying that the decision was necessary to support coal industry job creation. As statistical evidence to support this, Pruitt claimed:
President Trump’s decision to abandon America’s commitment to the Paris Climate Change Accord is just the latest horrible environmental decision that he has made. Here are just some of the others:
These decisions reveal a level of ignorance and cruelty that was unthinkable until Trump came along. Environmental protection is a moral issue, above all else. Because, while in a general sense all of us are the victims of pollution, and of the wars over a lack of water and food that rampaging climate change is already provoking, the truth is that those most acutely threatened are the poor, the politically powerless, and, especially, their children. They are the ones who get sick and die, or have shortened life spans, or must live (if they are so lucky to live at all) with starvation, debilitating cancers and chronic respiratory disease…..because decisions such as Trump’s announce that these human beings are not deserving of the same standard of environmental protection as everyone else.
Trump’s decisions are immoral. Because they are made by our elected leader–and because the rest of the world understandably believes that he speaks for Americans–these decisions declare that, as a country, America is abandoning those who suffer most from pollution, and are least able to defend themselves against it.
When Pope Francis met with President Trump at the Vatican this past week, Francis gave him a copy of his 2015 Encyclical, which passionately argued that the environment is God’s gift to mankind, to benefit all mankind, and therefore that the powerful must not exploit it for their selfish purposes.
Crafty guy, that Pope.
He no doubt is well aware that the President is the agent of the worst environmental exploiters and despoilers that the world has ever known-oil companies-and accordingly has his administration in overdrive to crush the environmental protections that have saved lives and health, especially those of poor minorities and children.
If you live near a landfill, this is a scenario you should be concerned about:
·The landfill began accepting waste before 1990.
·Groundwater in your area flows from the landfill in the direction of your home.
“Does this chemical cause cancer?” is one of the first questions I get from a mom or dad who has just learned that, unbeknownst to them, a toxic chemical from an industrial source has been in their family’s air or water supply for years.
I always caution that, even if the chemical(s) just discovered in their home or neighborhood can cause cancer, it does not mean that they will. In fact, in most contaminated homes and neighborhoods, statistics are on our side: the great majority of residents will not contract cancer as a result of exposure. The important thing is to understand and respect the dangers of these chemicals, and, depending on their toxicity, get your family out of harm’s way…..by, for example, supplying your home with bottled water to avoid, as much as possible, contact with the contaminated groundwater entering the home via your family’s kitchen tap, or installing a “vapor mitigation system” on your house to prevent contaminated gasses from intruding inside where your family will breathe them.
For this reason, it is important to be informed. This link from the American Cancer Society tells us what our most respected health agencies have concluded about the dangers of many chemicals, and specifically whether they are “known” or “suspected” to cause cancer in humans (given significant exposure over a long enough period of time). https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/general-info/known-and-probable-human-carcinogens.html
The most dangerously contaminated sites in the US are “Superfund” sites. There are, currently, 1,317 of them. New Jersey has the most-114-while California and Pennsylvania follow right behind. The map in this article identifies all of the Superfund sites and allows you to search for where such sites may be in your state. http://time.com/4695109/superfund-sites-toxic-waste-locations/
A plant or factory or waste dump, etc., is designated a “Superfund” site according to a federal formula that is specifically concerned with the ways in which toxic chemicals at the site might come into contact with, and hurt, human beings. So, for example, if an industrial plant years ago dumped chemicals which have migrated into area groundwater that local residents use for drinking and bathing, and/or if that contaminated groundwater produces a toxic vapor that might intrude into the breathing spaces of their homes, these threats weigh heavily in favor of determining that the plant should be a Superfund site.
The original idea of Superfund site designation in the 1980s was that the federal government would dedicate significant resources to cleaning up these sites, and protecting nearby residents from their threats. However, as time went by, our commitment to this important protection has flagged badly; today, many of these sites receive little or no government attention, even though nearby residents may remain in serious danger. Politically, both Democrats and Republicans have been complicit in this abandonment, largely because Superfund sites are typically found in poor and minority neighborhoods, and many politicians of both parties believe that there is little price to pay for ignoring their needs.
Hot off the presses is the Trump/Pruitt proposed 31% cut to the EPA’s budget, including slashing more than $300 million from the fund used to clean up the most toxic and dangerous sites in America, i.e., “Superfund” sites. If this cut passes Congress, thousands will get sick and others still will die because the contamination that the EPA would have cleaned up or mitigated will now be left in the environment to wreak havoc on our citizens, mostly children.
For the last 3 months, EPA Chief Pruitt has promised that such massive cuts made sense because the states were in a better position than the federal government to provide the necessary environmental protection.
Well, the new budget proposal reveals Pruitt’s promise to be a lie, as it proposes to slash the environmental grants to states by 45%, from $1.1 billion to $600 million. In other words, Pruitt wants to take away half of the states’ resources for fighting pollution, at the same time that he promises that they will fight more pollution.
Get ready for a lot more of this.
Last September, the Obama EPA issued a new rule limiting the levels of air pollution that would be allowed in the states. The idea was to save lives and health, because industrial air pollution is well-documented to threaten both. Wisely, the rule created an exception for events outside the state’s control–such as wildfires or volcanic eruptions–that could dramatically increase air pollution on a short-term basis, and which the state had little or no ability to control.
But leave it to history’s most polluter-friendly EPA, run by the petroleum industry’s best spokesperson, Scott Pruitt, to take a good idea and exploit it as an excuse to create more life-endangering pollution. According to a lawsuit filed by two giants in the environmental protection field– the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and The Sierra Club–Pruitt has created another exception to the rule. This exception goes far beyond creating short-term allowances for natural, unforeseeable, uncontrollable events. As alleged, this new exception now allows more “emissions from coal-burning power plants, oil refineries, chemical plants, hazardous waste incinerators and a wide variety of industrial activity”, so long as the emissions are the result of “reasonable controlled human activity”.
A recent study by the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that, every year, some 1.7 million children worldwide die because their air and water are too polluted. The world they live in is killing them.
Note to President Trump and EPA chief Scott Pruitt, as they rush head-long into dismantling the environmental protections that have historically separated the US from the rest of the world when it comes to protecting children: Children will be the victims are what you are doing. You will be sentencing children to die, in the name of making America a place where oil and other companies can cheaply and safely pollute.
WHO’s director-general says that “A polluted environment is a deadly one-particularly for young children…… Their developing organs and immune systems, and smaller bodies and airways, make them especially vulnerable to dirty air and water.”
If you live near a landfill, you need to be especially aware of the ways in which toxic chemicals from the landfill can threaten your family. For example:
·Groundwater contamination: Over time, rainwater mixes with the chemicals from the garbage dumped in the landfill and produces a “leachate”, a sort of toxic sludge that burrows its way down through the landfill and ultimately into the groundwater. (That is, unless there is adequate lining at the landfill’s bottom, which, for older landfills, is seldom present.) The leachate-contaminated groundwater then migrates in whatever direction nature takes it, possibly into a nearby neighborhood’s water supply.
·Methane Gas: The process of compacting landfill waste produces methane-a gas 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Methane is most dangerous if it blows out the side of a landfill-under the ground surface-and migrates into a nearby neighborhood, where it can collect in the confined spaces of homes, and create an explosion risk.
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