EPA mercury rules for electricity generating units are based on false science and economics
Guest post by Craig Rucker
The Environmental Protection Agency claims its “final proposed” Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) rules will eliminate toxic pollution from electrical generating units, bring up to $140 billion in annual health benefits, and prevent thousands of premature deaths yearly – all for “only” $11 billion a year in compliance costs.
This may be true in the virtual reality of EPA computer models, linear extrapolations, cherry-picked health studies and statistics, government press releases and agency-generated public comments. However, in the real world inhabited by families, employers and other energy users, the new rules will bring few benefits, but will impose extensive costs that the agency chose to minimize or ignore in its analysis.
Emissions of mercury and other air toxics from power plants have been declining steadily for decades, as older generating units have been replaced with more efficient, less polluting systems or retrofitted with better pollution control technologies. While a few older plants still violate EPA’s draconian proposed rules – the new rules are not based on credible scientific and epidemiological studies.
As independent natural scientist Dr. Willie Soon and CFACT policy advisor Paul Driessen pointed out in their WallStreetJournal and Investor’sBusinessDaily articles, and in Dr. Soon’s 85-page critique of EPA’s draft rules, US power plants account for only 0.5% of the mercury in US air. Thus, even if EPA’s new rules eventually do eliminate 90% of mercury from power plant emission streams, that’s still only 90% of 0.5% – ie, almost zero benefit. The rest of the mercury in US air comes from natural and foreign sources, such as forest fires, Chinese power plants and the cremation of human remains (from tooth fillings that contain mercury and silver).
EPA fails to recognize that mercury is abundant in the earth’s crust. It is absorbed by trees through their roots – and released into the atmosphere when the trees are burned in forest fires, fireplaces and wood-burning stoves. In fact, US forest fires annually emit as much mercury as all US coal-burning electrical power plants. Mercury and other “pollutants” are also released by geysers, volcanoes and subsea vents, which tap directly into subsurface rock formations containing these substances.
The agency compounds these errors by claiming fish contain dangerous levels of mercury that threatens the health and mental acuity of babies and children. In making this claim, the agency commits four more grievous errors. First, it ignores the fact that selenium in fish tissue is strongly attracted to mercury molecules and thus protects people against buildups of methylmercury, mercury’s more toxic form.
Second, EPA based its toxicity claims on a study of Faroe Islanders, who eat few fruits and vegetables, but feast on pilot whale meat and blubber that is high in mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) – but very low in selenium. Third, it ignored a 17-year Seychelles Islands evaluation, which found “no measurable cognitive or behavioral effects” in children who eat five to twelve servings of fish per week.
Fourth, it used computer models to generate linear extrapolations from known or assumed toxic levels down to much lower levels. Not only is this method contrary to sound science and epidemiology; it resulted in politicized “safety” levels that are twice as restrictive as Canadian and World Health Organization mercury standards, three times more restrictive than US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, and four times tougher than US Food and Drug Administration recommendations. No wonder the Centers for Disease Control says blood mercury levels in US women and children are already well below excessively “safe” levels set by EPA.
Simply put, EPA grossly exaggerated the health benefits of its proposed mercury rules – and then claimed additional mercury benefits based on double counting of reductions in particulate matter. It also ignored the adverse effects that its rules will inflict. Not only is EPA’s anti-mercury campaign scaring mothers and children into not eating nutritious fish that is rich in Omega-3 fatty acids. It is also raising electricity heating, air conditioning and food costs, impairing electrical reliability, costing jobs, and thereby harming the health and welfare of countless Americans.
Energy analyst Roger Bezdek has calculated that utilities will have to spend $130 billion to retrofit older plants – and another $30 billion a year to operate, maintain and power the energy-intensive pollution control equipment they will be forced to install. Moreover, under its MACT rules, EPA intends to micromanage every aspect of power plant operations. It will now cite companies for violations even if emissions fully comply with air quality standards, if operators merely deviate from new agency “work practice standards” and “operational guidelines,” even under unusual weather conditions or equipment malfunctions that are beyond the operators’ control.
While it is true that older power plants are more significant sources of toxic air emissions, those plants are mostly in key manufacturing states that burn coal to generate 48-98% of their electricity. Many utility companies cannot justify those huge costs – and thus plan to close dozens of units, representing tens of thousands of megawatts – enough to electrify tens of millions of homes and small businesses. Illinois alone will lose nearly 3,500 MW of reliable, affordable, baseload electricity – with little to replace it.
Electricity consumers could pay at least 20% more in many states within a few years. According to the Chicago Tribune, Illinois families and businesses will pay 40-60% more. That will severely affect business investment, production and hiring – and family plans to repair cars and homes, save for college and retirement, take vacations, or have health physicals or surgery.
Chicago public schools will have to pay an additional $2.7 million annually for electricity by 2014, says the Tribune. Hospitals, factories and other major electricity users will also be hard hit. Many poor and minority families will find it increasingly hard to afford proper heating and air conditioning. Further job losses and economic stress will lead to further reductions in living standards and nutrition, more foreclosures and homelessness, and additional drug, alcohol, spousal and child abuse.
The very reliability of America’s electricity grid could be at risk, if multiple power plants shut down. Brownouts, blackouts and power interruptions will affect factory production lines, hospital, school, farm and office operations, employment, and the quality of food, products and services.
The impact on people’s health and welfare is patently obvious. But EPA considered none of this.
EPA insists there was strong public support for its rules. However, its rules were clearly based on false, biased or even fraudulent information. Furthermore, EPA itself generated much of that public support.
The agency recruited, guided and financed activist groups that promoted its rulemaking. Over the past decade, it gave nearly $4 billion to the American Lung Association and other advocacy organizations and various “environmental justice” groups, according to a Heritage Foundation study. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and members of her staff also visited historically black and other colleges – giving speeches about “toxic emissions,” providing templates for scare-mongering posters and postcards, and making it easy for students to send pro-rulemaking comments via click-and-submit buttons on websites.
This EPA action does nothing to improve environmental quality or human health. In fact, by advancing President Obama’s goal of shutting down power plants and raising electricity costs, it impairs job creation, economic recovery, and public health and welfare. It is intrusive government at its worst.
It is a massive power grab that threatens to give EPA nearly unfettered power over the electrical power we need to support our livelihoods and living standards.
Congress, states, utility companies, affected industries, school districts and hospitals, and families and citizen groups should immediately take action to postpone the MACT rules’ implementation. Otherwise, their harmful impacts will be felt long and hard in states that depend on coal for their electricity.
___________
Craig Rucker is CEO of the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow.
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John Billings says
Pat, none of the 171 references were visible in the article. The article was/is a leap of faith. Believe “it” if you believe WUWT. You dug out Soon’s paper because you wanted to believe.
No – I actually read the report first and I “believe” because I actually work in the field.
*****
John Billings says:
December 27, 2011 at 12:48 pm
Oh, but whoopie-do, the same article forgets to point out that according to Exxon’s own accounts 1998 – 2007, the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), of which Craig Rucker, author of this piece, is the co-founder, received $582,000 in direct funding from ExxonMobil Corporate Giving and the ExxonMobil Foundation.
****
Rucker got money from ExxonMobil, an independent company. I & most people here don’t give a rat’s arse about private donations, we’re concerned about where our public taxpayer money is going. Please, get a clue.
Note that the enviro legal assault is just as great with new coal plant projects that do meet EPA guidelines with the latest technology. And the negotiated settlements if there are any are very lucrative to the enviros and help drive up the cost of power going forward. High cost oil does not hold a candle compared to high cost electricity and energy in general. Man made of course
John Billings says:
December 27, 2011 at 12:48 pm
“It amazes me how all the climate sceptics (of whom I am one: I am sceptical about everything) that bear their scepticism with such pride swallow everything they read here on WUWT like it’s mother’s milk. It only needs to be published here for every reader to believe every word. ”
John….John….
I don’t believe you. Nope – not even one word, let alone ‘every’ word. But, what the heck, I’m not that easily amazed, either.
[snip – too stupid to post, try rephrasing]
Myrrh says:
December 27, 2011 at 5:41 am
So how could you stop the EPA?
Send Obama back to Chicago in January, 2013. Fire all the “czars.” Send Ms. Jackson back to wherever she came from, and de-fund the EPA down to a more sane level. Unfortunately, this gang can (and will) continue to wreak havoc as lame ducks for another full year even if they get defeated in November, 2012.
Myrrh says:
December 27, 2011 at 4:15 am
I’ve read that it’s the lack of selenium in the body that’s the problem. When selenium missing mercury makes the connections that selenium would be making which is what screws the body, enough selenium and the mercury has nowhere to connect and is thus expelled. One only needs enough selenium to let it do its thing, greater amounts of mercury will anyway be unable to make the connections which some mercury is making through lack of selenium, so gets expelled. I’ll see if I can find any more on this. Brazil nuts.
Please do read more. You are nearly correct with your first statement above. It is actually lack of AVAILABLE selenium that is the problem in the body. If the selenium is bound up by mercury, the selenium is not allowed to participate in reactions to form the critical proteins. I have not seen any published evidence that mercury actually takes selenium’s place in the critical proteins. Rather, because selenium and mercury have such a strong affinity (chemical bond), my understanding is that the mercury will react with selenium to form a molecule (mercury selenide) that does not allow the selenium to be used to construct the critical selenium-containing protein (selenoprotein).
Also, the postulated mechanism for “mercury poisoning” is that when mercury is present in excess of selenium, the mercury “robs” the selenium from existing selenoproteins, destroying them and their proper functions to support the nervous system. The video link I provided explains that mothers with the highest body levels of mercury had the smartest kids, because these mothers ate a large amount of seafood that contains mercury, but also contain much more selenium than mercury. Thus if your body loading is 10 units of mercury and 50 units of selenium, the mercury will take 10 units of selenium out of the picture (1:1 molar ratio). However, the other 40 units of selenium will be left to do its job forming the critical proteins.
And yes, Brazil nuts as well as most ocean fish are great sources of selenium.
Please note I am not a chemist (actually a meteorologist), although I did have a chemistry minor in college.
John Billings says:
December 27, 2011 at 4:31 pm
To Smokey and Walter Cronanty:
You call me a “troll” for asking genuine questions. What are you doing here? What purpose do you hope your posts serve?
Pat Moffitt says:
December 27, 2011 at 4:05 pm
“I found 171 references and notes in Soon’s report- so I have no idea what you are talking about”
Pat, none of the 171 references were visible in the article.
Well when I followed the directions I was able to download a PDF and shur’nuff — 171 references. I guess Dr. W. Soon did submit…
http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=EPA-HQ-OAR-2009-0234-14449
“Document ID: EPA-HQ-OAR-2009-0234-14449 Document Type: Public Submission
This is comment on Proposed Rule: National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants From Coal- and Oil-fired Electric Utility Steam Generating Units and Standards of Performance for Fossil-Fuel-Fired Electric Utility, Industrial-Commercial-Institutional, and Small Industrial-Commercial-Institutional Steam Generating Units”
aired says:
December 27, 2011 at 9:11 pm
Please do read more.
I did – I haven’t been able to find any reference to what I remembered, perhaps I’d misunderstood it, but your scenario is one that makes sense and I found this page which gives more information and puts the mercury in fish into proper perspective, re the opening post, that the great amounts of selenium in fish is the inbuilt prophylactic against any detrimental effects of mercury in the fish: http://www.bwfa-usa.org/health/mercury-in-seafood
What I can’t understand, is why is mercury still used in dental fillings? And, why put mercury into vaccines? This is one of the most toxic substances we have around, it’s one thing to play with it, that’s great fun, but to deliberately introduce it into our bodies is extraordinary, given that we now understand how toxic it is. I know we didn’t, mercury was used in medicines and the insanity of Ivan the Terrible has recently been attributed to the mercury his doctors were giving him – this telegraph article puts the high levels of mercury found in his mother’s and wife’s remains as possibly deliberate murder, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/1326387/Mercury-poisoned-Ivan-the-Terribles-mother-and-wife.html
but, haven’t taken into account the medical practices of the day which is what killed him in the end too. The irony is that Ivan got horribly paranoid because he thought his family deliberately poisoned and himself the next victim, but the intentions were good..
Then there’s Marie Curie who died of radiation poisoning, and all the factory girls affected by the paint used in glow in the dark dials on watches.., this amazing new substance that was immediately thought of as a cure for all ills. But, we actually do know better now. Why are we putting fluoride into water supplies and toothpaste?
None of these agencies supposedly protecting us are doing any such thing, they’re working to vested interests agendas, the pharmaceutical companies one of the worst offenders.
So will eating fish for the selenium protect us from the mercury in CFLs. I know the thread is old but somebody had to ask.
I just thought of this. Does this apply to garbage incineration? The last report I’ve seen (2004?) had coal at 40 tons a year and garbage at 35. Here again technical solutions exist like plasma arc incineration. Here again the only output is CO2.
Mac the Knife says:
December 27, 2011 at 11:31 am
Thank you for stating that. You are right on the mark, and I remember it well.
I was ten years old at the end of WWII. After the war, our infrastructure was not just in shambles but in rubble and ashes. There was nothing to be had to burn to obtain heat. Electricity was on twice a day, for one hour at noon and for one hour at supper time. The city gas plant was not in operation.
I remember how cold I was. I remember sitting in the kitchen, huddled with my mother, waiting for the sun to come up over our neighbors’ house, to hit the window and to begin melting the frost on the window, day, after day, after day. There was no place to go to to warm up, not even at school. The school was closed because there was nothing to heat the classrooms with…
Enough of those memories and back to the present. “A Physicist” and others who object with religious fervor to the lead-in article, I noticed that all of you conveniently forgot to address the key-item of information in the article: “US power plants account for only 0.5% of the mercury in US air.” That makes everything you wrote more than a bit pointless. A reduction of almost nothing, even if it were 100% effective, still is almost nothing, regardless of the sources of the other 99.5% of the mercury in the air in the U.S.
TRM says:
December 28, 2011 at 9:13 am
Aside from the fact that your figures are off by a quite a few orders of magnitude, plasma-arc incineration will not convert mercury compounds to CO2.
” Walter H. Schneider says: December 28, 2011 at 10:48 am
Aside from the fact that your figures are off by a quite a few orders of magnitude, plasma-arc incineration will not convert mercury compounds to CO2. ”
Several of the plasma gas companies claim to be able to handle (and destroy) mercury and low grade radioactive waste from hospitals. How much of their claims are true is a valid point.
As to the figures being off “by a quite a few orders of magnitude” the EPA figures of approximately 50 tons a year for coal and I went with the lower value I have also found of 40. The garbage incineration is a very mixed bag. Everything from 13 to 40 and I went with the 35 as it seemed a better researched value.
Hardly off by any orders of magnitude unless you are not familiar with the term. Coal would have to be less than 4 tons and garbage less that 3.5 for me to be off by even one order of magnitude.
If you have any links for reading I am always interested in reading more interesting material. I learn lots from the postings on this site.
Walter H. Schneider says:
December 28, 2011 at 10:43 am
“A Physicist” and others who object with religious fervor to the lead-in article, I noticed that all of you conveniently forgot to address the key-item of information in the article: “US power plants account for only 0.5% of the mercury in US air.” That makes everything you wrote more than a bit pointless. A reduction of almost nothing, even if it were 100% effective, still is almost nothing, regardless of the sources of the other 99.5% of the mercury in the air in the U.S.
======================
This is the crux of the matter. This organisation is completely irrational and a parasite on the backs of industry and taxpayers, as a private company its duties are to maximise profits for its shareholders, whoever they are, they are not objective. If the companies affected by this don’t take on the EPA it won’t stop.
Earlier I stated that other countries would stop accepting the US dollar if such environmental rules as above drove business out of the US and we no longer produced anything that other countries would want to use the US dollar to buy. You amy have considered that a bit extreme. Wrong, it is happening now. Read the below where the worlds second and third largest economies, respectively, have abandoned the US dollar due to believeing it’s declining value makes it worthless, or soon to be worthless. Within only a few years the US is likely to be in the position of discovering that the dollar no longer buys foriegn goods and the US no longer produces the goods themselves, and thus the goods are simply unavailable. The Chines and Japanese, and all of souteast asia, and soon the world, have seen the writing on the wall, our deliberate destruction of what used to be the worlds largest economy.
Subject: Harbinger of the Near Future
For anyone watching the events unfold in the world economic arena for the past two years, it is has been obvious that China has become extremely concerned regarding the devaluation of the U.S. dollar under the policies of the Obama administration. This includes, most notably, not only our massive foreign debt, but the policies of the Fed and Treasury in just printing increased amounts of paper money to put into circulation. It is a classic case of the debasement of the U.S. currency. Consequently, China has increasingly lost faith in the value of the U.S. dollar, both short term and long term, to serve as the defacto currency for world trade. When China suggested, last year, that a new currency be created for world trade, preferably through the IMF, this idea was quickly shot down by the U.S. and Europe.
The response of China would naturally be to either replace the U.S. Dollar with the Chinese Yuan or to make the Chinese Yuan a currency equal to the Dollar as the vehicle for foreign trade. About two years ago, China began, on a limited basis, to utilize the Yuan as the basis for trade with selected countries in Southeast Asia. Following the typical and rational Chinese approach, they experimented with this for the past couple of years and found that using the Yuan as the basis settlement of trade between China and these select countries was working quite well. Now, in what I consider to be a major step forward, and one which seems not understood or appreciated for its significance, the Chinese have expanded this to the their trade relationships with Japan. In this morning’s report on CNN, in the discussion of the meeting between the Japanese Prime Minister and President Hu Jintao of China, the following sentence appeared, buried in the overall story of discussing Japan’s desire for China to control North Korea.
“Both sides also signed energy conservation and environmental protection agreements, along with an announcement that the two sides will use their own currencies in bilateral trade rather than U.S. dollars in an effort to encourage economic cooperation”
This now means that trade between the world’s second and third largest economies will now occur using the Chinese Yuan and the Japanese Yen, and not the U.S. Dollar. The Chinese Yuan is becoming the currency for trade in Asia. Probably in another 2-3 years, the Chinese Yuan will become a freely convertible international currency and come to dominate trade not only with Asia, but with Europe. The age of the U.S. Dollar as being the predominant world currency has now begun to become a memory. True, it will take several more years for the figures to be revealed and reported in world currency markets, etc., but with this announcement between the second and third largest economies in the world, the roadmap is quite clear for the future.
And with all of the occurring, we proceed in our own ignorance to have Presidential primaries where the debates remain centered around religious values, abortion rights, divorces, and a host of extraneous issues. In our own ignorance, we continue down the failed road of European socialism and have become a nation of entitlements and cheap currency. There is a dearth of leadership in our nation, and the fault lies with both political parties.
You can find out more about Dr. Kupper at his website: http://chinaresourcesgroup.com/about.html
Myrrh, see Global source attribution for mercury deposition in the United States for contrary information.
After all, that “0.5%” claim might be simply incorrect, eh?
More broadly, the free PUBMED service provides free, rapid, convenient access to peer-reviewed, health-related scientific information; this service is commended to all rational skeptics.
A physicist says:
December 29, 2011 at 7:29 am
It was I and not Myrrh who said so, and as to your insinuation that “that “0.5%” claim might be simply incorrect, eh?” Well, is it correct or isn’t it?
Insinuations and allusions are not hard and acceptable evidence. Provide page numbers and exact quotes of the evidence you have that turn your insinuation into a fact. What is your figure for the portion of the mercury emissions emitted nationally by the U.S. coal-fired power generation industry? Where can that figure be found? (And stop quoting the link to an abstract of a large report that apparently cannot be accessed from the page you keep pointing to.)
TRM says:
December 28, 2011 at 7:57 pm
Okay, do we agree then that when mercury compounds are being burned in a plasma burner, the elemental mercury will remain and be emitted? In other words, plasma burners do not destroy mercury, but they do break down mercury compounds into their elemental constituents, one of which will be elemental mercury.
What do those figures (e.g.: “approximately 50 tons a year for coal”) relate to? Where do those figures come from and what are they? Those figures relate to tons of what? The lead-in article does not mention tons of anything.
In a preceding comment (TRM says: December 26, 2011 at 7:12 pm) you had stated “If you burn coal in a pure oxygen environment you get just water vapor and CO2 outputs.” “Just water vapor and CO2” is very specific. I am therefore led to believe that the tons you mentioned next relate to tons of those substances emitted per year in the U.S.
Thank you for your question, Walter.
According to the cited survey, the percentage of wet+dry mercury deposition in the US that originates from US anthropogenic sources typically ranges from 5% to 60% (locally more) of total local mercury deposition, with said USA-originating mercury falling to earth mainly east of the Mississippi River.
It seems to me that WUWT’s guest poster Craig Rucker should have at least cited this survey (which itself has been cited more than 200 times elsewhere in the literature), if only to criticize it. Because the claims of Mr. Rucker’s guest post are wildly at odds with the existing literature.
After all, Walter, it is not our responsibility — or it shouldn’t have to be our responsibility — to fact-check Mr. Rucker! 🙂
A physicist says:
December 29, 2011 at 7:29 am
Myrrh says: “A Physicist” and others [did not] address the key-item of information in the article: “US power plants account for only 0.5% of the mercury in US air.”
Myrrh, see Global source attribution for mercury deposition in the United States for contrary information.
After all, that “0.5%” claim might be simply incorrect, eh?
More broadly, the free PUBMED service provides free, rapid, convenient access to peer-reviewed, health-related scientific information; this service is commended to all rational skeptics.
===========
As Walter H. Schneider answered you here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/26/shutting-down-power-plants-imaginary-benefits-extensive-harm/#comment-846755
………….
Who owns the EPA and who are the shareholders? I’ve tried to find that information but all I get is the EPA demanding other companies provide details of their businesses, while, apparently, perhaps I just don’t know where to look.., avoiding answering these same questions:
http://www.epa.gov/compliance/resources/publications/cleanup/superfund/104e/fin-general.html
Superfund: CERCLA Section 104(e) Information Request Questions – General Financial Questions
Where can I find the answers to these questions from the EPA?
All I’ve been able to find is the following:
Confirmation that it is a private company.
http://investing.businessweek.com/research/common/symbollookup/symbollookup.asp?region=ALL&letterIn=Environmental+Protection+Agency&lookuptype=private&x=14&y=8
And linking to information about it here: http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=5376654
Which is out of date, Johnson left in 2010 and Jackson now in that position – according to wiki
“Post EPA On June 29, 2010, clean technology company FlexEnergy announced that Johnson had joined its Board of Directors.[13] According to Johnson, the company’s technology can minimize air pollutants in congested cities and industrial sites, as well as provide energy in remote areas around the world.[14]
On November 11, 2010, The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company announced that Johnson had been named to its Board of Directors.[15] ”
Johnson also sits on the Board of Trustees at his alma mater, Taylor University.[16]
…
This is FlexEnergy:http://www.flexenergy.com/former-head-of-the-epa-the-honorable-stephen-l-johnson-joins-board-of-flexenergy/
…………….
Anyway, Private Companies have owners. Private companies in the market place are there to serve their own interests, are in competition with other private companies. The EPA is destroying competition.., isn’t it? Actually, also milking the competition…? So who owns it?
Why should any company in the US take any notice of any ‘legislation’ imposed on it by another private company?
What’s going on here?
The recentish court case American Trucking, I think, needed to push the unconstitutional bit further, but also, it must be relevant that a private company has been given such massive powers to affect other industries and competition. This is simply crazy that it isn’t taken into account. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitman_v._American_Trucking_Associations,_Inc.
The EPA has also branched out into partnership deals – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Boiler
When the EPA was challenged by the first batch of emails from CRU –
The same whitewash as in England by vested interests sitting in judgement.
The very many companies affected by these EPA decisions really have to get a grip here. Talk about unfair competition… 🙂
The US EPA is the mother of all watermelons; green on the outside, red on the inside.
drat those curly bulbs…
interactive deposition map:
http://nadp.sws.uiuc.edu/maps/Default.aspx
The EPA has been parasitized by a political movement. The goal is the destruction of the US economy as a “gift” to Gaia (and with wealth accumulating to folks like Maurice Strong who are now extensively invested in China).
I had thought that the folks saying this was “by design” and based on a plan were, well, to put it politely “a bit wacky”… Then I ran into “Agenda 21” in the FOIA-2011 emails and realized that real people were actually working to implement that abomination of a “plan”. Shutting down US coal facilities fits nicely with their goals, and if you can’t get it via CO2, well, some insignificant level of mercury will do…
They even have a UN Web Site:
http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/agenda21/
Dig through it enough and you find that they expect to tax and control substantially ALL global economic activity and life choices, with emphasis on CARBON and LAND USE, major secondary action on any and all WATER and even the air itself.
Pretty much everything you need to live.
I’d say it was “crazy talk” except that they are “working” hard to make it real. Oh, and they want about $600,000,000,000 per year of taxes (only on the rich countries…) to pay for all their parties. The UN IPCC is only one of their attacks on humanity. They are busy parasitizing various government agencies and NGOs world wide to centralized effective control under a UN guiding hand…
Once that “Agenda 21” light bulb goes off, a whole lot of otherwise “nutty” and “where did THAT come from?” things become very clear. (They have a stated plan of using “Local 21” groups to move their agenda into action at every level of government from local to national, so it’s “whack a mole” and if you “win” in one venue, then a new one will just keep on steam rollering along.
In that context, no US Carbon Cap? No problemo, call up the EPA and have them get the same thing by other manufactured “science”…
FWIW, I’m very much interested in having a healthy and clean environment. I’ve got several LED bulbs in the house already and more to come. I’ve got more CFL bulbs than any other (but prefer incandescent in some uses). I have ZERO desire to go back to the smog days of 1960. I have said (and taken rocks for it…) that the human race can live comfortably on 1/2 of the planet and leave the rest for nature. I have been an advocate of solar and wind and other alternative power (where economically viable) for at least 40 years and ran a motor on ethanol back in the 1970s.
However, what I’ve seen lately has caused me to repudiate the “Green” agenda. It is NOT earth friendly, it is only Human Hostile. Real conservation is not down the path of Agenda 21. We can see in this mercury example the answer to ‘why’. All that collateral damage is going to swamp any good, and then some. It is earth hostile to harm that many people that much and the result of their response is going to be damaging to real ‘green goals’. So if you hear their catch phrase of “Sustainable Development” please keep in mind that it is NOT sustainable and has NO Development in it. It is unsustainable destruction of the global economy. (In other places their leaders advocate a large reduction in human population, on the order of 90% dead. That is what they see as a good outcome. Their idea of “sustainable development” is the destruction of productive capacity to the point where most people die.)
Again, I thought this kind of thing was “crazy talk” up until just a few weeks ago. Then I saw it in their own words and deeds. When a crazy person (or organization) says they want to destroy you, it may well be “crazy talk”, but only a fool would assume they are not crazy enough to do it. Especially when we now have a history of them acting on their words.
EE Smith,
When Lisa Jackson talks about promoting a green economy-be aware it has very little to do with green energy. Here’s Jackson from her 1/25/10 speech
“When businesses won’t invest, economic possibilities are limited………
Many environmental justice issues arise from these externalities. They often form at the intersection of our economic and environmental challenges. Fortunately there is a solution that addresses all of that: a growing green economy. Of all the potential paths forward for our economy, the green economy is the only one that presents numerous and significant opportunities for positive externalities.”
It is important to note that the environmental justice (EJ) movement was born at Chicago’s United Church of Christ–one of the first EJ court cases was Altgeld Gardens and guess who the community organizer was? And we all remember the pastor. The first EJ legislation was entered into Congress by Al Gore at about the same time as he was ramping up Global Warming and it was Carol Browner (the former energy czar) that made it one of EPAs organizing principles.
Green economics marries sustainability and environmental justice and is basically the replacement for what they see as the failed capitalist economy. Wikipedia has a great definition of green economics “Marxist economics with nature represented as a form of lumpen proletariat, an exploited base of non-human workers providing surplus value to the human economy”. Well isn’t that dandy?
John Holdren our Science czar had perhaps the most honest definition of sustainability:
“You cannot talk about sustainability without talking about people, about politics, about power and control.” Kind of makes you feel warm all over doesn’t it?
I’ve been in this field for a long time and it has always amazed me that no-one really listens to what these people have been saying. I’ve actually shown people their writings and been told well they don’t really mean it. Well- yes they do. This ideology has been around for decades only the power has grown to the point where its becoming obvious even to the self blinded. Here’s James Speth a leader of the Green cause and founder of NRDC, CEQ under Jimmy Carter, Dean of Yale’s school of the environment, founder of the World Resources Institute and Carol Browner’s mentor- remember her?-:
“The system of modern capitalism as it operates today will continue to grow in size and complexity and will generate ever-larger environmental consequences, outstripping efforts to cope with them…….The environmental agenda should expand to embrace a profound challenge to consumerism and commercialism and the lifestyles they offer, a healthy skepticism of growth mania and a redefinition of what society should be striving to grow, a challenge to corporate dominance and a redefinition of the corporation and its goals, a commitment to deep change in both the functioning and the reach of the market….”
EPA is not trying to fix the environment- they are trying to fix us in keeping with the philosophy of Commoner and Marcuse that gave rise to their being on the first Earth Day. A philosophy that says do not fix the environment because the rapacious economic system promoted by cheap energy will simply undo any efforts. We must instead Protect the environment from further harm while correcting the economic forces that cause pollution and injustice.
The Protect part of this strategy was clear from the beginning-its in EPAs name. The other part about stopping cheap energy and transforming the American economic system is only now becoming clear to some- but it was there from the very beginning- it just needed time to grow.