Calif. Bans Toxic Dry-Cleaning Chemical

Don't you love that word "toxic" above? No mention that the stuff has NOT been shown to be harmful to humans, despite many attempts to do so. What DOES "toxic" mean in La la land? Apparently, all it means is "Greenies don't like it". I think there are better grounds for saying that the Greenies are toxic

By 2023, California will completely ban the most common chemical used by dry cleaners. Under the newly enacted ban, perchloroethylene is to be phased out starting next year. The state is still debating what the alternative will be. Dry cleaning businesses are upset.

The regulation by the California Air Resources Board begins to phase out the toxic chemical next year, banning dry cleaners from buying machines that rely on the solvent. State officials say the fluid causes a variety of cancers. The state's 3,400 dry cleaners who now use it must get rid of machines that are 15 years or older by July 2010. "That's the wave of the future -- nontoxic, non-smog forming," said Annette Kondo, spokeswoman for the Coalition for Clean Air, a California environmental group. "We think this is going to ripple down to other states across the country."

Environmental and health advocates embraced the new rule, though they had urged the air board to accelerate the ban because of the chemical's health effects as a potential carcinogen. The solvent has contaminated one in 10 wells in California. But cleaners say the ban threatens to drive some of them out of business because alternative methods are unproven and more costly. An estimated 70 percent of the state's dry cleaners use the solvent. "It could shut down some mom-and-pop operations _ the little guys that can't afford it," said Bob Blackburn, president of the California Cleaners Association.

The cost of converting could be significant for dry cleaners, 85 percent of which are small businesses with slim profit margins. Replacing a machine that uses perchloroethylene can cost between $41,500 and $175,000. The air board estimates that the additional expense of the new equipment will boost a customer's $15 bill between $1.20 to $1.60.

What alternative should be allowed in California is still under debate. Dry cleaners who switched to other systems sought to sway the board in favor of their preference. Although the air board did not endorse a substitute, the regulation would give cleaners a $10,000 incentive to buy a machine that uses a wet cleaning system, which use carbon dioxide. Environmentalists urged the board to ban the most common alternative, which uses hydrocarbons. Critics said it could lead to increased ozone pollution.

The board's vote follows similar action five years ago by the South Coast Air Quality Management District in Southern California. That agency became the first regulatory body in the country to ban perchloroethylene, forcing more than 2,000 dry cleaners to stop using the chemical by 2020. Last year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency banned the chemical for dry cleaners located in residential buildings nationwide by 2020. But those operations are a small fraction of the nation's cleaners, said Jon Meijer, vice president of the International Fabricare Institute, an industry association based in Maryland.

California declared perchloroethylene a toxic chemical in 1991. State health officials told the air board Thursday that it can cause esophageal cancer, lymphoma, cervical and bladder cancer. The solvent, which has a strong, sweet odor, also can affect the central nervous system. Some business owners disputed those claims.

Source




Weather Channel TV hostess is totally political

Starring in Global Warming Film Accusing U.S. Government of `Criminal Neglect'

The Weather Channel's top climate expert -- already under fire for advocating the scientific decertification of global warming skeptics -- is one of the stars of a new politically charged global warming documentary that, according to the film's website, accuses the U.S. government of "criminal neglect" and blames "right-wing think tanks" for helping to "defeat climate-friendly legislation."

The supercharged political message in the new documentary "Everything's Cool," which prominently features the Weather Channel's climate expert Heidi Cullen, appears to conflict with the network and Cullen's recently stated goal of not taking "a political position on global warming." ( See Cullen's blog ) Cullen, who hosts the Weather Channel's weekly show "The Climate Code," made the remarks on January 18, following the controversy surrounding her proposal that the American Meteorological Society decertify broadcast meteorologists skeptical of manmade global warming predictions. (Click here to see Cullen's original remarks on the Weather Channel website calling on the AMS to decertify climate skeptics)

Cullen is featured in the new documentary as one of the "global warming messengers," along with many eco-activists and such Hollywood celebrities as Salma Hayek and Jake Gyllenhaal. The film premiered last week at Robert Redford's Sundance Film Festival in Utah which runs through January 28.

"Everything's Cool" severely challenges Cullen's promise to steer clear of politics. The documentary's promotional website states that the climate "crisis" is being met by the U.S. "government with apathy, denial, and perhaps, even criminal neglect." See: http://www.everythingscool.org/about.htm

An excerpt from the "About the Film" webpage of "Everything's Cool" reveals the political overtones of the film, noting that Cullen and the other "global warming messengers" are opposed by "recalcitrant politicians, the fossil-fuel corporations" and "right-wing think tanks that do their bidding, by working tirelessly to obscure the science and gum up the works of government to defeat climate-friendly legislation and promote the unrestrained use of fossil fuels." "Tell Congress to reject ExxonMobil's tactics to undermine science cast doubt on the facts about global warming," the documentary's website also implores.

The overtly political content of the film is at odds with the mission of The Weather Channel as stated by website executive editor Matthew de Ganon, who noted on January 19th that The Weather Channel's goal was "to present an open, balanced dialogue around the scientific facts concerning global climate change."

ABC-TV Birmingham meteorologist James Spann was quick to critique Cullen's participation in the new documentary. "She is trying to say [global warming] should not be a political issue and I totally agree with that, but boy this movie looks political," said Spann, an AMS certified meteorologist, on Monday after reviewing the "Everything's Cool" movie website. Spann made his comments during his weekly podcast "Weather Brains." "When you start talking about your government and `criminal neglect,' that to me is a big political movie," Spann said. Spann had previously denounced Cullen's call for the American Meteorological Society to decertify TV weathermen who express skepticism about manmade global warming.

The "Everythings Cool" website urges concerned citizens to "Take Action" by contacting a long list of politically charged environmental special-interest groups including: The National Resources Defense Council, The Union of Concerned Scientists, The Sierra Club, Greenpeace USA and Environmental Defense.

It appears from the promotional material available on the movies website, that "Everything's Cool" is set to make former Vice President Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" appear downright timid in its presentation of the fears of global warming. The website states: "If the U.S. as a nation and a government does not aggressively cut greenhouse gas emission in the next decade, the problem of climate change will eventually dwarf all other economic and social problems. Inaction by the U.S. places everyone else on the planet in jeopardy."

Actor/activist Redford reportedly made special arrangements for a special pre-screening of "Everything's Cool" for the Sundance Festival's key financial backers. The film, which is being billed as a "toxic comedy," was produced by Daniel B. Gold and Judith Helfand. (Note: The movie apparently also "premiered" at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival as well. See 2006 website listing of "Everything's Cool"

Hollywood celebrities Salma Hayek and Jake Gyllenhaal roles in the film have been ridiculed in at least one early review of the movie. The review noted that the scenes featuring the two celebrities at a "publicity appearance at an Arctic village comes off as silly." Also appearing with Cullen in the documentary is longtime global warming activist Ross Gelbspan. (Note: Gelbspan has made somewhat of a career out of the humorous allegation that all global warming skeptics are funded by industry while totally ignoring the overwhelming funding advantage that climate alarmists enjoy.

Cullen's appearance in "Everything's Cool" is not the first time she has flirted with political activism. On March 14, 2005, Cullen called for "simple measures" to limits C02 emissions while participating in a Capitol Hill press conference. "The UK has cut emissions by 15 percent and it hasn't hurt their economy," Cullen says. Cullen also featured a guest on the December 17, 2006 episode of The Weather Channel's "The Climate Code" TV show, who had once openly called for Nuremberg-style Trials for global warming skeptics.

Source





PETA hypocrisy

All around this struggling farm town, chicken houses stand in the fields as a testament to the way many here earn their living -- raising, slaughtering and processing chickens. It is an unlikely locale for an unlikely criminal case. Today, two employees of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, a radical animal-rights group that opposes meat-eating, are on trial for the strangest of charges: killing animals.

PETA is based in Norfolk, Va., but its work has international scope. The group, which raises more than $25 million a year from 1.6 million supporters, opposes any human use of animals, whether for food, fashion or research. In the more than two decades since its founding, it has become a major threat to medical researchers, meatpackers, fur sellers and others. Now, two of its employees stand accused of tossing garbage bags full of euthanized cats and dogs into a Dumpster behind a Piggly Wiggly in Hertford County, 130 miles northeast of Raleigh. Adria J. Hinkle and Andrew B. Cook, both of whom work in PETA's Norfolk office, are charged with 21 counts each of animal cruelty, a felony that can carry prison time, along with littering and obtaining property by false pretenses.

It is a strange turn of events for PETA. The group's supporters have often been prosecuted for their radical efforts to protect animals -- breaking into fashion shows to throw blood on fur-wearing models, liberating lab animals, showing gory videos outside the circus -- but PETA has never been accused of hurting animals.

Those who oppose PETA are seizing on the trial. The spectacle also has drawn a gaggle of lawyers, PETA staffers, reporters and curious onlookers to this rural county seat, where the small brick courthouse resembles an aging elementary school. They sat through two days of jury selection -- longer than for many murder trials -- during which lawyers struggled to find jurors who weren't close friends or business associates of any of the more than 60 witnesses. Several potential jurors were thrown out after saying they had read about the case, gossiped about it at work or formed strong opinions about PETA. Defense attorneys threw out a handful of farmers and avid hunters but left three people on the jury who work for a Perdue slaughterhouse a few miles from Winton.

Now, jurors will decide whether Hinkle and Cook were, as PETA argues, providing humane deaths to animals that would otherwise have been painfully killed in gas chambers -- or whether, as several local officials say, they were taking animals on the promise of finding them homes and secretly killing them. A PETA spokeswoman, Kathy Guillermo, said PETA never wanted to get into the business of euthanizing animals. But she said the group couldn't ignore the horrible conditions in animal shelters around Norfolk and in northeastern North Carolina. The group now euthanizes thousands of animals a year. "Euthanasia is a better alternative to sitting in a stinking pound," Guillermo said.

PETA opponents are drawing attention to this little-known facet of the group's work. On Monday morning, the Washington D.C.-based Center for Consumer Freedom, an anti-PETA group funded by restaurants and meat producers, drove a mobile billboard truck reading "PETA: As Warm and Cuddly as You Thought?" past the courthouse. David Martosko, research director for the group, described the case as a gift in his fight to discredit PETA. He plans to monitor the entire trial. "Most people would not believe, if you told them two years ago, that PETA kills animals. They'd say, 'What? They're the bunny huggers,' " Martosko said.

Martosko and Stephanie Maltz, a lawyer with the Foundation for Bio-Medical Research, a Washington, D.C., group that lobbies for animal testing, paid a visit Monday night to the trash bin where the animals were dumped. It was dark, and a man with a flashlight was rooting through the garbage, but Maltz was undeterred. She jumped out of the car and took a picture of the grime-stained container for her group's Web site.

Source. This blog is following the trial.






Where the Greenies are heading us



Today I present a straightforward solution to ending the water crisis. Starting immediately, we must ban beer and Coke and stop eating beef. The production of all three is sucking the world dry. And let's face it: we'd be healthier without them.

The evidence is compelling. Did you know it takes nearly four litres of water to make one litre of XXXX [beer]? And did you know it takes 55,000 litres of water to produce a kilogram of beef? That is more water than in my backyard pool for goodness sake.

"Yes, those numbers are valid," CSIRO water expert Wayne Meyer says. Professor Meyer says the amounts of water required to raise cattle could be as high as 100,000 litres in some places where evaporation is highest. The figure includes the amount of water required to grow fodder to feed the animals. Then there is the water the cattle drink and the vast quantities used in abattoirs to slaughter them. Brisbane's Cannon Hill abattoir, for instance, uses more than 580 million litres of water a year.

By now I know vegetarians will be cheering and cattlemen fuming under their Akubras. Drought and government neglect has created a water nightmare for business, especially for food producers. More than half of our top 20 commercial water users are in the food or beverage business. Professor Meyer says city folk have no idea of the volumes of water required to put food on the table. It takes 500 litres of water to produce a kilogram of spuds. It is thirsty work for a planet that will have to double the rate of food production by 2050 to meet soaring population growth, says Professor Meyer.

Source





Global cooling in Australia?: "Summer rains and a cold snap had Victorians retrieving their winter woollies yesterday - the coldest January day in seven years. The city [Melbourne] reached a cool top of 18.9C as yesterday's welcome rain dumped an average of 7mm on the city. The state's lowest minimum on Friday night - zero degrees - was recorded at Mt Baw Baw. Mt Buller and Mt Hotham recorded maximums of 7C. But the Department of Sustainability and Environment said the light showers failed to help firefighters in the state's northeast. "The rain neither helped nor hindered," duty officer Richard Alder said."

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is generally to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

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