One of the biggest environmental stories in recent years is the sad saga of Chinese drywall. Upwards of 60,000 homes, and possibly as many as 300,000, are affected by the sulfide spewing gypsum board. In addition to the highly publicized corrosion of all sorts of metal parts, including air conditioning coils, and the obnoxious sulfide
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Readers with a taste for bad movies might notice the allusion to the 1964 melodrama Where Love Has Gone, a famous stinker loosely based on the sordid Lana Turner/Cheryl Crane/Johnny Stompanato murder case of 1958. Even Oscar winners Susan Hayward and Bette Davis could not overcome the script, although the film did achieve some popularity
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“Greenie derangement syndrome” is something I have observed for a long time, and can be defined as a condition that often occurs when a person enters the fringe environmental movement, whereby despite previous education, training, and attitudes, he begins to lose the capacity for rational thought when considering environmental issues. A corollary is that a
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Back in the early 1970s, no one can deny that there really were legitimate environmental horror shows that needed to be attended to. Many remember Reserve Mining, in Silver Bay, MN—infamous for dumping taconite debris straight into Lake Superior. Coal-fired power plants using no abatement were all too common, and even though clean-up of automobile
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Who indeed, and that’s the problem. On August 14, 2008, President Bush signed into law the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA). There are two main portions (or “titles”) of the Act: Title I–Children’s Product Safety and Title II–Consumer Product Safety Commission Reform. Within Title I are eight sections, two of which are concerned with
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In December 2007 and January 2008, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) measured formaldehyde levels in a stratified (strata based on type of trailer) random sample of 519 FEMA-supplied trailers. CDC’s final report was issued on 2 July 2008. The geometric mean level of formaldehyde in sampled trailers was 77 parts-per-billion (ppb). The
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Both political parties—especially the Dems—talk a whole lot about the environment, lowering the carbon imprint (or footprint), and being energy efficient. But what about two huge events, that involve travel for thousands of people, as well as massive energy consumption at the destination? And what if there were no good reason why these events should
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A classic salesman’s joke will set the stage: Before the newly hired salesman is sent out into the field, he is admonished that it is important to make lots of sales calls. Returning to the office on the first day, his manager notes that he has made seven calls, and that is not enough. “I
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It is worth noting that the modern environmental movement was founded on the 1962 book Silent Spring, written by Rachel Carson. Although Carson was a trained biologist, who had received some praise for her earlier works, it is sad but nonetheless quite true that the hideous distortions regarding pesticides and countless errors in fact that
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