ozone

As I so love to remind my readers, I’ve been at this blogging thing a long time now. In early December, it will have been a full decade since that strange, cold, dreary winter afternoon (well, technically late fall) when, inspired by an article in TIME Magazine about blogging, sat down in front of my computer, went to Blogspot.com and created the first iteration of Respectful Insolence. At first my output was intermittent, but within a couple of months I was posting virtually every day, a habit that’s continued to this very day. About a year after my very first post, I was invited to join…

Whispers from the Ghosting Trees A guest post by Gail Zawacki, who blogs at Wit's End. While we hustle busily through the necessities of our lives, wrapped up in our daily preoccupations - our obligations to our families, our jobs, and our dreams - at the same time all around the world, trees are silently expiring. For those who take the time to look, we can see that the forests are being transformed before our helpless and incredulous gaze into spectral mausoleums, as even the most ancient living wood is consumed by a raging tsunami of pathogens unprecedented in scale and virulence. What has…

According to the Economist: Barack Obama socked it to the left on September 2nd, by backtracking on a new rule to mitigate air pollution. As proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)--a hate object to many Republicans--the rule would have reduced ambient ozone, a toxic gas created by power-plant emissions and exhaust fumes, to less deadly levels than America currently permits. According to the EPA, this would by 2020 have saved up to 12,000 lives and 2.5m working days and school days lost to the toxic effect of ozone on American lungs each year. It would also have cost polluters…

Last Friday when the White House told Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson to drop her plans to revise the national ambient standard for ozone, it seemed like just another example of President Obama caving to business interests. Others were quick to remind me though that bowing to business is not the half of it: the White House order is illegal. As University of Texas law professor Tom McGarity explains, "Under the Clean Air Act, EPA is required to establish ambient air quality standards at a level that protects human health with an adequate margin of safety. It's…

It seems shame to root thorugh the trash, but people do, and JM points out the following weird ref in t' Wegman report: Valentine, Tom (1987) "Magnetics may hold key to ozone layer problems," Magnets, 2(1) 18-26. The odd thing is that is doesn't appear to be a ref for anything. What is it doing there? And what is this odd paper? Or is Wegman one of those people that wear magnetic bangles to cure rheumatism? * Is this the same Tom V? * Of course, you should read Deep Climate

EHP has a small report on EPA's troubled ozone standard that's worth a look, especially if you don't know much about the issue. What strikes me is how there is such resistance from regulators to setting a decent standard because it would put too many counties into non-compliance. It's almost as if there's this idea that, 'well, we can't say that they whole nation has unhealthy air. It's like saying the country is bad'. Of course, that's the breathing state we're in. In reality it's much more admirable to own up to the problem then go about fixing it. Not only admirable but, in this case, the…