Ownership and Responsibility... and some tears

On Monday, February 20th, I saw part of a documentary called Sludge, about a coal sludge impoundment in Martin County, Kentucky, and the devastation it brought to the community. Breaking through the underground mine below, the impoundment propelled several million gallons of waste material down hillside and tributaries until stream beds and waterways were thoroughly buried, contaminated and oozing with toxic black sludge. Worse than the Exxon Valdez oil spill (considered one of the worst ever environmental disasters by the EPA) this inundation of black waste spoiled the water supply for over 27,000 Kentucky residents and killed all aquatic life in Coldwater Fork and Wolf Creek.

Watching footage of the aftermath of the spill brought me to tears. The black trunks of trees, stained by heavy metal molasses, the polluted streams, running a sickly bright orange, made me sick inside. And then I had to ask myself why. Sure, I feel compassion for the residents of Martin County and the injustices they’re dealing with. They can’t drink their water, can’t fish their streams and all that the mining company representatives have to say is “sorry, but it’s really not our fault and we’ve done the best we can and, you know, we don’t owe you or your children anything more.” So yes, I’m angry and saddened on their behalf, but that’s not what made me cry.

I cried, perhaps, for more selfish reasons. I cried because when I saw the water blackened (or greened or oranged –whatever unnatural rainbow color it happened to be) and the land ravaged and the black smoke pouring into the sky; when I was told that all life died in those streams and people were made sick, I could only feel that such transgressions had been done to me. Those were my streams and that was my sky. Those were my fish and my people. And these horrible things were done to them and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I cried because I took it personally.

Rick Bass describes this sort of ownership in his essay “On Willow Creek.” He claims that the land belongs to those who love it, regardless of actual property rights. I’m of the mind that no one can actually own land, but much in the same way that we feel as if people belong to us, or we to them, much as we are a part of our families and them of us, I feel that the land can belong to us and we to it… if we love it. When I heard those stories and saw that footage, my feelings can only be described as those of one who watches her loved ones being hurt and is unable to do anything to stop it.

I know that others do not often feel the same way that I do. I’ve never met another soul who feels personally wronged, when she sees a diesel truck belch out a black cloud at the traffic light and who wants to shout at the driver, with tears in her eyes, “why are you doing that to my air?” Most people don’t take it personally. I’m unsure if it’s right to suggest they should, but I think it’s a lack of ownership, and distance from the immediate consequences of these harmful actions that allows them to be perpetuated. It’s systematic. It’s complex, and many people –even after they’ve watched Sludge and seen the damages incurred- fail to see how they’re connected.

The sooner we realize that we’re part of a system, and that no part of the system is insignificant, only then can we realize our responsibility to it. That was my water and my air, as well as my coal and my mining company. As Barry Commoner so clearly pointed out in his work The Closing Circle, everything’s connected. That means you and the fish. That means you and the coal company. He also observed that there’s “no such thing as a free lunch.” You can’t have your fish without the stream. You can’t have your coal-powered electricity without the coal… and you can’t have a coal without a mine and a sediment impoundment and everything else that goes with it.

The spill in Martin County, Kentucky was my spill.

That’s why I cried.

Cruise Liner Blues

Oils rigs are usually getting the blame for wreaking environmental havoc on the high seas, but in light of recent evens involving a certain cruise ship, I thought I would comment on the nautical polluters not frequently in the news... until someone tips it over.

There are "normal" emissions and discharges from cruise ships all time that are glossed over and
according to the EPA, cruise ships were involved in 87 confirmed illegal discharge cases in the years from 1993 to 1998. Most of these involved the accidental discharge of oil or related substances but a few cases involved large numbers of illegal discharge incidents.

What sort of "normal waste discharges" are there?

1. Black Water (sewage): A typical cruise ship generates as much as 210,000 gallons during a one-week voyage. Um, yuck.

2. Gray Water (shower, sink, and galley water): A typical cruise ship is estimated to generate up to one million gallons a week.

3. Hazardous Waste (waste from dry cleaning, photo labs, paint, and maintenance chemicals, etc.): Who's printing photos and having their clothes dry cleaned on their cruise, is what I want to know.

4. Solid Waste (food waste, plastic, paper, wood, cardboard, cans, glass, etc.): That is, all the garbage produced by the tons of people on the boat.

5. Oily Bilge Water: Cruise ships are estimated to generate up to 25,000 gallons on a one week voyage.

And then there are the air emissions. Cruise ships incinerate between 75% and 85% of garbage according to the EPA in its 2008 study, contributing to smog in coastal communities and on the ocean. Yeah, smog on the beach.They also release incinerator ash and sewage sludge -- blobs of concentrated toxins from the bottom of waste treatment facilities -- into the ocean. Who said this was okay? You can't dump it in the street but you can dump it in the water? Right. Well, according to tests in Washington and Alaska, interviews with state officials, the EPA's study, and information provided by the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary this is really the case. It's actually legal to discharge untreated sewage in most areas of the United States farther than three miles from shore, so 4 miles out is fine. So says somebody. It's not fine to me.

It was only luck that the Concordia's oil is not already spewing into the sea—the hole in the hull of the liner missed the fuel tanks by a few feet, as it ran aground off the coast of Italy. But maybe it's time to pay more attention to the rest of the cruise ships out there. They don't need to be capsizing or spewing oil to attract scrutiny.

Treat Your Lab Rats Right

The National Institutes of Health recently revised their official Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals for the first time in 16 years. This is the guide used by all laboratories who receive funding from the government to conduct their research and all labs receiving this funding must comply with the procedures described in the guide. The revised edition, however, is causing an uproar among facilities, however, because of a little change made on page 57.

The change involves the amount of space that must be allotted to a female lab mouse or rat and her babies. The revised guidelines suggest that a female be allotted for herself and her babies, a cage the size of a shoebox. Nothing extraordinary sounding, until one considers that previous guidelines allowed for two females, their litters and a male mouse or rat to occupy the same amount of space. Animal rights advocates applaud the change, feeling that this increase in allotted space not only allows for more humane conditions and natural development of the lab rat and her offspring, but also is a boon to scientific study, as increased space could mean a less stressful environment, translating to more accurate research results.

Some laboratories, however, are up in arms about the change. Consider Johns Hopkins research institute. They do a lot of research, they have a lot of rats. They have so many rats that research facilities consisting of huge warehouses containing 10,000 cages of rats are not uncommon. That's a lot of rats... and a lot of cages... and a lot of space. The concern for laboratories and research facilities like Johns Hopkins is a logistical one. More space for mama rats means room for fewer cages. In short, it'll cost the labs more money to house the same number of rats that they house now. They aren't happy about that.

In response to the apparent outrage at the changes, the writers of the guide have insisted that the new guidelines are not mandatory and that facilities needn't follow the new suggestions to maintain their government funding. What they aimed to do with the change, one writer has said, is to set a benchmark, a standard from which to work from. This placated some of those concerned about the change, but essentially rained upon the parade of those animal rights advocates who had applauded the measure. They claim that making the guidelines optional allows for abuse.

Sometimes you just can't make anyone happy.

Bringing Down the Stereotypes

Dog = loyal, friendly, playful, cuddly

Cat = independent, anti-social, agile

Llama = funny, stupid

Pig = dirty, greedy

Gazelle = graceful

Mule = stubborn

Does any of this sound familiar? It seems often our experience with animals is limited to our domestic pets and dinner plates and that we largely rely upon these stereotypes to characterize them. I suppose these function like any other stereotype, really. They're a default we depend on because we don't have an accumulation of encounters to prove otherwise. I recent class discussion had me thinking about this and, though I didn't share, these stereotypes bother me to no end.

In the same manner that one might become indignant when confronting any other unfair categorical preconception, I'm saddened that the impressions that we and our children have of animals are based upon these stereotypes, rather than upon personal experience. As convenient as these characterizations may be, given that the average American Midwesterner is unlikely to encounter a gazelle first hand in their entire lifetime, I continue to be struck by a sort of exasperation when people I meet believe these assigned characteristics to be true descriptions of an animal.

As such, I spent all three months of my summer internship at Gorman Heritage Farm trying to break down the barriers erected by these fabricated preconceptions. As a certified "sustainable agriculture intern/farm camp councilor," part of my duties involved giving tours of the farmyard, teaching visitors about the animals and supervising small children around livestock. Perhaps I shouldn't have been, but my reaction was of awe when I first realized that many of the children that came to visit the farm actually bought wholeheartedly those animal stereotypes perpetuated by cartoons, children's books and well-meaning parents. Why aren't the pigs pink? Why doesn't the cow make a "moo" sound? Why does the rooster keep crowing, even though it's the afternoon? Sigh.

Though I only spent a short amount of time with these kids on the farm, I did my very best to communicate the fact that every animal is an individual, just as every little girl or little boy is different and unique from every other little girl and little boy. And so... frequent reminders included:

-Pigs aren't dirty, they're really, really smart. And they come in lots of colors, not just pink. Well, sometimes they are dirty.

-Bunnies can bite and scratch, not matter how fluffy and cute. And here they eat alfalfa, not carrots

-Roosters crow all day every day. They stop at nighttime to sleep.

-You can pet Ringo but Don't pet George. Why? George bites and Ringo doesn't, silly!

- No. No one gets to ride Huckleberry. He doesn't like when people ride him.

-Stay away from the cat. She doesn't like people. No, you can't pet her.

- Go ahead, you can pet the chicken. She won't peck at you. And they come in all sorts of colors and eat bugs, isn't that cool!?

-Chicken eggs can be white, blue, green, brown or even pink. You can eat the duck eggs, too!

As is the way with small children, some didn't listen and were bitten by the ferocious bunnies, but most of them did and I can only hope they went home and taught their parents a thing or two...

And speaking of birds...

The US government always seems to make its business the status of various species in the nation. A quick glance at the Endangered Species List, limits placed upon the harvest of certain species of fish -we're always being told not to go overboard in our exploitation of species... until one ventures into the agricultural sector. Since livestock aren't "naturally-occurring" like wild salmon, but are instead "produced," the concerns over exploitation fizzle away. This does not, however, mean that our government takes a hands-off approach.

As demand for chicken meat remains far below the number of birds who are actually being raised and killed, rather than allowing the market to adjust to basic supply and demand principles, the federal government Monday announced it will buy $40 million of unwanted chicken products that will be distributed to our nation's school kids and others in federal food programs.

In short, chicken-meat companies have continued increasing the number of birds they raise for food while demand has remained flat. Normally, in a free market, an industry that produces beyond what consumers want will contract. The poultry industry (much like those farmers who grow nothing but GM corn and soybeans) instead relies on regular government support. Might I mention that these government-subsidezed chickens will be fed upon the aforementioned government subsidized corn and soybeans. The broiler chicken industry alone saved $1.25 billion in feed costs from 1997 to 2005 just from taxpayer-funded subsidies.

In such trying economic times... one must wonder...

The End of Communism Favors Smarter Songbirds

Scientists have discovered that recent regional differences observed in population trends among songbird species accross Eastern Germany and the Czech Republic are linked to increased brain size. Large brain size was correlated to strong population increases of respective songbird species in the Czech Republic since 1989 / 1990 and weaker increases in Eastern Germany. Almost no effect has been observed in North-Western Germany.

This difference between the former 'West' and 'East' suggests that this trend was driven by socieconomic changes that took place in the former communist regions. Relative brain size reflects species' cognitive abilities. The increase of such big-brained songbirds suggests that species with good cognitive abilities might have been better able to adapt to rapid changes. Sceintists speculate that the socioeconomic change and the novel opportunities that would have subsequently arisen after the end of communism provided the change in environment to which these birds adapted. In short, the environmental changes that followed the end of communism favored smarter birds.

Authors of this study suggest that future research should expand to consider more regions. This would enable comparison of relationships between socioeconomic change and its impact on bird populations across nations and give a greater insight on the effects of communism and its downfall on bird populations.

I thought it was pretty cool.

Drug Recycling

Pharmaceutical waste is a really, really big problem, contaminating waterways and potable water and making people and animals sick... or hermaphroditic. It is also a really, really expensive problem. Americans dispose of an estimated $1 billion worth of unused medications every single year. So, not only are we polluting our environment with drugs, we're wasting a lot of money (and with the all controvery over Medicare, Medicaid recently... well...).

A 2008 study found the presence of pharmaceuticals in the water supply of 24 major municipalities nationwide. As legislators push for stronger regulation including extended product responsibility for the drug makers themselves, the truth is that pharmacuticals are big business that depends on throughput for profits. That is to say, the more people watse, the more they have to buy and the more money companies make. And if you don’t believe me, just count the number of drug commercials you see in a 15-minute daytime television viewing.

Global pharmaceutical sales were forecasted at $825 billion last year. Pharmaceutical waste is viewed as an unfortunate bi-product of a profitable, innovative, and admittedly necessary industry. But while some see pharmecutical waste as an unfortunate bi-product of the industry, others see it as an untapped resource.

With each leak into the water system, money is being wasted -and that means there are unmet profits out there. And so, some companies, such as Blue Zone, creators of anaesthetics, decided to create certain "proprietary technologies" to reclaim their waste adn even distill it into its origional componets. They've created a nearly closed-loop delivery system. Yes, this, my friends, is pharmecutical super-recycling.

This technology represents one of the first financially viable solutions to the growing problem of pharmaceutical waste in the environment. As the company is now registered as a generic anesthesia manufacturer in both Canada and the United States, Blue Zone promises a solution that generates pharmaceutical industry profits. The company is poised to literally collect millions of dollars from the operating room waste bin.

Supercool if you ask me.