Earth Day:  Air Pollution

Three million years ago, the earth was a teaming caldron of volcanic activity, flooding, earthquakes, and struggles for survival.  Not unlike today.  Another similarity is that the air was quite unhealthy.  Although the ancient atmosphere was toxic with substances of the earth's own creation and the result of its unique distance from the sun, today's atmospheric swill is highly a result of human intervention.

As carbon dioxide and mercury increase from burning coal used to satisfy our greedy energy needs, the temperature in Iowa is expected to rise an average of 2 degrees in summer and 4 degrees in fall and winter over the next 100 years, according to the EPA.

· According to the Code Red Report published in 2002 by the National Parks Conservation Association, coal-fired plants emit more than 90% of the air pollution produced by the U.S. electric industry, while generating only slightly less than 50% of the nation's electricity.

· They give off 64% of the country's sulfur dioxide, 23% of nitrogen oxides, 33% of mercury, and 35% of carbon dioxide pollution.  These figures reflect 6 to 12 times the pollution of upgraded and newer facilities.           

· Sustained exposure to hydrogen sulfide in the air can cause disorientation, nausea, permanent brain damage, and death.

The current administration in Washington has repeatedly promoted nuclear power using the usual brainwashing techniques that have been used for over 30 years - that it is clean and safe and has no environmental impact.  Not so.  Carbon dioxide is emitted at every step of the nuclear fuel chain - from milling, enrichment, and fuel fabrication, to construction of the reactor, transportation and storage of radioactive waste, in addition to the decommissioning of old reactors.  All told, this adds up to 4 to 5 times more pollution than all renewable technologies.

Many facts such as these were deleted from reports that link human-generated pollution to an increase in global warming.  There is a dangerously blind eye turned on the mounting evidence.  The unfortunate head-in-the-sand attitude by the current administration will continue to cause health problems, especially for children and the elderly.

If there were a profit to be made from correcting this, to be sure, it would happen.  And, ironically, that is the case.  Profits can happen.  It is just not recognized by those currently in charge.

Installation and use of wind energy will not only put tens of thousands of people to work in this country, it will also lessen pollution and our dependency on oil, domestic and foreign.  We must all determine how we can make this happen.  Write or call your local, state, and federal representatives to see what they are doing to further this cause.  Also, get involved locally to see what you can do to help make this happen in your area. 

Conservation is of great importance.  We can all do it.  There is no pain involved - just a little inconvenience.  Just because you own 87 different electronic gadgets doesn't mean that most of them have to be on every day.  If we take the time to look at ourselves, as we all have a direct impact on everyone else, we may become less selfish, more aware, and healthier.

Molly Regan

Watch What You Read . . .

Archconservatives had their day with books lambasting Bill Clinton for high crimes and misdemeanors so nutty that, had it been the Sixties I'd have attributed those rants to a bad tab of LSD. Now comes a slew of tomes taking it to Georgedick Bushcheney. But as fun as it may be to read that the anointed president is sharing a conspiracy with Saudi oil sheikhs to get elected this November, it may not be true.

Lefties can write bad books, too.

So whom should you believe?

For starters, place more trust in volumes written by people who have some knowledge about what they're writing about. That would include former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill ("The Price of Loyalty," with Ron Suskind) and former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke ("Against All Enemies"), who wrote about how the Bushcheney administration conducts business. When you're writing about life on the inside, it helps to have actually been on the inside.

Then, there are those who may not have been on the inside at the same time and place, but whose own experiences give them the credibility to write about closely related topics. John W. Dean (no relation to Howard) is such an individual. As a former legal counsel to President Richard Nixon, Dean was aware of how the Watergate scandal and White House secrecy were impairing democracy. So when he recognized the same thing occurring 30 years after his former boss was compelled to resign in disgrace, he hit the keyboard ("Worse Than Watergate").

Finally, there are the journalists. The real journalists, those who have worked for mainstream media with strong credentials. Bob Woodward of the Washington Post comes to mind ("Plan of Attack"). Unless Woodward has totally sold out, he should retain at least some of the journalistic lessons he and colleague Carl Bernstein learned when they broke Watergate. The Post didn't print a word of what Woodward and Bernstein wrote unless it was corroborated by at least two sources and all evidence was thoroughly checked and accounted for. Woodward later became a Post editor where, it must be assumed, he insisted on the same standards from his reporters.

What about best sellers such as Al Franken's "Lies (and the Lying Liars who Tell Them" and Craig Unger's "House of Bush, House of Saud"? Well, I've read the former, and it's entertaining (more entertaining than Franken is on his Air America Radio show), but nothing I would want to base a scholarly work on. I haven't read Unger's book because I've been let down in the past by too many "investigative journalists" who purport to uncover the secrets of whatever, only to fall utterly flat, as the New York Times reported in its review. Those kind of books leave me feeling the way I do after eating a bag of potato chips: full, urpy and unsatisfied.

Contact Ira Lacher here.

Live Chat With Howard Dean NOW

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http://www.democracyforamerica.com/chat/

What Draws Us To Howard Dean

I am reading the book "The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World." It talks about the 3 different groups in the culture: traditionals (Ready Rapture types), moderns (the dominant group in our country now, running business and government), and a large, new group that has gradually emerged starting in the late 1950's. Cultural Creatives emerged out of the civil rights, feminist, environmental, holistic health care, etc. movements and have profoundly changed the values of our society.

I think we love Howard because he is a Cultural Creative, and so are we. In fact, he is one of the first Cultural Creative leaders to emerge at the national level. Cultural Creatives value authenticity. Politicians who dissemble are moderns. The first thing that struck me about Dean when I heard him in person was that he just answered questions honestly and directly. I couldn't believe it, or how much it appealed to me. Cultural Creatives value community, and Dean appealed to our sense of community. Cultural Creatives are optimistic and believe their individual actions can make a difference. Dean told us the power to change the country is in our hands.

The moderns want us to believe that a politician who speaks an unwelcome truth makes a "gaffe." The moderns tell us that our individual actions are too small to make a difference, so we need to just "fall in line" behind the leaders. Moderns tell us that opposing a popular pResident who wants to take us to war is political suicide, and the only way to win is to equivocate and work behind the scenes to try to lessen the damage. At every turn, moderns tell Cultural Creatives that our values are misguided and no reasonable person shares them.

And then came Dean. Howard Dean spoke our values out loud and we finally realized that our values are just as legitimate as those of the moderns. And when Dean gave us our voice and we started talking, we found each other and realized that we are not alone. In fact, there are 50 million of us. The future is ours.

Dr. Alta Price