This weekly newsletter, focused on environmental issues, highlights relevant analysis done by the John Locke Foundation and other think tanks, as well as items in the news.
1. Pollution from wind turbine production is killing Chinese peasants while wealthy Western environmentalists pat themselves on the back
This article from Britain’s Daily Mail describes how the mining in China of neodymium, the element needed to make the magnets in wind turbines, is making lakes toxic and "killing farmers, their children, and their land."
Apparently the mining of neodymium, which is being subsidized by Western governments around the world trying to promote "clean energy" with wind power subsidies, requires the disposal of massive amounts of toxic waste. Since neodymium is found and mined in the peasant farm regions of China, it is there that the damage is being done.
This description from one farmer paints a grim picture:
‘At first it was just a hole in the ground,’ he says. ‘When it dried in the winter and summer, it turned into a black crust and children would play on it. Then one or two of them fell through and drowned in the sludge below. Since then, children have stayed away.’
As more factories sprang up, the banks grew higher, the lake grew larger and the stench and fumes grew more overwhelming.
‘It turned into a mountain that towered over us,’ says Mr Su. ‘Anything we planted just withered, then our animals started to sicken and die.’
People too began to suffer. Dalahai villagers say their teeth began to fall out, their hair turned white at unusually young ages, and they suffered from severe skin and respiratory diseases. Children were born with soft bones and cancer rates rocketed.
Official studies carried out five years ago in Dalahai village confirmed there were unusually high rates of cancer along with high rates of osteoporosis and skin and respiratory diseases. The lake’s radiation levels are ten times higher than in the surrounding countryside, the studies found.
I just don’t understand the self-centeredness of these Chinese farmers. Don’t they understand that they are sacrificing for a noble cause? After all, in 150 years these wind turbines may allow the earth to be as much a 0.5 degrees cooler than it would otherwise be. This is in addition to the fact that there’s a lot of people in New York and California who think that wind turbines are really neat to look at (unless of course they’re visible from their house).
As an aside, where are the environmental justice people on this?
2. Governor uses executive order to institute "tailoring rule"
The "tailoring rule" refers to new rules issued by the EPA forcing states to regulate CO2. These rules represent an illegal EPA end run around the Federal Clean Air Act in that they unilaterally change the regulatory standard for emissions to be declared pollutants.
In December the NC Environmental Management Commission voted to implement the rule. Because there were formal objections to the rule made by individuals from several organizations, including the John Locke Foundation, implementation was put on hold until either the General Assembly took action or the Governor issued an executive order overriding the objections. For the short run, the Governor put the issue to rest by issuing an executive order last week. This issue has been discussed extensively by JLF Director of Legal and Regulatory Studies, Daren Bakst. Bakst states the Locke Foundation’s concern succinctly:
By implementing this rule, NC would be regulating GHG for the first time ever without the legislature having a say in the matter. This type of major regulatory burden is properly a legislative decision, not a decision for unelected bureaucrats.
Further, the Tailoring Rule is likely illegal and the state would be playing a role in implementing this illegal rule.
There also was another serious concern. … By objecting to the rule, JLF has made it possible for the legislature to address another possible absurd result where, by complying, North Carolina businesses would be forced to deal with GHG rules even if the federal mandate no longer exists. If other states didn’t have such a burden, North Carolina would be at a major competitive disadvantage.
3. Beware the language switch — "clean energy" instead of cap and trade
As pointed out in this Wall Street Journal article by Kimberley Strassel, the President’s State of the Union address said nothing about cap and trade or CO2 emission restrictions. What the president did talk a great deal about is "clean energy." As Strassel observes:
Listen carefully to Mr. Obama’s speech and you realize he spent plenty of it on carbon controls. He just used a different vocabulary. If the president can’t get carbon restrictions via cap and trade, he’ll get them instead with his new proposal for a "clean energy" standard. Clean energy, after all, sounds better to the public ear, and he might just be able to lure, or snooker, some Republicans into going along.
The reality is that there is nothing dirty about CO2. If there were, we would be seeing big black clouds coming out of our mouths every time we exhale. It is not dangerous to breathe, and it is absolutely necessary for presence of life on earth. If the fact that it is a greenhouse gas makes it dirty — i.e., a gas that keeps the earth from freezing over — then water vapor, which is by far the most important greenhouse gas, would also have to be considered "dirty." This is nothing more than the use of purposely misleading language by the President and the environmental movement, and the American people should not fall for it.
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