Proposed Joshua Tree Dump is Trashed

[spiny]

It may not be news to the folks in CA, but I just saw this today. I thought the idea of trading public lands to enable the world's largest trash dump next door to Joshua Tree NP had been pitched a few years ago, but I guess the Supreme Court has finally put this horrible idea out of its misery:

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2011 ... 8-093.html

[Dan]

Something tells me that train trip to Imperial County will become pretty expensive, and that LA County will more likely find a way to incinerate much of the burnable trash to avoid the expense of carting it a couple of hundred miles. Something also tells me there will be environmental group challenges covering transport, handling, risk and emissions from the incinerators. Guess there's always something to complain about (and file endless lawsuits over).

[Sal]

Hey Dan--is it your view that emissions from incinerating trash (smog) is OK on peoples' lungs and eyes?

[Dan]

It is my view that most of the solid particulates emitting from furnaces intended for this application can be monitored, removed, and make wonderful fertilizer, along with the ash that is a by-product of this process. IT's my view that the carbon dioxide emitted is actually critical for the process of photosynthesis, and is wonderful for all plant life on earth, including the rain forests everyone seems to be concerned about. So, both the carbon dioxide and the solid carbon (most ash is made up of carbon compounds) are good for plant life, whether natural and indigenous or whether introduced artificially (agriculture).

[Sal]

looks like trash burning does not produce good things:

Biomass Burning is a problem of long standing. Huge amounts of air pollution are produced worldwide by the annual burning of 3 billion metric tons of biomass such as wood, leaves, trees, grass and trash (Abelson). Biomass burning represents the largest source of air pollution in many rural areas of the developed and developing world. Biomass burning is used create heat, to clear forests, to dispose of leaves, crop stubble, trash and wood. Globally, biomass burning is estimated to produce 40 percent of the carbon dioxide, 32 percent of the carbon monoxide, 20 percent of the particulates, and 50 percent of the highly carcinogenic poly-aromatic hydrocarbons produced by all sources (Levine).

The ill-health effects of biomass burning are well-established. Smoke from biomass burning is particularly dangerous since most of the particulates are smaller than 10 microns in size (PM10) and are easily able to travel deep into the lungs. Numerous studies have noted that increasing levels of PM10 (even if below the US EPA standard of 50 micrograms PM10 per cubic meter of air) can significantly increase levels of respiratory and heart problems (Morris, Schwela) [and are linked with a sudden death rate of approximately 5 percent at that level. ed]. About 95 percent of this burning is set by people, although lightning sometimes ignites fields and forests (Levine).

http://burningissues.org/lukebiomass.html

I admit that this topic is new to me--I would appreciate links to further study of this.

[Brew]

Biomass burning is used create heat, to clear forests, to dispose of leaves, crop stubble, trash and wood. (Levine).

I admit that this topic is new to me--I would appreciate links to further study of this.

This article doesn't talk about incinerator burning. The results from the high temperatures created in a CLOSED incinerator are much different than the above mentioned open fires.

Brew

[Dan]

While I realize there are "studies" which indicate that burning trash is going to destroy the world in an instant if left "unchecked", the same was said once of second-hand smoke from cigarettes, cow flatulence, alar, CFC's, DDT, and a whole host of other compounds, most of which have been since downgraded to "mildly annoying to extremists" unless consumed in humongous quantities. Much like the "studies" where rats are force-fed 75X their own body weight in vitamins and minerals to prove that said vitamins will lead to premature death, when sane people actually attempt to reproduce the results using typical concentrations of such "pollutants", they are found to create no such effects as displayed in the deliberately rigged previous "study".

Carbon dioxide as a "pollutant"? Really? For most people, this points out the sort of extremist agenda behind such "studies", and the advocacy that inevitably follows. There is a lot of money and power in the business of placing oneself in a position to be the only saviour from an evil that isn't even discovered yet, then "discovering" that evil and convincing an entire population to follow you. Most people snicker when politicians rant about political enemies as if they are evil. So, they meet with ridicule and rolled eyes when demonizing other politicians. They now must find chemical compounds to demonize, businessmen to demonize, and dirt bikers to demonize.

Environmentalism: ideas so good you have to personally destroy the people who don't agree with you to win an argument.

[Sal]

I thought you were going to share some of the studies you read that backed up your position, pal, not just rehash the bitterness you feel towards the country that hosts your lavish life style.

[Dan]

Why bother, Sal? You will only seek to discredit them, holding up the empty and false accusations of people like Michael Mann and James Hansen as "proof" that your studies are better than mine, LOL! Really, what incentive would these people have in lying and attempting to create mild panic among the population of the great unwashed?

Follow the money.

[Sal]

so you've reduced this thread to "it's so because I say it's so".

either that or the studies you have read are so weak that they won't bear scrutiny. Either way, your opinions are irrelevant to the topic.