Climate Change

[__HRB__]

Originally Posted by retina

Wow, you inferred all that from one small message on a forum?

And from your message I infer that you still haven't acquired the the skill to recognize parody or that you should try be more goldie and bronzie, because irony isn't your strong suit.

[philmoore]

Originally Posted by __HRB__

because irony isn't your strong suit.

Apparently not yours, either.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by petrw1

We don't even use them outdoors in the winter ... you don't have to go much below 0F before they turn on VERY slowly if at all ... don't even try -40F.

Now that I've had a few years of Minnesota experience, I could recommend that you install a simple CFL-warmer around the base of each such outdoor bulb. Works great with car engines! And you wouldn't have to worry about seeking an employer who provided electrical plug-ins in the parking lot.

... or I could return to our regularly-scheduled program, in progress.

[__HRB__]

Originally Posted by philmoore

Apparently not yours, either.

Apparently.

It is obvious that OT-III isn't good enough for you to discover the truth, therefore you must treat this as an Incident. Please visit your local RTC, replace your current standard issue Omega Clear E-meter with a brand new Super Theta Quantum Mark XVII, and do some really serious MEST auditing, so that this doesn't happen again.

[petrw1]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

I could recommend that you install a simple CFL-warmer around the base of each such outdoor bulb.

Thanks for the tip...never heard of them before.

[cheesehead]

Neither had I ... just thought of it.

The tricky part, of course, would be powering a CFL-warmer efficiently enough not to totally cancel out the energy savings from using the CFL instead of an incandescent in the first place.

Maybe solar-powered: The CFL-warmer would have a rechargeable battery and small solar cell to be faced southward. It wouldn't have to gather enough energy during the day to keep the CFL warm all night; it'd just have to accumulate enough for a few seconds of warmth applied to the ballast of the CFL when the CFL is first turned on.

OTOH, maybe special CFLs for outdoor use could have such a solar cell, battery and warming coil built into them. That would work nicely with the separate-base/replaceable-bulb type of CFL.

Hey, I may have a patentable idea here!

[xilman]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Hey, I may have a patentable idea here!

Not outside the US you haven't.


Paul

[only_human]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

I am constantly on co-workers (who really do know better and should be on the bleeding edge of the green revolution) when they talk about throwing out paper, etc. Breaking the old speach and thought patterns is vital. This is a principal that is used for by those that wish to achieve various goals. If you wish to be successful, dress, talk, and act like those that are successful. This is also a way that we teach children, we model behaviour and speak of things that we want them to understand to be important. Also, memes and names allow us to think differently. One of the best examples, "designated driver".

Powerful meme "designated driver"

On mercury, there is this:
Green' lightbulbs poison workers Hundreds of factory staff are being made ill by mercury used in bulbs destined for the West

In southern China, compact fluorescent lightbulbs destined for western consumers are being made in factories that range from high-tech multina-tional operations to sweat-shops, with widely varying standards of health and safety.

Tests on hundreds of employees have found dangerously high levels of mercury in their bodies and many have required hospital treatment, according to interviews with workers, doctors and local health officials in the cities of Foshan and Guangzhou.

A specialist medical journal, published by the health ministry, describes another compact fluorescent lightbulb factory in Jinzhou, in central China, where 121 out of 123 employees had excessive mercury levels. One man’s level was 150 times the accepted standard.

The same journal identified a compact fluorescent lightbulb factory in Anyang, eastern China, where 35% of workers suffered mercury poisoning, and industrial discharge containing the toxin went straight into the water supply.

Study Demonstrates How Methylmercury, Known to Contaminate Seafood, Originates in the Ocean

WASHINGTON, D.C. May 1, 2009 ­- A new landmark study published today documents for the first time the process in which increased mercury emissions from human sources across the globe, and in particular from Asia, make their way into the North Pacific Ocean and as a result contaminate tuna and other seafood. Because much of the mercury that enters the North Pacific comes from the atmosphere, scientists have predicted an additional 50 percent increase in mercury in the Pacific by 2050 if mercury emission rates continue as projected.

Water sampling cited in the study shows that mercury levels in 2006 were approximately 30 percent higher than those measured in the mid-1990s. This study documents for the first time the formation of methylmercury in the North Pacific Ocean. It shows that methylmercury is produced in mid-depth ocean waters by processes linked to the "ocean rain." Algae, which are produced in sunlit waters near the surface, die quickly and "rain" downward to greater water depths. At depth, the settling algae are decomposed by bacteria and the interaction of this decomposition process in the presence of mercury results in the formation of methylmercury. Many steps up the food chain later, predators like tuna receive methylmercury from the fish they consume.

One unexpected finding from this study is the significance of long-range transport of mercury within the ocean that originates in the western Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Asia.

In the United States, about 40 percent of all human exposure to mercury is from tuna harvested in the Pacific Ocean, according to Elsie Sunderland, a coauthor of the study. Methylmercury is a highly toxic form of mercury that rapidly accumulates in the food chain to levels that can cause serious health concerns for those who consume the seafood. Pregnant women who consume mercury can pass on life-long developmental effects to their children. That is why in 2004 EPA and FDA issued the landmark Joint Guidance on the Consumption of Fish specifically targeted towards pregnant women and nursing mothers. Previous studies show that 75 percent of human exposure worldwide to mercury is from the consumption of marine fish and shell fish.

Scientists have known for some time that mercury deposited from the atmosphere to freshwater ecosystems can be transformed (methylated) into methylmercury, but identifying the analogous cycles in marine systems has remained elusive. As a result of this study we now know more about how the process which leads to the transformation of mercury into methylmercury

[Xyzzy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minamata_disease
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomoko_Uemura_in_Her_Bath

[only_human]

Originally Posted by Xyzzy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minamata_disease
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomoko_Uemura_in_Her_Bath

Succinct. Cadmium in Japan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itai-itai_disease

I have had a small bit of a survey of money and China in my life. I helped a close Taiwanese friend in a neoprene and neoprene finished goods import business. I spent a month in Hong Kong shortly before the handover to China and I took a small tour into China. When staying in Hong Kong as guest of another friend and of her doctor father, one night they entertained a mainland businessman. I wasn't a good guest that night; my hot-button issue at the time was convict labor - and I brought that that up and I think also Section 1761 of Title 18, United States Code, the primary criminal statute prohibiting the importation of goods made with convict labor. The businessman was very calm and polite, more so than I, and made points about business and money. That and other things have made me understand that China needs no lessons in Capitalism.

So many little things pointed to money being king there as everywhere else. Cars in Hong Kong were very nice. I was told that permits to have one in Hong Kong were over $100,000 (I've never actually confirmed this) so that if you had a permit you might as well have a very nice car. As Realtors know, the number 8's sounds like money. Without checking to be precisely correct, "18" (something like "yat bah) means "get rich" "38" means sissy because of March 8th -- Womens day but I think it also means "still rich" because we joined another doctor for dinner one night and his license plate read if I recall correctly "2838" and I was told it meant "got rich - still rich."

This rambling talk is an attempt to express my personal feelings of disappointment in seeing China head down paths of exploitation, environmental destruction and grave health consequences of China's path through the industrial revolution. Capitalism intends to harness self interest into a greater good and Communism perhaps collective interest toward the same, but neither seems to be saving the earth or the valuable resources accumulated over eons from being wastefully and harmfully exploited and dispersed. From this link in my previous message 'Green' lightbulbs poison workers

The potential for litigation may be greatest in the ruined mountain landscape of Guizhou province in the southwest, where mercury has been mined for centuries. The land is scarred and many of the people have left.

Until recently, the conditions were medieval. Miners hewed chunks of rock veined with cinnabar, the main commercial source of mercury. They inhaled toxic dust and vapours as the material seethed in primitive cauldrons to extract the mercury. Nobody wore a mask or protective clothing.

“Our forefathers had been mining for mercury since the Ming Dynasty [1368-1644] and in olden days there was no pollution from such small mines,” said a 72-year-old farmer, named Shen.

“But in modern times thousands of miners came to our land, dug it out and poured chemicals to wash away the waste. Our water buffaloes grew stunted from drinking the water and our crops turned grey. Our people fell sick and didn’t live long. Anybody who could do has left.”

The government shut all the big mercury mining operations in the region in recent years in response to a fall in global mercury prices and concern over dead rivers, poisoned fields and ailing inhabitants.

But The Sunday Times found that in this remote corner of a poverty-stricken province, the European demand for mercury had brought the miners back.

A Chinese entrepreneur, Zhao Yingquan, has paid £1.5m for the rights to an old state-run mine. The Luo Xi mining company used thousands of prisoners to carve out its first shaft and tunnels in the 1950s.

“We’re in the last stages of preparing the mine to start operations again in the second half of this year,” said a manager at the site, named Su.

At Tongren, a town where mercury was processed for sale, an old worker spoke of the days when locals slaved day and night to extract the precious trickles of silvery metal.

“I worked for 40 years in a mine and now my body is full of sickness and my lungs are finished,” he said.

[__HRB__]

Originally Posted by only_human

The businessman was very calm and polite, more so than I, and made points about business and money. That and other things have made me understand that China needs no lessons in Capitalism.

Capitalism is compatible with Evolutionary Biology, so everything else is an automatic Darwinian dud. Since it's impossible for China to be economically successful without Capitalism, you could have come to the same conclusion by simply noticing all those 'Made in China' stickers.

Originally Posted by only_human

Capitalism intends to harness self interest into a greater good and Communism perhaps collective interest toward the same, but neither seems to be saving the earth or the valuable resources accumulated over eons from being wastefully and harmfully exploited and dispersed.

From which follows that hoarding valuable resources simply doesn't lead to a greater good. Why is that so hard to understand?