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What If We Never Passed the Clean Air Act?

Fortyyears ago, the United States government passed theClean Air Acta federal law that regulates atmospheric emissions in order to protect the air we breathe from pollution. Without it, our world would look a whole lot different.

But what exactly does that mean?

Let me take you into an alternate reality, with the help of a report from our friends at Save on Energy: a reality in which air pollution levels have reached a new height, where impurities rule and air visibility is just about non-existent. You can find that full report here!

What would our cities look like? How would our lives be different?

The following graphics demonstrate how American citieswould look in a world without the Clean Air Act. The pollution levels were determined by calculatingconcentration of particles in the air (similar to China’s post polluted city, Xingtai), to visibility in miles.

Here’s the actual formula, for all your science aficionadosout there:

Adj. Max. Daily PM2.5 for Population = (US Pop. / Xingtai Pop.) * Max Daily PM2.5 for Xingtai

VL= (A * 10^3)/G

VL= Equivalent visual range.

A = 0.75 Adjusted for miles

G = Micrograms per cubic meter.

Here’s how Chicagowould look without the Clean Air Act:

What about Dallas? Houston?San Jose? Take a look!

What isAir Pollution?

According to the Save on Energy report, which gives a great definition, “Air pollution occurs when particulate matter, biological agents, or other harmful pollutants are introduced into the atmosphere, posing both an environmental and human health risk.” The World Health Organization (WHO) considers this to be just about any contaminant that “modifies the natural characteristics of the atmosphere.”

Pollutants like this can come through anything like industrial facilities, the burning of fossil fuels, vehicle exhaust, household fires and more. These pollutants can cause allergies and seriously detrimental diseases like lung cancer, chronic and acute respiratory disease, asthma, reduced fertility, neurological disorders and stroke.They also make their way into our foods, contaminating the fish and plants we eatthrough bioaccumulation,and cause acid rain. The Guardian suggests that air pollution kills approximately 3.3 million people every single yeara number that will double by 2050 if we don’t make some more serious changes to our pollution policies. That’s more than malaria and HIV/AIDScombined.

Did the Clean Air Act really make a difference?

Absolutely! Since 1973, when the Act was passed, the Clean Air Act has helped decrease surface ozone levels by 25 percent since 1980, reduced mercury emissions by 45 percent since 1990 and taken out more than half of the nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide responsible for acid rain since 1980. We can also thank the Clean Air Act for preventing the premature deaths of some 40,000 people, and millions more from contracting diseases like those listed above.

Thank goodness for proactivity!

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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What If We Never Passed the Clean Air Act?

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Trump shows us what happens to a climate denier in denial

If Donald Trump is trying to run away from his well-known position as a climate change denier, he’s doing a terrible job at it.

Less than 12 hours after a debate against Hillary Clinton in which he personally denied calling climate change a hoax, Trump’s campaign manager and running mate offered different versions of what the candidate supposedly believes: He thinks it exists but isn’t human-made, or he thinks it is human-made but doesn’t want to do anything about it.

Regardless of what his surrogates are saying on TV this morning, there’s a long Twitter record of Trump’s unscientific statements about climate to fall back on. His position is clear: It’s a hoax. What’s less clear is what he hopes to gain by changing that position now. Could it be that even the Trump campaign recognizes that climate denial in the face of clear evidence is a losing position in a general election?

Certainly Clinton seems to think it’s a strong avenue of attack: Unprompted by moderator Lester Holt during the debate last night on Long Island, Clinton said: “Donald thinks that climate change is a hoax perpetuated by the Chinese.”

Because he couldn’t help himself, Trump only managed to emphasize her point by interjecting, “I did not,” sending all the fact checkers to Twitter, where his four-year-old tweet saying exactly that became the top retweeted tweet during the debate:

Oops?

The lying doesn’t stop there, though. Tuesday morning, Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway was asked on CNN if her candidate thinks global warming is a hoax. Conway insisted, no, he doesn’t believe it’s a hoax, but he does believe “that climate change is naturally occurring, that there are shifts naturally occurring.”

Then, on the very same show, Trump’s vice presidential pick took an abruptly different tone on climate change. Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who himself once called global warming “a myth,” suggested that greenhouse gases have “some impact” on the climate.

“There’s no question that — that — that the activities that take place in this country and in countries around the world have some impact on the environment and some impact on climate,” Pence said. “But Donald Trump and I say: Let’s follow the science, but for heaven’s sakes, let’s not go rushing into the kind of restrictions on our economy that are putting Americans out of work.”

When it isn’t Trump himself talking, his campaign has sometimes tried to soften his position on the climate issue. “Perhaps we should be focused on developing energy sources and power production that alleviates the need for dependence on fossil fuels,” Trump (or his campaign) wrote to ScienceDebate earlier this month.

It’s clear why Clinton wants to emphasize Trump’s inconsistent and unscientific climate positions. In light of recent polls, her campaign has zeroed in on more millennial-friendly messaging, in hopes of winning over young voters looking to third-party candidates like Green Jill Stein or Libertarian Gary Johnson.

Clinton largely sidelined climate change in her speeches after Bernie Sanders conceded in the primary contest, but she’s now turning to the issue again as part of a strong messaging strategy. The differences between her and Trump are more stark on climate change than on nearly any other issue — one accepts scientific consensus, the other doesn’t.

So while Clinton’s plan was clear, what the hell was Trump doing?

Clearly, calling a respected field of science a “hoax” on the national stage is not the image his campaign wants to put forward. Trump’s position on climate and energy isn’t that different from the rest of the GOP, but in a normal presidential year, he might have at this point recast his climate denial as mere reluctance to act, to make the position more palatable to the general election voter.

Yet Trump’s not running a normal campaign in any sense, so climate change gets the same brash treatment as every other issue the candidate touches on.

There were plenty of other positions that the candidates skirmished over last night, and Clinton implored the “factcheckers, get to work” a few times. Trump once again said he never supported the Iraq war, which was a lie; he did.

Conway, Trump’s spokesperson, in fact tried to pivot to the Iraq war this morning on CNN when asked about Trump’s climate answer. The Trump campaign clearly isn’t eager to answer questions on the subject.

But in denying his denial, what’s the logic? He’s been fine with it for years. His 2012 China tweet wasn’t just a poorly considered slip, but one of many:

As recently as late 2015, Trump still was fine saying: “a lot of it’s a hoax. It’s a hoax. I mean, it’s a money-making industry, okay?”

Then in January, as Politifact points out, Trump tried to play off the tweet about China as a joke: “I often joke that this is done for the benefit of China. Obviously, I joke. But this is done for the benefit of China, because China does not do anything to help climate change.”

Was Trump joking all those times he called it a hoax?

Hard to believe. And his voters sure don’t.

Other than Trump’s unexpected backtrack (or not) on climate, we didn’t learn anything new about either candidate’s energy positions in this debate. The themes of “prosperity” and “securing America” might have lended themselves to discussing both climate, which the military calls a significant threat, and clean energy, which has overtaken the fossil fuel industry as a job creator. But as is usual in presidential debates, the moderator didn’t see fit to steer the candidates in those directions.

Clinton, however, did cite two of her climate and energy proposals: deploying a half-billion solar panels and rebuilding the electric grid. Trump never once mentioned his energy proposals, even forgetting his promises to wave a wand and restore coal country, despite the debate’s focus on American industry in the first 15 minutes.

In the end, though, Clinton didn’t need to go on at length about her climate solutions, because it’s enough for her to draw out the contrast with Trump. He has no position on climate, except for his plan to appoint a climate change denier to lead the Environmental Protection Agency transition.

Clinton for now is content to use Trump’s words against him and let his position speak for itself. Their little exchange on Trump’s tweet did more to help put climate change on the map for future debates than any of Clinton’s policy positions.

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Trump shows us what happens to a climate denier in denial

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China and the U.S. really want you to know we’re in it together on climate change.

On Saturday, Presidents Obama and Xi Jinping formally joined the Paris climate agreement in a joint event in China, giving the deal a big boost from the two top polluters.

The future of the climate agreement is something of a numbers game: 55 countries representing 55 percent of global greenhouse emissions must ratify it before the deal becomes official. China and the U.S. together represent 38 percent of global emissions.

If all the countries that said they will try to ratify the deal this year do so, including Brazil, Japan, Argentina, and South Korea, then the agreement could be entered into force before year’s end.

The sooner Paris is official, the better, the thinking goes: It gives nations a head start on how they’re going to meet their (non-legally binding) promises, and makes Donald Trump’s promises to “cancel” the agreement look foolish.

“This is momentum with purpose,” a White House adviser said in a press call Friday.

Just six years ago, Obama famously crashed a secret meeting held by China, India, and Brazil because the Copenhagen climate negotiations were deadlocked. Considering their complete transformation in years since, their joint ratification is a remarkable symbolic moment.

Link:

China and the U.S. really want you to know we’re in it together on climate change.

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This Is the Most Heartbreaking News About Animals You’ll Read Today

Mother Jones

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Africa’s iconic savanna elephants are disappearing—and poaching is to blame. That’s the takeaway of the Great Elephant Census, an elephant count conducted by researchers from an array of conservation and zoological groups in Africa.

Between 2007 and 2014, Africa’s elephant population dwindled by 30 percent, down to a grand total of just over 352,000 elephants. According to the World Wildlife Fund, there were as many as 3-5 million elephants in the early twentieth century.

Over the past 5-10 years, because of mounting demand for ivory, largely in China, elephant poaching has increased dramatically, especially in eastern and western Africa.

Some of the highest carcass ratios—a metric that compares PDF the number of dead elephants to the total number of live and dead elephants in a given area—were found in Cameroon, Mozambique, Tanzania and Angola, which had not been surveyed before.

Other reasons linked to the decline are human-elephant conflict, habitat loss and fragmentation, and the isolation of populations.

The report raises concerns about how the animals are protected. “The clear implication is that many reserves are failing to adequately shield elephants from poaching and human-elephant conflict,” said the study.

While these revelations may bring more attention to poaching and other issues affecting savanna elephants, the problems will likely persist. Poachers are paid handsomely—as much as $1,500 per pound of ivory on the black market—and they don’t serve much time in jail.

“If we can’t save the African elephant, what is the hope of conserving the rest of Africa’s wildlife?” said Mike Chase, GEC principal investigator, in a statement.

A few breathtaking photos of these disappearing majestic creatures:

Imago via ZUMA Press

Imago via ZUMA Press

Imago via ZUMA Press

Imago via ZUMA Press

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This Is the Most Heartbreaking News About Animals You’ll Read Today

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In Italy’s Earthquake Zone, Love of Place Trumps Safety

An Italian engineer explains why, facing perpetual earthquake risk, many people in Italy’s ancient vulnerable towns stay put. Originally posted here:   In Italy’s Earthquake Zone, Love of Place Trumps Safety ; ; ;

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Grow Your Own Goji Berries

Goji berries dont have to be a high-priced, exclusive superfood. Theyre actually easy to grow in your own garden.

Native to Asia, goji berries (Lycium barbarum) are also known as wolfberries. They are a member of the nightshade family, which includes tomatoes, peppers and potatoes. The majority of commercially produced goji berries are grown in China. These are most commonly available dried and can be considerably expensive.

By growing your own goji berries, you can have an abundant supply of fresh, local, organic berries that are almost impossible to find in a store. Gojis are a perennial shrub that will come back every year, which means youll have an ongoing supply of this healthy berry for free.

Whats So Great About Goji Berries?

Traditional Chinese medicine has used goji berries for thousands of years. Some suggest goji berries can help diabetes, hypertension, menopause and even malaria, but research is still needed to support these claims.

A 2008 study did show that consuming goji juice for 14 days increased feelings of wellbeing and improved neurological performance and gastrointestinal functions. Other studies have found that consuming goji berries may help prevent macular degeneration, promote longevityand boost your immune system.

In addition, goji berries are high in antioxidants and nutrients. A one-ounce (28 gram) serving of goji berries has 50 percent of your daily recommended vitamin A, 14 percent of your iron, 9 percent of your fiber, as well as high amounts of selenium, copper, riboflavin, protein and vitamin C.

Tips for Growing Goji Berries

Goji berries are hardy to USDA zone 5. They form a loose shrub thats 4 to 7 feet (1.2 to 2.1 meters) tall with long, vine-like branches. The small, purple flowers start in spring and will continue through the summer. This gives you a consistent crop of berries from early summer until frost.

1. Where to Get Plants

Garden centers are starting to carry goji berry plants as their popularity rises. You can also get young plants from mail order catalogues or online.

Its easy to start your own from seed as well. Try buying some packaged seeds or simply plant some of the dried berries you can buy for eating. Soak the berries for a couple hours before planting them in a potting soil mix. Keep the pots moist at room temperature and they should germinate in 2 to 4 weeks.

A small shrub will start producing berries within one or two years. A seedling will take about 3 years to make berries.

2. Soil and Location

Goji plants can handle a wide range of conditions. They prefer a moderately moist, well-drained soil, but they are also fairly drought tolerant.

The berries will produce and ripen the best in full sun.

You can also grow gojis in containers. Make sure to use a pot at least 18 inches (45 centimeters) wide to accommodate the full size of a goji shrub. It should be able to overwinter outside in USDA zones 6 and higher.

Mature Goji Berry Shrub

3. Support Structures

Goji berry shrubs have long, arching branches that hold up better with some structural support. A simple T frame works well, where you sink a post at both ends of a row of goji berry bushes, put one or more cross bars on each post to look like a T, then attach strong wires between the cross bars along the row. This will contain and support the branches.

You can also train gojis onto a trellis, fence or any other solid structure.

4. Pruning

Due to their vigorous growth habit, gojis can be pruned anytime to control their height and shape. Its also beneficial to thin out at least one third or more of the branches in late winter. This will allow more light into the shrub during the growing season, which helps to increase the number of berries and ripening speed.

Gojis will often send out suckers as they get older. Youll probably see small goji shoots growing a few feet away from the main plant. You can simply pull these out or transplant them to an area where you want more gojis.

Goji Berry Branches

5. Harvesting and Storage

The young berries take a few weeks to ripen, so wait until theyre a nice dark orange or red shade before picking. The best way to judge when to harvest the berries is by their sweetness. Fresh gojis always have a bit of tanginess to them, but they sweeten up as they ripen. If you feel theyre still too tart or sour, give them a few more days to ripen and then sample again.

You can dry goji berries for storage in a dehydrator or by laying them out on paper in a warm, well-ventilated area for a few days. Fresh goji berries also freeze well. They can be packed into freezer bags and frozen directly without any pre-treatment.

6. Uses for Goji Berries

Goji berries can be eaten fresh or cooked. Theyre nutritionally dense and have a strong flavor, so you dont need to use a lot in any particular dish. They go well in smoothies, trail mixes and desserts, or as a garnish for cereals, salads or yogurt.

Try putting them in an apple crisp, carrot cake or another baked treat. They can also make a tasty addition to casseroles and soups.

The only risk found for goji berries is that they can interact with some medications, so check with your doctor before adding them to your diet.

Related:
6 Amazing Recipes Made With The Power of Goji Berries
How to Pick and Preserve Your Favorite Berries
How Honeybees Buzz Out Pests

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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Grow Your Own Goji Berries

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Cows pass gas ’so they don’t explode,’ dairy industry reminds us

natural gas

Cows pass gas ’so they don’t explode,’ dairy industry reminds us

By on Aug 12, 2016 5:48 pmShare

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

California’s attempt to curb emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, is facing vocal opposition from a dairy industry that fears government meddling in the flatulence of its cows.

The California Air Resources Board (ARB) has set a goal of slashing methane emissions by 40 percent by 2030, from 2013 levels, and has targeted the belching and farting — known as “enteric fermentation” — of California’s 5.5 million beef and dairy cows, as well as the manure they create.

A strategy document produced by the regulator states that improved manure management practices, new diets for cattle and “gut microbial interventions” could help cut the amount of methane released into the atmosphere. State legislators are currently considering a bill to enforce these suggestions.

Methane, primarily emitted from agriculture and the fossil fuel industry, doesn’t linger in the atmosphere as long as carbon dioxide. But it is 25 times more potent as a greenhouse gas over a 100-year period.

California has moved to limit methane after the state’s glowing reputation for climate action received a nasty blow by a natural gas leak this year in the mountains above Los Angeles that took 112 days to plug and spewed 97,100 metric tonnes of methane into the atmosphere.

But the state’s dairy industry has criticized the crackdown on methane leaking from cattle, launching a social media and email campaign that claims the ARB is overstepping its remit and raises the specter of exploding cows.

“The focus here is to highlight ARB’s efforts at over-regulating the dairy industry,” said Anja Raudabaugh, chief executive of Western United Dairymen. “By nature’s design, [cows] pass lots of gas. Quite frankly, we want them to expel gas so they don’t explode.”

The Milk Producers Council has also lambasted the prospect of new regulation, with the lobby group’s general manager Rob Vandenheuvel stating that the methane rules plan “threatens the future of the California dairy industry.”

“This is about fighting against the ridiculously stupid ‘go-it-alone’ strategy for implementing business killing regulations aimed at reducing greenhouse gases,” Vandenheuvel said.

“When the U.S. talks about going this direction, while countries like China refuse, I call that crazy. When a single state like California does it on its own, I call that absolutely insane.”

In May, the Obama administration unveiled new rules to cut methane emissions from the oil and gas industry by up to 45 percent by 2025, from 2012 levels. The rules are part of a number of executive actions taken by the president this year — including on emissions from aircraft and refrigerants — in the face of escalating global temperatures.

The world has just experienced 14 consecutive months of record heat, with scientists expressing alarm at the pace of temperature increase and resulting impact upon glaciers and sea levels.

Neither California nor the federal government, however, has yet adopted an idea from Argentina’s government that large backpacks be strapped onto cows to trap methane and turn it into green energy.

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Cows pass gas ’so they don’t explode,’ dairy industry reminds us

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How Unpopular Is Trump? Clinton Is Courting Mormon Voters in Utah Now.

Mother Jones

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When Donald Trump promised to expand the electoral map this spring, he didn’t mean he’d put Utah in play for his Democratic rival. But on Tuesday we got a little bit more evidence of how shaky the GOP nominee is looking in one of the most consistently Republican states in the country. With polls showing a close race in Utah and two third-party candidates looking to siphon off votes from Trump—former CIA officer and Brigham Young University alumnus Evan McMullin entered the race this week—Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton published an op-ed slamming Trump in the Deseret News, the Salt Lake City newspaper published by the Mormon Church.

Trump has struggled to win over some Mormon voters in large part because of his extreme positions on immigrants and his proposal to crack down on adherents of a specific religion, Islam. (Mormons have endured a history of religious persecution.) In her op-ed, Clinton zeroed in on these policies. “I’ve been fighting to defend religious freedom for years,” she wrote, touting her work with former Utah Republican governor (and 2012 presidential candidate) Jon Huntsman, scion of one of the state’s most powerful families, in protecting Christians in China.

Then she twisted the knife, comparing Trump’s proposals to previous instances of state-sponsored discrimination and violence against Mormons:

But you don’t have to take it from me. Listen to Mitt Romney, who said Trump “fired before aiming” when he decided a blanket religious ban was a solution to the threat of terrorism.

Listen to former Sen. Larry Pressler, who said Trump’s plan reminded him of when Missouri Gov. Lilburn Boggs singled out Mormons in his infamous extermination order of 1838.

Or listen to your governor, who saw Trump’s statement as a reminder of President Rutherford B. Hayes’ attempt to limit Mormon immigration to America in 1879.

The Clinton op-ed gets at just how unusual the 2016 campaign has been. Four years after Romney, the first Mormon presidential nominee, won an astounding 72.6 percent of the vote there, the Democratic nominee is invoking Joseph Smith and Brigham Young in a pitch for Utah votes. And it doesn’t even sound that far-fetched at this point.

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How Unpopular Is Trump? Clinton Is Courting Mormon Voters in Utah Now.

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Quote of the Day: China Lands Sick Burn on Australia

Mother Jones

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Apparently China is upset with Australia over some Olympic-related stuff, so they hit back with an op-ed in China’s Global Times tabloid:

It’s not a big deal to us. In many serious essays written by Westerners, Australia is mentioned as a country at the fringes of civilization. In some cases, they refer to the country’s early history as Britain’s offshore prison. This suggests that no one should be surprised at uncivilized acts emanating from the country.

Take that, Australia! Apparently China has been taking lessons from the master of insults. This sure sounds like something from an unusually dimwitted protege of Donald Trump, doesn’t it?

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Quote of the Day: China Lands Sick Burn on Australia

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You Have to Read This Amazing Tweetstorm by Jeb Bush’s National Security Adviser About Trump

Mother Jones

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The former national security adviser for both Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney let loose this morning on the irresponsibility of giving Donald Trump the keys to nuclear warfare. John Noonan, a devout #NeverTrumper who is now a national security analyst and commentator, tweeted that electing Trump as president has consequences that threaten global peace.

Read his take below:

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You Have to Read This Amazing Tweetstorm by Jeb Bush’s National Security Adviser About Trump

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