Friday, August 12, 2016

Environmentalism 101

When the Hudson River caught on fire; that was the last straw.  Americans had questioned ‘ocean dumping’ and other practices that fouled the water.  Los Angeles smog allowed the US to question air our quality.  The mistake we made was to create the EPA under the federal government.  We should have had the States set up their own EPDs.  The “pile-on” has been stunning ever since. 

Current EPA regulations would now criminalize farming because of (dust) and carbon dioxide (plant food). Government is seizing farmland like it seized timberland to protect “endangered species” that don’t exist on that land or don’t matter, like the snail darter. It only seizes land occupied by private small businesses, not ConAgra, because they have friends in the government.

The government has tied up one third of the US landmass to “protect it”. The government fails clear the underbrush on the timberland, like a land owner would do.  That’s why most of our forests burn down every summer when lightning strikes the timberland.

The global warming hoax gave rise to the carbon capture scam, because the UN wanted to crash the US economy and establish itself as our “one-world communist dictatorship”. 

Thanks to Obama’s war on coal, US electric rates are now 31% higher than they were in 2008.  The current cost of electricity from coal is up to 4 cents per kwh, but the cost of wind and solar are both 26 cents per kwh plus a 4 cent federal subsidy. If coal plants continue to be closed, our electric rates will rise another 50% very soon.

Americans were slow to provide clean drinking water and sanitation until the industrial revolution brought millions to the cities. See below: 

History of Water Treatment - Wikipedia

In the 19th century numerous American cities were afflicted with major outbreaks of disease, including cholera in 1832, 1849 and 1866 and typhoid in 1848.[17] The fast-growing cities did not have sewers and relied on contaminated wells within the city confines for drinking water supply. In the mid-19th century many cities built centralized water supply systems. However, initially these systems provided raw river water without any treatment.

Only after John Snow established the link between contaminated water and disease in 1854 and after authorities became gradually convinced of that link, water treatment plants were added and public health improved. Sewers were built since the 1850s, initially based on the erroneous belief that bad air (miasma theory) caused cholera and typhoid. It took until the 1890s for the now universally accepted germ theory of disease to prevail.
However, most wastewater was still discharged without any treatment, because wastewater was not believed to be harmful to receiving waters due to the natural dilution and self-purifying capacity of rivers, lakes and the sea. 

Wastewater treatment only became widespread after the introduction of federal funding in 1948 and especially after an increase in environmental consciousness and the upscaling of financing in the 1970s. For decades federal funding for water supply and sanitation was provided through grants to local governments. After 1987 the system was changed to loans through revolving funds.


The lead pipe problem in Flint Michigan is a leftover from the earlier work to clean up drinking water in 1948.  The local government knew there was a problem, but didn’t want to spend the money on fixing it.

DeKalb and Rio sewer leaks remind us that government is less interested in sanitation and maintenance and more interested in bread and circuses.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader


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