The Hayseeds blog, No. 44 for the week starting January 3, 2004.
December 20, 2003
Hayseeds No. 43
January 3, 2004
Hayseeds No. 44
January 10, 2004
Hayseeds No. 44
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Everybody goes home unhappy, only getting a fraction of what they want. Sometimes there is light are the end of the dark long, bureacratic tunnel.
Both Jennings of the NY Snowmobile Association and Woodworth of ADK have problems with it:
"The state fails to provide us in this plan with an inventory of existing trails. That is crucial," says Jennings. Without an inventory of the number of trail miles already existing in the park, and where those trails are, negotiations over a new trail system "with no material increase in the number of actual miles" will be futile and meaningless.
Neil Woodworth, counsel for the Adirondack Mountain Club, and Brian Houseal, executive director of the Adirondack Council, also find a major flaw in the lack of an inventory and good maps of where trails exist.
Obviously the state doesn't want to define that,it would upset somebody's feelings,can't do that. Nobody really knows how many miles of trail there are,and how to define trail,they just stick snowmobile trail markers, whereever there is a path,or so it would seem.
Even improving the trail system gets on people's nerves:
At stake is what the character of the winter Adirondacks will be in years to come. Woodworth is of the added opinion that scars left by overly groomed trails will affect the summer Adirondacks as well, although that is arguable.
See Fred LeBrun's fairer column today, which actually seems balanced for once.
On the possible new Buddist Center of Game Farm Road in the Switzkill Valley.
That's the latest development for that lush green valley, near Partridge Run and Irish Hill that we all love.
You can guess what the debate focuses on,irrevelant religious issues and not serious environmental consquences.
They appear to abate that problem by keeping it simple and environmentally low-impact:
The proposed Center of Wisdom and Compassion, off County Route 1, would feature small signs and ground lights that meet the International Dark-Sky Association anti-light-pollution standards, Brown said. It would contain its own waste-water treatment plant, a refurbished residence and dining hall, a small monastery and temple and 40 tent sites.
And obviously there is the issue of it being not-for-profit and not paying property taxes,admitly though it seems as though they won't take a lot of resources from local government, as they are mostly self contained, except for repair/improvement to that rutted cowpath known as Game Farm Road.
Like its predecessor, the New School, Rigpa is a not-for-profit organization and as such will not pay property taxes
See the article in the TU.
Some thoughts on the cover-up and changing of facts relating to the environmental problems in a post-9/11 city (inspired after reading an article on this in Sierra).
People are really surpised that the President worked to downplay the environmental impact of the falling of the Septemember 11th attacks,or maybe not surpised as much as upset.
Part of his rational was the scope and the nature of the project: declaring that this was an abestos project would greatly have inflated costs and set public paranoia through the roof, even if such measures were not really needed.
What fundamentally is asbestos, and what are the risks? While I'm not an asbestos expert, I've learned a bunch about it.
I can say it's one of 5 different mineral compounds, known for it's stregth (sometimes mixed with steel, concerete, floor tile for stress intensive operations), fireproofing (mixed with other things for insulation), and other properities. It's almost exclusively used in specific applications, such as brake pads, and we still use it cars for that use among others (rust protection, clutch pads).
While with one ear we talk about how dangerous it is to breathe in even one fiber, Raybestos (and others) still makes millions of Asbestos brake pads and clutches a year,just think, every time you hit the brakes, dozens of fibers are wearing off and getting into the air around your car. No other chemical is strong enough for such intensive application. Likewise, if you've ever been in a room with crumbling (into dust) floor tile (right now my chair sits on a big pile of asbestos dust ;), it's almost guaranteed to be asbestos,the new stuff doesn't crumble the same way,it breaks into pieces. So everybody probably has breathed in some asbestos in their lifetimes.
Asbestos contains particularly small fibers, compared to other materials and forms of pollution out there. The exposure to all small particals are suspected to be carcengonic,particularly really small ones,but things like wood smoke and road dust also are gaining suspect in the scienitific community.
The trick of the health/environmental community is not to find real solutions to real problems,instead it is to create the appereance of safety and that they are doing that make up for the big salaries they draw from the state. Certainly most scientists aren't frauds trying to rip off society,but the people implementing their recommendations certianly may exploit them to their advantage,especially in the fields of great unknowns like cancer research (does anybody really know what causes cancer?).
So why do we do such stringent abatements, where less then 0.10 fibers are allowed per field of the PCM cartridge? The answer is we don't know what a safe amount of asbestos fibers are, we are trying to cover all possible liability.
After September 11th, people needed to return to normallacy quickly, and keep the city progressing forward,the city would be drawn to a stop if all of lower manhatten had to be wrapped in 6 mil poly, people had to wear PPE, and a full abestos/other hazardous material abatement had to occur. I don't think anybody could reasonably dream of doing an asbestos clean up of that size.
Does the public understand the risk that abestos (and other chemicals pose), beyond what they learn on dramatized yellow-journalism news-mag shows? People would demand full abatements of 9/11 dust, while maybe sensible in normal times, is too costly and too wasteful after such an attack.
Honestly, I'm not crazy about the government lieing to the people. But, I believe lieing about the reasons for inaction, are far better then the government taking action based on a lie (as with Iraq's WMD).
How many people will die because of the September 11th dust? It's going to be a long time before we know, and it will probably be almost impossible to trace (cancer is a dog to really understand it's causes). Still I do not think it will involve significant numbers: the cost of the few people's lives in 40 years from now, will not compare to that of doing a proper clean-up in normal times.
Alas, another term with latent values,and a way to gain capitalist monies.
The Country Christmas trees sign in front of Agway gave me a chuckle for a while, as does the Country Square/Byrants. What fundamentally is a Country Christmas Tree, and how is it different from the urban equivalent? Aren't most trees grown on rural tree farms.
People are normally symathetic to the rural, if only because it's gotten a kind of priveledged status in our psychy,even if it's not true.
I've found people are pretty decent all ways around,people are helpful, be it in downtown Albany, the suburb of Delmar, or outside of Medusa.
I swear everytime I'm up in Renselearville State Forest, and I'm either out taking photos, hiking, or even just entering my car, somebody stops and asks if I need help,well, I may, but I think I'm okay on my own at least for now.
Lots of people,and it's not just in the winter,I guess it's nice that there are so many friendly people out here in the boondocks. I never worry about getting stuck or breaking down around here,there is always a few cars every hour (if not more), and always many people willing to help.
Honestly though, I shouldn't put the city in a much darker light. I've found people are quite nice, even when I'm being a dumb hick, that I am. They've explained the bus system to me, pointed me into the right direction, offered plenty of assistance with a variety of things, and generally have been useful.
And the urban-rural conflict of sorts (and I'm not only talking about the few big New York corn producers who will be cashing in).
They are saying (at least Stewart's) to expect 5 cent per gallon increases immediatly (50 cents a Sundance tankfull), but some others may temporarly have greater increases,basically small potatos in gasoline costs, even for those will full-size pickup trucks, it's only going to cost an extra buck per fill up.
At least for me, so far the fill up today seemed no more painful then before,but I guess it all depends on who you talk to,gas prices are always in flux,5¢ per gallon seems nothing to me.
Obviously the benifit of protecting the water supply of the many people who drink well water is increadibly desirable,we don't want to have to force people to go to public water. There are a lot of people who do that, and ultimately it's the question of the autonomous individual versus just another on mass urban water supply.
I've noted to death that MTBE is so nasty because it has a natural affinity to water, unlike gasoline, which simply floats on top. MTBE instantly destroys drinking water, by creating water that tastes like turpintine (and environmentalists like to give it the scare factor of it being pontentially cancer causing like most other things in life). So it has to go, there will be no MTBE in gas after Jan 1st.
Of course, there are people who are worried about any money penny they have to pinch: particularly consumers of public water system who see no benifit in the ban. Vanessa Carter of Albany in the article is a perfect example of this. Of course, you may be poor, but you probably waste more then 50 cents to a buck a week on other things (if you fill up once a week), so it doesn't seem so bad.
Some note that burning ethanol may not be as effective of an oxygent as MTBE, and may lead to an increase in soot. Some environmentalists see through the ethanol thing, like any compent auto-mechanic would: namely that oxygents really aren't required for clean combustion on modern fuel injected engines (which all cars built since '92 have as standard equipment).
Sierra Magazine also notes that Cargill and Dow are partnering to create a whole new selection of corn-based biodegradable plastics.
I can think of two problems with such things, that the right often points out, trying to negate environmentalists: they are a rather fake attempt at environmentalism, and biodegrable plastics only appear that way, as only the corn bonding the polymers biodegrade, creating the appearance of breaking down, but leaving polymers (oil based compounds) permentently in the soil.
The first point looks at the non-autonomous/urban individual (yes, non-autonomous is a misodomener,dependent on urban society migth be better) of sorts, who can't compost or burn the so-called biodegrable plastics. The national review had an article a few years back mocking this point. So they end up sending them to the landfill, which has a greatly slowed anerobic biodegration process, almost negating the point of being biodegradable. Likewise, a modern municipal incinerator probably doesn't care much about biodegradable or not-plastics, nor do people downwind: as modern incineration reduces dioxins to small numbers.
Of course, for the people who can compost it is a boon, as is to people who end up (or would like to) burning plastic trash,as it won't smell as much, will cut down on potential emissions of dioxin and other chemicals (although not as much as one would like). Suddenly, not only are we doing something good for the environment, but we are putting more control back into the individual's hands.
The problem of the non-biodegrable polymers connected together by biodegrable corn starch is another issue that some have mentioned. I'll try to explain this the best I can,I ain't a scientist.
Yes, the plastic breaks down fairly quickly, into dirt created from broken down corn starch, but it also contains polymers made of oil, that take longer to break down (still at such a small size, they are both pretty harmless and they break down then stuck together with non-biodegradable chemicals). That, said my experience is that plastics, exposed to the sun and natural forces do break down fairly quickly,but complete degration into soil probably will still take close to a full century (which really isn't that long in the term of mankind, but it is a problem with the amount of waste produced).
Environmentalists often gloss over this point,even though it's a point that some probably would raise if it weren't for the obvious environmental benifit. Is it okay to be sticking non-natural stuff in the soil,ala. a farm dump in the back 40? Many would frown on people dumping burn barrel ash and cans in their backyard to fill in a rut, yet that would seem to dispose of the material in a quicker and probably more environmentally friendly way, then sticking it in a landfill where it will last much longer.
There are some interesting issues to address with this technology, but it seems like a force of good, that will allow us to continue our rediclous high levels of consumption, with lower levels of environmental degregation,and at the same time, we will make farmers who grow corn to sell on the market even happier.
Certainly strong corn prices would be good for farmers, and if this catches on, above and beyond the increase of demand for ethanol, it could lead to the protection of many areas from sprawl.
While interesting, I can't think of much to say on them.
The Times Union has a nice feature about volunteer firefighters,my hat's off to them, be it that they are fire bugs or just like helping people,something gets them to do a job that most of us would resist (getting up at 2 AM to crawl around in a dirty burning building),for no pay.
I see that the USDA is bungling up the Mad Cow stuff even more, trying to maximize people's fears by creating a hotline to complain if they believe they ate recalled meat, and the beef seller's recall is so expansive that it effects 8 Western states, creating even more fear. I0 cvb swear if anything: mad cow exists just to screw over small farmers.
Also, the retired Dr. James Mosher (of the HVCC Career Center)'s Woodside church (that he was pastor of) is closing. This is really quite sad, but it shows how small organizations (his church only had 14 members at it end), particularly in urban areas continue to struggle. I guess now he is really retired.
In the state section of the TU on Tuesday, there is a picture of Brilliant Bloomberg, suppostly mulching the first christmas tree,see he's trying to get reprieve for his supension of the tree recycling program last year. Of course, I still believe he should be condemned to hell, not for being Mr. Bloomberg, but simply for becoming mayor of hell/NYC.
I've been doing a lot of skiing and hiking lately (see the outblog come January).
Umm... it's been a fun break so far,also been doing some reading, searching for answers to questions, and I don't know,also some work.
I'm both getting farther behind, starting new projects, and not finishing them,and at the same time, getting a lot done,you know how that works.
I'm busy now, and the weather isn't going to be so great, the next time I'll get out hiking/skiing will be in the new year, I'm thinking Sunday looks good, and after that, will be my offical opening of outblog.
I know,all these silly em-dashes will probably give my cancer, but that's how I think nowdays, and after all, everything gives you cancer.
that was my fall semister GPA, not bad at all,although I always wish I could do better.
My grades are as follows:
A: Political Theory, Contemporary Political Philosophy, International Relations
A-: Bioterrorism / Selected Political Problems
B-: Discrete Structures (Yeah,that class was a bitch)
So I'm glad I can finally get some final closure to the semister.
I've found a lot of junk in the woods in the past, including bags of beer bottles from parties, but this one is a first.
I found a bag (a thick 3' mil poly construction debris bag) filled with garbage in the woods, quite obviously from a party, but with no returnable bottles or cansin the bag,noted after poking through it with a stick.
I thought the refund bill was suppost to cut down on litter,not just encourage people to leave bags of non-refundable trash in the woods.
I guess these sensible kids decided to claim the desposit, and just leave the paper beer cases behind,of course I wonder why,most likely if your hauling the bottles out of the woods, you've brought a truck, and tossing another bag on wouldn't be that hard,and since your returing the bottles, the remainder of the stuff is readily combustable and could have been just tossed in the campfire, or taken home and burnt in one's burn barrel.
Or so it would seem,I know, yahoos just do these things to be yahoos,there is no real rational.
No,I was bad and I didn't remove the trash from the woods,I wasn't going to haul a bunch of wet, dirty trash a half mile, then put it in my trunk of my car. Maybe if it's still there when the snow melts, I'll do something about it,be it get out some matches or take it home for disposal (the first is more likely, as I don't want to put it in my trunk).
Another day, another developer, hunkering for some more land in the beautiful Pine Bush,alas, isn't that why people want to develop there in the first place,and make it uglier?
Of course there are frivilous developments, and there are really frivilous developments in the Pine Bush,this has to be one of the worst. A developer wants to build a 124 room hotel near Crossgates Mall.
There is a need for another hotel in the Capital Distict? This is news to me,it seems like there already is a lot of them around,and why do so many people need to stay in hotels,it's not like there is much of a reason to come to Albany.
Rigth now this parcel of land is zoned single-family houses, but as the paper notes, this is stopped mainly because it's right next to the mall and nobody wants to live there.
Will the Common Council change the zoning so that yet another hotel can be built in the Albany area, in the Pine Bush, that is. Daniel Herring the chair of the Zonning Committee says that there are some issues here
, and the butterfly is still out there, but it is pretty serious
,but this is the Albany Common Council,do you really think they will take a principled stand against developers,especially if they are big democratic givers?
I know,the apperance of impropiety or its lack does not mean anything when it comes to corruption in government. Part of the problem is too many people who are tracking down the money are looking for big contributers in big companies buying favors, and not little mom-and-pop companies, which stand to get far more from government,and there favors desired are seemingly little taken independently,but together, there is the potential for real corruption.
Not surpisingly, this deal involves a whole lot of monkey business,including a parcel of land illegally cleared in '98 by Pyramid/Crossgates, as an attempt to have more land avalible for future expansion,there ain't no Blue Karners around these parts,we removed 'em all with our bulldozers.
Just bulldozing the area has created a lot of carnage,see the Eastern Area of Blueberry Hill Barrens. The bulldozer can quickly turn sand dunes into little more then just flat sandy soil, not unlike the rest of Albany and other areas around,nothing particularly special, and with lots of scruby black locutus trees. Black locutus trees make excellent fence poles for one's farm, but they don't belong in the Pine Bush,they are currently using herbicides and to a lesser extent planned burns to get rid of them.
I honestly was lucky enough to see one Blue Karner butterfly, exploring the Pine Bush early last September (quarter-sized, and a beautiful blue body) ,it was kind of a treat to stumble upon one in the East Barrens. Noting how rare they truly are to see today,ENCON has only idenitified 5 of them in the Pine Bush this year,I am just amazed. Rubs eyes,maybe I didn't see one.
If you haven't been to the Pine Bush,I highly recommend you check out this area.
It's kind of amazing that he's gotten out and gone so far to see all of the counties in New York State in a single year, while still being a NY Senator.
Now if cows could only vote,well, he's done pretty good job at getting the dairy farmer vote, as with other people in upstate,he's probably pulled over many moderates to his side.
Moo. Probably Schumer is a mad cow after visiting all those farms.
It's great that he's gone so far,it's a lot easier to understand a problem in Franklin County, if you've been there.
Vermont 279 will now connect US Route 7 (the Super-2 highway) with Route 7 in New York, just past the State line.
What does this mean? Less traffic in Bennington (I'm sure the stores aren't quite so pleased with this), but easier access to Vermont for New Yorkers, and vice-versa,you just hop on NY 7, then take VT 279, then get on US 7.
Which will likely create reduced air pollution, and may also help bolster commerence and tourism,at least that's what they are hoping.
The President of the Food Industry Alliance of NY wrote to the Editor of the TU with his concerns with the bottle bill.
He talks about how expensive it will be on families,namely a grand total of $3 in deposit for 30 bottles of water or whatever drink you get.
Emphasis on deposit aspect,yes, it's a tax, but only until you return the bottles you borrowed. It will cost a little bit more when you start out, but in the long run, if you return your cans and bottles you will not end up losing.
The people of misc.rural note that if you haul the trash from the city, you can haul it back,as your likely to purchase more stuff in the future,few people go to the store and buy lots of bottles of fruit drinks, and never go back to get more.
And in this case,they'll pay you take it back, or actually give you your desposit back.
Not to mention, this gives community groups (and individuals) all the more incentive to help clean up forests and roadsides, so they can collect more unreturned deposits.
Yes, we have residential segregations of wastes for bottles and the alike (a fancy term for recycling), but there is no money resting on this, and no fiscal way to discourage littering or other less prefered methods of disposal.
Well not quite,but soon,well, in 12 hours.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And days of auld lang syne?
... Et Cetera
I just can't believe the New Year is upon us already,2004,it sounds so futuristic,maybe this year will be the year when things change (actually I know some things will change in '04)
I really like New Year's Eve,who doesn't,even if I'm not going out. It's just such a hopeful time to ring out the new year, and bring in the new one.
Mary Mahoney picks up on one of the biggest problems with the current tech valley plans,it does little to revitalize run down places, but chops up new places.
Certainly this is a major weakness in the plans,especially creating Luther Forest, instead of redoing abadoned factories. That would save money. Big companies just see the liability risk, crime, and a thousand other bull reasons not to go for existing development. You have to hope that new tech growth happens where it can use existing resources,it only makes sense to do that,and more jobs would be nice, if it means we don't tax our resources to death.
You have to wonder what is wrong with NIMBYism, if we don't really want something anyways? Do you support the minority or the majority; how do you measure public support elections, yet we don't vote for the economic elite?
Probably out along through Reidsville (nice fairly flat road and it's close).
But first a few interesting points.
The site will become XHTML 1.1 Strict complient again,webstandards aren't everything, but I figured out a way to keep my great look, make things load faster, and in theory more accessable (although it will continue to look ugly for ancient pre-5.0 browsers that do not understand the concept of degrading gracefully).
Out-blog is up and running,but I'm not ready to take the wraps off it yet,just wait until next year.
Things are going good for the new year around this site,expect it to appear similiar, but more efficent bandwidth wise, better organized, easier to read,but admitly this means some content will be moved (for the better, I believe).
The site will be divided up to 4 sections: Autonomy (Permenanent Content/Snapshot/Outblog), Fodder, PoliticsNY, TodaysBlog.
Sounds Good, eh?
He couldn't have said it better with today's cartoon.
I mean, is that not what the whole Mad Cow this is essentially about,rather freaked out people, not buying beef, and screwing over farmers?
At least that's what I've been arguing.
It looks as though luck prevented a major chemical spill of formhalyade,I just remember the story of the Greenville Ag dept, a bottle of formhalyade and lots of 6-mil poly and hazmat suits,of course this truck had a lot more then just that.
It' s obvious SUNY doesn't know how to count, not unlike other state agencies.
Lots of new laws go in effect at mid-night...
And all this security is wasting a lot of gas and creating big delays for Buffalo-ians and truckers.
is here! We made it to yet another year. Now to see if the posting script works right for '04.
Happy New Year! Good night kids. Enjoy watching all those silly turkeys in Times Square, with their silly tonnes of confedi and all that other silly NYC stuff.
Not the assembly line today, but the one so famoulously featured in Charlie Chaplin films, abusing human dignity to gain more and more out of human beings, without actually paying them more.
Even in the technology-driven boom of 1995 to 2000, the average annual growth of employee compensation was a dismal 0.7 percent, while worker productivity grew more than three times faster at 2.48 percent. The latest data show no narrowing of the gap.
The op-ed notes how technology is impacting the growth of work, saying:
In visiting factories and offices over the last 10 years, I've found that information technology is being used to renew the old industrial culture of mass production. Computers and computer software, with their prodigious powers of measurement, monitoring and control, are turning the service economy into new, white-collar assembly lines.
Technology is a form of dominance and control, as noted all so well by the critical theorists of yesteryear. Yet, many in the modern era have forgotten they reading by Marcuse and friends, instead thinking that computers will save society, bring us into an automated society, where few ever have to work to make a living.
Yet, it seems much of the technology of recent hasn't brough much improvements in material comfort, except for a shallow feel, I can't tell much of a difference between my 7 year old PowerMac I'm using now, and the computers at UAlbany. I actually perfer this old machine, as it's not controlled like the school machines.
Like any point in time, the government needs to step up, and standards need to exist for the use of new technology, so it does not overly exploit us: the hands off approach to high tech doesn't work. This does not mean we should be luddities and reject new technology (science would be a better word): instead we should embrace it, and be critical in it's application.
the Albany Police Department thinks it is 2004 or if it's 1954. The shooting of seven shots off on Lark and State Street at rush hour, on the eve of First Night is not only dangerous: it is wrong.
How can such force ever be jusitifed, shooting off 7 shots on a crowded street: killing one bystander and injuring another one? Some how this screams of the excesssive force of yesteryear, the kind that the Albany Police where well known for during the early Corning years.
What changed though, besides the national climate towards police and their violence? Certainly such rules need not apply to white bystanders.What would have happened if these two people where black, and it happened in a busy black neighboorhood? I can think of two possibilities:
If you ask me the solution is under our nose: the death penality for the officer who was responsible for such careless, errant shooting. We already have death penality statues out for cop killers. This seems like a perfect case. Maybe that's not what the legislature was thinking, but it should apply). After all, should not government civil servants, who recieve public monies, be held to a higher standard?
with the current design of Tech Valley as Louise McNeilly notes in a letter to the editor of the TU. (S)he sites the fact that Luther Forest ain't smart growth by any measure of the word: it is unsmart, both economically and environmentally. >Developing on a new parcal of land doesn't make much sense, when we have existing factories that are abandoned, as I've noted many times in the past. Likewise shes sites that it is an industry with a history of health hazards for workers and residents, and shuttering its plants.
Not to mention it will, deminish the rural nature of the area and the sunique small-town character of Stillwater and Malta
.
we are on a SUV slippery slope with new regs that attempt to separate the wheat from the chaff of trucks and SUVs. The devil seems to be in the details, or at least the lack so far of details: what is going to be qualified as good and deserving of lesser standards and what is bad. Certainly such standards make a big difference, but it's kind of hard for anybody to set them but regulators with expert knowledge on what they are regulating.
I'm sure not only are consumer and environmental advocates concerned about such regs, but also detriot: uncertainy is terrible for business. In the end, expect intensive lobbying and politiking over these standards, along with a fight from a mirage of groups (from trucker's associations, environmental groups, farm bureaus, to alliance of automotive manufactures). Regulation creation isn't always easy.
insightful comments on burn barrel prohibition in California, that are worth consideration. I'll just shake my head up and down, and say yup to:
In areas that are not exempt, rural landowners note that the burning ban results in increased costs of hauling garbage to a transfer station. They also say that the auto emissions from hauling the garbage-hundreds of miles in some cases-may contribute more pollution than burning trash.
"Burning cardboard and paper during the winter months reduces the stuff that has to be hauled down the highway to the landfill," said Ned Coe, California Farm Bureau Federation field representative in Northern California. "We're reducing the volume of material. In Modoc County, they're hauling the trash at least 250 miles and there are a number of lower-population counties, primarily the mountainous counties, that have no landfills anymore. What kinds of pollutants does that truck generate in one trip, in this case to Nevada, every few days?"
In addition, "Increased dumping on private lands is always an issue as you make it more and more difficult for people to dispose of their garbage," Coe said. "Requiring people to take it to a transfer site where they have to pay to dump it increases the likelihood that some will drive down the county road and throw it in somebody's field."
He said that the outdoor burning of residential waste should be a decision that is made at the local level.
Of course, this rational has been argued by farmers for years, as one who reads misc.rural might note. The rational of the ARB is nothing surpising, but it seems less of an issue then the prior, even if their understanding of the creation of dioxin is a little bit off color:
The ARB based its decision on the need to reduce uncontrolled sources of dioxin, an air pollutant the agency considers the most carcinogenic in the state. According to the ARB, dioxin resides in garbage in the form of plastics, laminates, metals, dyes, and bleached and colored papers. When burned, these chemical create and throw emissions into the air that can linger up to 15 years in the environment.
There are a few problems with that quote. For one, dioxin is formed from the combination of chlorine and hydrocarbons, which doesn't come from metals, dyes, except maybe from bleeched problems. The heavy metals problem is a seperate issue. Of course noting that says more about our consumption and disposal of thousands of pounds each of garbage each year, and some of the rather nasty chemicals that make it up. Yet, few dare to make this critique except in passing, like the Senate Republicans in NY.
The farm bureau sums it up nicely:
"The burn-barrel ban makes sense in metropolitan areas," Moreo added. "You can't have millions of people burn paper in their backyard in burn barrels because it smokes up the air and causes lots of problems, but the farther away you get from metropolitan areas, the more and more it makes sense. We're so far up that it makes quite a bit of sense. We don't have trash disposal. Trying to tell people 'don't burn it, drive it to the dump or the collection place' in the winter time when there are icy roads, there are hazards and pollution involved in that too. It didn't make sense in our area."
Alas, the ol' urban rural conflict of sorts. At the sametime, we areignoring our real serious problems with the way we consume, and how we dispose and dispose each year.
If you realize that a 9 year old building is going to be demoed and sent to a landfill, as is the case in Appliance Giant Store on Route 7.
They're demoing a 9-year old warehouse building, to build a parking lot! 9-freaking years, there are a lot of cars out on the road that are older then that, and after which most go to auto-recyclers, not to mention many building are around that date back to the 1920s.
I'm not arguing it's a fancy, or particularly nice building, but to landfill a demoed 9-year old building, seems so wasteful. We as a society view it terrible if a mother kills a 9-year old kid, claiming that it's last decade's model, and she wants to have more kids, she is a pyschopath. But no such thing exists in the commerical world: it's replace, and landfill, landfill, etc.
It's as if sane society is pyschopathic in it's attitudes to the world, as Laing so famously pronounced in 1968. At least we know for a fact that there is a lot of monkey business going around in this deal: but it's still very wasteful to tear down a 9 year old building (built in 1995), I'm sorry.
