The Age of Autism: Mercury in the air

[phantom power]

WASHINGTON, May 5 (UPI) -- A new study has found a possible link between higher mercury emissions and higher rates of autism.

The study, accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed journal Health and Place, looked for an association in Texas between rates of autism, special education services and levels of mercury released into the environment.

"There was a significant increase," according to the study. "On average, for each 1,000 pounds of environmentally released mercury, there was a 43 percent increase in the rate of special education services and a 61 percent increase in the rate of autism."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Science&article=UPI-1-20050505-00032200-bc-us-ageofautism6-repeat.xml

[EVDebs]

1. All those Chinese coal-fired plants...perhaps ? n/t

[Warpy]

2. Industrial revolution American cities had higher rates

of mercury pollution because coal was also the fuel of choice for heating one's home, either in the fireplace or later with central heating and electrically powered automatic stokers. I can remember a layer of grey coal smoke in the morning over the city. However, autism didn't begin to become near epidemic levels until the 90s.

I really think the researchers are going to have to look elsewhere for this one, quite possibly at some pervasive chemical used in either industrial processes or agriculture nationwide, most likely the latter, something that got on the "safe" list because they only studied its effects on prison populations and not on pregnant women.

[amazona]

10. doubt we know autism rates in Industrial Revolution times

I think what we forget sometimes is that people in the past (huge sweeping generalization coming) were really immature. Sure, there were a few wise souls here and there, but we just plain have higher standards for the way we expect people to behave today. I don't believe that an Asperger's person would particularly stand out in the crowd in 1750 or even 1850. It's often said that there was no childhood prior to the 1800s or thereabouts, but reading how a lot of people acted, it might be more accurate to say that there was really no adulthood. I don't think I would have been labelled a high-functioning autistic 100 years ago -- just a rotten kid.


And the low functioning autistics, let's face it, in a lot of situations, the parents would be overwhelmed and the kid would probably just die pretty early from lack of adequate care. There's a lot of childhood mortality pre-1900.

This is just a hunch that does not even rise to the level of a guess, but that's the thought that springs to my mind when considering the filthy air of the Industrial Revolution.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

[bloom]

3. Today's Jane Pauley show is about autism

She doesn't mention mercury or causes...

http://www.thejanepauleyshow.com/aboutshow/today.html

Temple Grandin was on and the show is more about what it's like to have autism, screening babies for autism, etc.

[sam sarrha]

4. here is an article on Uranium released by coal palnts ...Link:

http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colamin.html

i checked on a U of Maryland report that said 517 tons of Mercury was relesed from 1949 to 2000 and from 2000 to 2050 it is expected to relese 692 tons of mercury. but i dont know if that was befor or after the new cuts for public safety for increased profits to the rich.

[struggle4progress]

5. Know Where It's Coming From

<snip> Chlorine plants, which use massive quantities of mercury to extract chlorine from salt, "lose" dozens of tons of mercury each year; power plants emit around 50 tons of mercury pollution annually. Facilities that recycle auto scrap are another big source of mercury pollution, pouring 10 to 12 tons of mercury into the air every year. The most common way Americans are exposed to mercury is through tuna fish. <snip>

http://www.nrdc.org/health/effects/mercury/sources.asp

[NNadir]

6. Don't worry, mercury from power plants is exempt from consideration..

Coal products, mercury, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, carbon particulates, aromatic organics, cadmium, sulfuric acid, nitric acid, ozone depleting nitrogen oxides, even, surprisingly uranium, radon, thorium, protactinium, polonium spewed into the air by coal plants are all exempt from consideration as "wastes" if they come out of coal plants.

After all, when someone builds a coal plant, or when someone pretends that "clean coal" exists, no one ever says "No one knows what to do with the wastes."

One hears tripe all the time about carbon dioxide sequestration facilities, although appreciable plans to build or operate such facilities (with the exception of a Norwegian oil field that sequesters completely trivial amounts of the stuff) everyone is satisfied that they will work just fine - in spite of the fact that such a claim is complete nonsense and is not planned on a major industrial scale anywhere.

When people die in coal mine explosions, you don't find people mentioning the incident even two months after the fact, never mind 2 decades after the fact.

http://www.chernobyl.info/index.php?userhash=9392069&navID=4&lID=2

When people are killed in coal mine collapses, it doesn't inspire huge commentaries from Greenpeace and there are no activists taking a break from hanging out at Starbucks to go screaming and demonstrating and carrying pictures of the victims.

On July 8, 2002 on page A-3, The Los Angeles Times reported in an article containing just 507 words (a few characters per body), “More than 3,700 have died since the Ukraine gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.” Where are the memorials, the websites, the anguished tributes from rich white westerners dedicated to these dead? How many people start threads on websites on the anniversaries of the accidents that killed these people?

When mercury from coal plants poisons every river and lake in the continent, when measurable quantities of mercury are found in breast milk, babies and baby teeth, hundreds of thousands of scientifically illiterate web sites don't spring up to decry the outrage.

No matter how many bodies collect from black lung disease, no matter how many cancers are caused by air pollution, nobody gives a rat's ass.

Why?

I'd love to say that this state of affairs is attributable to blank stupidity - and certainly stupidity is involved - but the real reason that no gives a shit about coal waste is because coal waste isn't sexy.

It's black.

So called "nuclear waste," is sexy. It's a great way to meet girls, demonstrating against so called "nuclear waste." You can't meet girls demonstrating against "coal waste." It's just soot for chris'sakes. Girls don't care about soot. So called "nuclear waste," on the other hand, has yet to actually kill anyone but man is it sexy! It glows and it sparkles.

This is a planet full of assholes.

Ninety percent of the people who want to know why things like this are allowed to happen should just look in the fucking mirror.

[struggle4progress]

7. Activists protest bank's plant funding

May 5 9:51 AM

Greenpeace activists wearing T-shirts with a red line through a smokestack protested Thursday inside a conference hall hosting the annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank, objecting to the group's funding of coal-fired power plants.

"Climate change must be stopped. No more coal," said Red Constantino of Greenpeace.

A report from the group said that the Asian Development Bank provided just 2 percent of its energy loans for renewable energy. <snip>

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D89T29NG1.htm?campaign_id=apn_home_down


Exeter conference discusses carbon sequestration
03-02-2005

As the Exeter climate change conference prepares to discuss the potential of capturing and dumping carbon (sequestration), Greenpeace expressed concern at reports that the government might throw money behind a plan to dump carbon dioxide under the oceans. Sir David King also suggested sequestration could be funded by the increased amount of oil that could be extracted from wells that have had captured liquid CO2 forced into them.

Greenpeace Chief Scientist Dr Doug Parr said: "It is absurd to suggest we can defeat climate change by a method designed to extract more oil from the ground. In reality there is no holy grail waiting in the wings to solve the problem of climate change. The promise of some future technology should not be allowed to divert vital resources from urgent action to tackle the problem now. Proven, environmentally sound solutions already exist in the form of clean, renewable energy and improved energy efficiency, and these are the areas that should benefit from government tax breaks together with taxes on fossil fuel use."

Some scientists believe that carbon could be captured from power plants and other facilities and stored rather than being emitted into the atmosphere. Greenpeace believes efforts should be concentrated on climate change solutions that are known to work. It is far from clear whether large-scale sequestration would be safe, or even possible. <snip>

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/climate/climate.cfm?CFID=2147757&CFTOKEN=40873161&UCIDParam=20050203151307

[NNadir]

8. Nice to see they've devoted some tiny amount of resources here.

I guess they're in general against electricity. This is enlightening or endarkening, and the case may be.

I mean, they don't have any positive plans do they?

It's seems they don't have much other than no more this, no more that!

Lazy group aren't they?

[NNadir]

11. Maybe you can help me with the Greenpeace web site.

I decided to suppress my contempt for scientific illiterates and peruse this famous anti-environmental web-site to see if there was any record of this crowd of poorly educated scare mongers who really did give a shit about coal.

I was able to find this page of witless nonsense that pictures every nuclear plant in Europe with a big scary radioactive symbol.

Can you direct me to the part of the Greenpeace website that similarly pictures every coal plant, say with a big soot smudge or a submerged city or a starving child?

We have a picture of a weak minded fool on this website laying on the railroad tracks to prevent the shipment of nuclear related materials in the Netherlands, the country most likely to be completely submerged by coal burning in the next few decades? Can you direct me to a picture of a Greenpeace anti-environmental activist trying to block a shipment of coal? I just can't find one.

I went over to this wonderful, wonderful, wonderful page where Greenpeace announces that they hope that 5% of the world's electricity will be generated by solar thermal power by 2020.

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/press/releases/solar-industry-ready-to-take-o

I also found the page where these math whizzes say that they hope to produce 25% of the world's electricity by PV power by 2040, when I will probably be dead.

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/climate-change/solutions

Now according to this website: http://www.princeton.edu/~energy/publications/pdf/2001/Williams_01_Nuclear_and_Alternative_Energy.pdf

the combined total of worldwide nuclear and fossil capacity in the electrical generation field is about 80% of the world's energy.

Since you are familiar with Greenpeace and I am morally appalled by them, can you direct me (or tell me, since I may not be able to bear looking at it) to the place where Greenpeace announces who they are either going to kill or impoverish to account for the missing 45% of the energy once they "stop" nuclear and fossil fuel generation?

Enquiring minds want to know.

[bloom]

9. They can both be bad.

From the website you posted - another page:


What effects did the accident have on human health?
The full extent of the effects of the Chernobyl accident on human health cannot be grasped. The number of casualties remains controversial. According to figures issued by government agencies in the three former Soviet republics affected, about 25 000 of the 800 000 liquidators have so far died as a result of their exposure to radiation. According to the Liquidators' Committee, the total number of deaths is 100 000. These figures are however disputed. "They include all deaths from diseases that the body could no longer control because the immune system had been weakened as a result of radiation." (36.1)


There is a consensus that at least 1800 children and adolescents in the most severely contaminated areas of Belarus have contracted cancer of the thyroid because of the reactor disaster. It is feared that the number of thyroid cancer cases among people who were children and adolescents when the accident happened will reach 8000 in the coming decades. This figure is given in the report published by an expert delegation of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in January 2002 (2.3). World Health Organization (WHO) projections, however, put the figure at 50 000. The German specialist in radiation medicine and Chernobyl expert, Professor Edmund Lengfelder of the Otto Hug Strahleninstitut in Munich, which has been running a thyroid centre in Belarus since 1991, warns of up to 100 000 additional cases of thyroid cancer in all age groups (38.2).

Breast cancer and other tumours are increasing
An increased incidence of breast cancer as a direct consequence of the accident has also been recognised internationally (39.1). The number of cases has doubled in the area around Gomel in Belarus - one of the most severely contaminated territories. Belorussian and Ukrainian scientists also predict an increase in urogenital tumours and lung and stomach cancer, both among the liquidators and in the general male population of the severely contaminated areas(16.6). This prediction is supported by cancer specialists in other countries (40.1).

<snip>

"After the Chernobyl disaster, a massive increase in non-malignant diseases was also observed in the population," wrote the German specialist in radiation medicine Edmund Lengfelder 15 years after the accident (38.2). The Ukrainian government agency Chernobyl Interinform in Kiev reported in March 2002 that 84 per cent of the three million people in Ukraine who had been exposed to radiation were registered as sick. These include one million children (8.2). According to the latest data from the Belorussian governmental Chernobyl Committee in Minsk, the average rate of illness among the inhabitants of the contaminated territories is higher than in the uncontaminated areas. The people in the uncontaminated areas are not, however, subject to any special monitoring, and there have been calls for additional comparative studies (16.6).

:nuke: