Monday, June 13, 2011

This is what occurs when Republicans 'get government off the backs off private sector business.' I don't want the nightmare back.

It took over 25 years from the date of my sisters brain tumor diagnosis AND a compete President Obama with an equally competent Executive Administration to FINALLY warn and limit the dangers of formaldehyde.

...Government scientists listed formaldehyde as a carcinogen, and said it is found in worrisome quantities in plywood, particle board, mortuaries and hair salons....

...An industry spokesman (click title to entry - thank you) said the action will hurt small businesses.
“It will unfairly scare workers, plant neighbors and could have a chilling effect on the development of new products,” said Tom Dobbins of the American Composites Manufacturers Association. “And our companies are primarily small businesses, and this could hurt jobs and local economies.”

Cal Dooley, president and chief executive of the American Chemistry Council, a trade association that represents companies that make and use polystyrene and formaldehyde, rejected the report’s conclusions. “We are extremely concerned that politics may have hijacked the scientific process,” he said.

Some in the industry have promised to continue fighting the report, and will appeal elements of its findings. But some manufacturers already have begun using alternatives to formaldehyde in their products....

I didn't watch the Republicans debate, that is an oxymoron, I didn't have to.  There hasn't been anythnig new in the way of policy from the Republicans for the past seven decades.  The last real innovator that was a Republican was Lincoln.  Interestingly, his war was within the boundaries of the USA.  He tried to save the country from itself.  Interesting guy.

But, about my sister.  To begin, there needs to be some very good lawyers out there to start a class action suit regarding these chemicals and they can consult with The Cleveleand Clinic for clients because Dr. Janet Bay stated, "...there is a brain tumor epidemic...".  She stated that to my family as we listened to the description of my sister's brain tumor.  My sister was one of nine women in her graduating class (that we know of) with very specific activities that resulted in brain tumors.  A biochemist and very dear friend stated, the brain tumors were primarily caused by formaldehyde in the buildnig products of a new junior high school building of which she was the first eventual graduating class to attend there.

She is still alive, still cognizant of her life, is able to attend to her daily habits and needs and still likes to be the fashon bug and an avid shopper.  What she no longer is, is married due to her guilt over not having children due to 30 days of radiation, a brain pressure balance that requires 'at times' finiky 'shunts' and she is not an accountant at AT&T International in Morristown, New Jersey.  She still has her stock, though.  I supervise her 'special' finances as she is unable to control her spending and realize that people take advantage of her beautifully naive personality.  She always believes the best in everything and that the sun will come out everyday if you wait long enough through the storm.

Dr. Janet Bay is a magnificent surgeon and her then spouse would not settle for anything but the best.  It is he we can thank for her remarkable survival and reasonably intact life.  We are all still very good friends; family even.  But, the Cleveland Clinic saved her life when no one else could and this family will always be very grateful to professionals that 'saw the women' in the patient and longed to leave her there.

Formaldehyde and many other chemicals used by the private sector in products with abandon is an ORGANIC MOLECULE.  It is comprised of hydrogen, carbon and oxygen.  Human beings are ORGANIC chemical entities and thrive on those elements in the periodic table.  The shape of formaldehyde ADDS to its HIGHLY REACTIVE 'PROPERTIES.'  The symmetry of a 'planar' molecule with highly reactive hydrogens in the arrangment here is the same as water.  If the double bonds of the oxygen molecule were removed , the carbon and hydrogen would have the same molecular arrangement as H-O-H.  So it is very reactive in ORGANIC environments, including the internal chemistry of the human body.  The double bonded oxygen adds to its reactivity and I am not going to expand on that FACT on this blog.  Look it up.

Formaldehyde is the simplest member of a class of organic compounds called aldehydes. These compounds have the structural component of the carbon double bond oxygen and at least one hydrogen atom and are always in the trigonal planar format geometry.
Formaldehyde or methanal is a water soluble gas. A 37% solution is water, known as formalin, is a biological preservative and in used in embalming fluids.

Now, I ask you, does anyone interested in living actually want a chemical used in embalming fluid in the air they breath?  Hello?

Republicans don't see the dangers in mixing TOXINS with employment in any venue, be it workers safety or consumer exposure.  Why would I care what they have to say?  Over twenty-five years and I never petitioned the govenrment so much as simply modified the behavior of my family to avoid this disaster again.  Over twenty-five years and it took a President Obama to FINALLY value the life of Americans over Private Sector profits.  What good is a job if you die working it?

This is not a 'one time' phenomena.  Across this country there are Republican Governors and majority legislatures rolling back all kinds of laws that expose the consumer and workers to OLD dangers all over again.

Sippy Cups vs. Jobs - A False Choice  (click here)

While many Mainers were enjoying a romantic and chocolate-laden Valentine's Day, hundreds of their neighbors spent the day at the State House, where the Regulatory Fairness & Reform Committee met from 9 am until nearly 7 pm taking testimony on LD 1 and the Governor's Phase 1 regulatory reform plan, including a 48-page amendment that was handed to the Committee during the public hearing. The testimony was overwhelmingly in oppositiom to the Governor's plan, echoing what we heard at 7 regional hearings over the past 3 weeks - watch the videos here.
On Monday, the Committee heard from the Governor's legal counsel, Dan Billings, who made it clear that while several of the most controversial rollbacks in in Phase 1 were left out of the amendment (for example, the Kids-Safe Products Act, banning Bis-A from sippy cups, clean air protections, eliminating LURC and zoning 3 million acres for development), Governor LePage has NOT backed away from these rollbacks and will be supporting legislation to implement them as we go forward....

Put Republicans back into office? 

NO! 

My life and the life of American children depends on it !

How much is the temperature humans are exposed to is related to climate?

Today there are some really interesting examples.  Water is vital to the temperature humans and their biotic connet are exposed to.  That is universal around the world.  But, today there are some very interesting dramatic examples right here in the USA.

The 'climate of drought' is an important aspect to understand because it occurs over long periods of time.  At least ten years for drought to be realized as  profoundly measurable.  Annual records can indicate a burgeoning drought, but, for the most part human beings don't pay attention to drought until it is too late.  When they are 'uncomfortable.'  When it comes to climate, human beings are 'here and now' entities.  They don't 'invest' in the climate the way they might the stock markets.  As long as the climate is providing for their needs 'here and now,' damn tomorrow.  "We'll figure something out."

The really interesting aspect of a drought is not only that there is a lot of water missing from the biotic content of the land, but, the damage it does including turning areas into 'heat sinks.'  Right now the drought over Texas is profound.  The word on the U.S. Drought Monitor is 'exceptional.'  The area is mostly unretrievable at this point.  The land is so dry and parched that the temperature being experienced today in Texas and the southeastern USA is a direct result of the land absorbing the heat rather than deflecting it or 'dealing' with it.  How does land 'deal' with heat?  What suffers the most in a drought?  Plants.  Not just plants but sustainable plants like trees and crop lands that are tended.  Grasslands are really interesting in their ability to sustain heat while 'causing' a cooler climate.  The praries of the USA.  Ever stop to wonder how that grassland significantly effects climate?  Besides holding the soil that suffers so much in a drought, the grasslands, when they are thick and flourishing, provide valuable shadow to the ground and preserve its moisture.  These are areas of 'micromanagement of water.'  Shadow and root moisture sustained for photosynthesis 'when the sun shinres' and 'evaportranspiration (water evaporating into the climate and creating that 'coolness' to the degree it does.  Ask prairie birds and prairier dogs about that when one gets a chance.)  When drought becomes as profound as it is in Texas, there is not just heat and discomfort now a part of the climate, but, soil erosion and loss of biotic content as well.  So the recovery that is needed to restore that land and its ability to stay cool and provide a cool climate has to be returned all over again. 

The other extreme whereby there is plenty of coolness, but, suffer in different ways.


This is "Flathead River" in Montana.  On the temperature map above it is easily discerned to the 'coolness' this flooded body of water is creating.  The river has its headwaters in Canada, but, the majority of its basin runs between the very northeast tip of Washington State, through northern Idaho and into Montana.

June 9, 2011
Columbus Falls, Montana
Photographer states: 
Near Columbia Falls, MT, the Flathead River flows out of Glacier National Park, on its way to Flathead Lake, the largest natural freshwater lake W. of the Mississippi.

The headwaters after leaving Canada actually divert and the other branch of this great river is named the Columbia River.  To the right is a map of the rivers for easy reference.  I really want this illustration of climate in relation to water and moisture to be clear and today is a wonderful example of exactly that.  This region comprising the climate of the northwest USA is impacted by opposing 'temperature dynamics.'  Heat, large glacier runoff this time of year besides the rainfall.  The color of the water today in Flathead indicates a lot of soil erosion, sediment churned up and over all 'rearrangement' of biotic content.  Different than drought, this area is far more sustainable than Texas is and far more recoverable with less cost.

This area today is the coolest place in the USA besides the northeast USA for primarily two reason.  Not so much latitude although that plays into some of it, but in a minor way.  Not altitude because we are seeing the coolness along the course of this river.  But, in the air mass effecting this region which is arctic and different from the air mass effecting Texas and the southeastern USA which is tropical and subtropical but void of the moisture one would NORMALLY affiliate with tropical and subtropical air masses.  But, also WATER.  The entire area impacted by the Flathead River is cool because of that river.  The northeast is cool because of the 'lake effect' on temperature of the Great Lakes.  Every stream, every river, every lake and its sustainability in relation to its 'surface area' directly provides for a cooler climate and sustainable biotic content which protects from soil erosion and costly loss of protections to human life.

As these areas of water, including the Great Lakes, evaporate under a hotter and hotter climate which 'builds over time,' just as the profound drought over Texas and the southeastern USA, the land everywhere will become drought stricken.  The drought as seen moving from Texas eastward following nearly a decade of air masses dominated by high tropospheric vortexes with winds that have dried the land and resulted in higher temperatures have the potential to do the same to higher latitudes.  The temperatures dynamics will change annually to increase to record setting standards realized while the rainfall never makes it to the ground.  The seasons will rearrange, as noted by bird activity in Britain for a decade or longer, but won't rearrange on the calender.  The truth is bird watchers organized by Audobon and other agencies both in the USA and internationally are seeing sweeping changes in activity and sustainability.  As they go as insectivores and otherwise, will we see an Earth where humans cannot sustain?

Earth is a water planet.  Unique.  Everyone seems to ignore that.